Stephen Lockhart, Vice President of Vaccine Clinical R&D at Pfizer, is a pharmaceutical physician who has made leading contributions to development of new vaccines through his work in industry and with academia. The emergency use approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in December 2020, some 10 months after the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, has set a new standard for vaccine responses to global health emergencies. He has also led clinical development of many other vaccines of major public health importance such as the first ever approved meningococcal conjugate vaccine in response to a Department of Health call due to increasing outbreaks of disease in British children and teenagers.