K. Srinath Reddy has lived in a multiverse of medicine, public health, sustainable development and public policy. Trained as a cardiologist and epidemiologist, he has been a passionate public health advocate at national and global levels. He was head of cardiology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, before establishing the Public Health Foundation of India to create five Indian Institutes of Public Health. These are building broadband capacity in public health education, research, skill-building, policy development and programme implementation. After serving as the first Bernard Lown Visiting Professor of Global Cardiovascular Health at Harvard, he is presently an Adjunct Professor at Harvard, Emory, Pennsylvania and Sydney universities. Reddy was President of World Heart Federation and is co-chair of the Health Thematic Group of the UN Sustainable Solutions Network. Author of 570 scientific papers and the book Make Health in India, he is an International Member of the US National Academy of Medicine and has served on several technical committees of the World Health Organization. He chaired the High Level Expert Group on Universal Health Coverage for India's Planning Commission and advises several Indian states on health policy. Reddy received the WHO Director General's Award and Luther Terry Medal of the American Cancer Society for outstanding global leadership in tobacco control, besides the Queen Elizabeth Medal for Health Promotion and several honorary doctorates. The President of India conferred on him the prestigious civilian honour Padma Bhushan in 2005.