Dr Yogan Pillay works as the director for HIV and TB delivery at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He served as the country director of the Clinton Health Access Initiative in South Africa and senior director for universal health coverage (June 2020 to April 2023). He is the former Deputy Director-General of Health in the Department of Health, South Africa responsible for health programs (2008-2020). He obtained a Phd from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and has co-written two textbooks on global health, co-edited a book on mental health and one on the South African health system. 

He has authored and co-authored more than 100 peer reviewed journal articles. He serves an academic editor for Plos One and reviewer of several journals and has been a member of a number of regional and global health initiatives.  In 2018 he was awarded the Karel Styblo Medallion and presented with a certification of appreciation for leadership in the global fight against tuberculosis by KNCV. In 2020 the Rotary International Board named him a Paul Harris Fellow in recognition of his work on child health. He is an affiliate of the Center for Innovation in Global Health, Georgetown University. In 2021 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Cape Town and in the same year appointed extraordinary professor in the Division of Health Systems and Public Health, Department of Global Health, Stellenbosch University.