Bill Frist

William Harrison Frist (born February 22, 1952) is an American physician, businessman, and policymaker who served as a United States senator for Tennessee from 1995 to 2007. A member of the Republican Party, he also served as Senate majority leader from 2003 to 2007. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Frist studied government and health care policy at Princeton University and earned a Doctor of Medicine degree from Harvard Medical School. He trained as a cardiothoracic transplant surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital and Stanford University School of Medicine, and later founded the Vanderbilt Transplant Center. In the 1994 United States Senate election in Tennessee, he defeated incumbent Democratic senator Jim Sasser.

After serving as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Frist succeeded Tom Daschle as the Senate Majority Leader. Frist helped pass several parts of President George W. Bush's domestic agenda, including the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 and the Medicare Modernization Act. Frist left the Senate in 2007, honoring his pledge to serve no more than two terms.

In his post-Senate career, he serves as chair of the global board of The Nature Conservancy. He is also a founding partner of Frist Cressey Ventures, a special partner and chairman of the Executives Council of the health service investment firm Cressey & Company, and co-chair of the Health Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center. From 2019 to 2022, he hosted the A Second Opinion Podcast on the intersection of policy, medicine, and innovation.