Pieter Kappetein, MD, PhD, is a Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon, Professor and Chair of the residency program at the Thoraxcenter at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He is board certified in Cardiothoracic Surgery. He is Secretary General of the European Association for Cardio-thoracic Surgery, Secretary of CTSnet and chairman of the International Cooperation committee of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons in the United States. A decade of expertise in clinical trials and post-market studies with a focus on device products such as drug-eluting stents, heart valves and pharmaceutical products in cardiology and cardiac surgery. Experience in interactions with regulators including FDA for CE-mark and PMA submissions. He is Associate Director of the TCT conference, the largest Interventional cardiology meeting in the Unites States and program committee member of EuroPCR. Besides this he is member of the Editorial Board of the Annals of Thoracic Surgery and Deputy Editor of Eurointervention. His clinical interests include aortic valve surgery, indications, outcome; percutaneous valve replacement and repair; coronary surgery; outcome compared to DES; lung surgery and new techniques in the field; education; and epidemiology. He is co-principal investigator of the SYNTAX and EXCEL trial (comparing coronary surgery with drug eluting stents) and member and co-PI of the steering committee of the Partner EU trial and SURTAVI trial on percutaneous valves and the RESHAPE trial: the evaluation of the Mitraclip in patients with heart failure. He is also member of the steering committee of the Re-align trial on Dabigatran in patients with mechanical heart valves. His current research efforts are focused on the evaluation of new surgical techniques and the comparison of new techniques in cardiothoracic surgery with new techniques in interventional cardiology.