George Pentheroudakis is a medical oncologist and Chief Medical Officer of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) in Lugano, Switzerland. He holds an MD from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1991), specialised in Internal Medicine in Thessaloniki (1993-1999) and trained in Medical Oncology at the Beatson Oncology Centre, Glasgow, United Kingdom (1999-2002).

Returning to Greece in 2003, he defended his PhD thesis and worked as Consultant Medical Oncologist at the Department of Medical Oncology, University of Ioannina. He obtained an academic position in the Medical School faculty in 2010 and, as Head of the Department of Oncology from 2016, established a Translational and Clinical Research Unit, a Palliative and Supportive Care Unit and a Liquid Biopsy Unit. He served as Chair of the Scientific Committee of the Hellenic Cooperative Oncology Group from 2012 to 2016.

His main research interests are gastrointestinal cancer, cancer of unknown primary, translational cancer research and drug development. At ESMO he has previously served as Guidelines Committee Chair (2016-2020), member of the Executive Board (2016-2018) and Faculty Coordinator for cancer of unknown primary and endocrine tumours. He ha