Philip Norman Bredesen Jr. (/ˈbrɛdəsən/; born November 21, 1943) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 48th governor of Tennessee from 2003 to 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected in 2002 with 50.6% of the vote and re-elected in 2006 with 68.6%. He served as the 66th mayor of Nashville from 1991 to 1999. Bredesen is the founder of the HealthAmerica Corporation, which he sold in 1986. He is the last Democrat to win and/or hold statewide office in Tennessee.

Since 2011, he has been chair of Silicon Ranch Corporation, a firm that develops and operates solar power stations. On December 6, 2017, Bredesen announced he would run for Bob Corker's open seat in the United States Senate, as Corker chose not to seek reelection in 2018. On August 2, 2018, he won the Democratic primary and faced off against Republican nominee Marsha Blackburn. He lost in the general election on November 6, 2018. After losing the Senate race, he and his campaign team founded Clearloop, a renewable energy startup.

Bredesen has been widely characterized as a moderate Democrat who is fiscally conservative but socially liberal.

Bredesen was born in Oceanport, New Jersey, the son of Norma Lucille (Walborn) and Philip Norman Bredesen. His parents divorced and his mother was employed as a bank teller. During Bredesen's childhood, his grandmother, who sewed for a living, lived with the family. Bredesen grew up in Shortsville, New York, 30 miles from Rochester. He attended Red Jacket Central Elementary and Secondary School in the adjoining village of Manchester.

He received a scholarship to Harvard University, where he graduated with an undergraduate degree in physics. In 1967, Bredesen moved to Lexington, Massachusetts, where he did classified work for Itek and received a draft deferment during the Vietnam War.

In 1968, Bredesen worked for the campaign of Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy, who was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. Bredesen launched his first political campaign in 1969, when he ran for the Massachusetts State Senate. He was defeated by a popular incumbent Republican, Ronald MacKenzie.

Bredesen joined pharmaceutical firm G.D. Searle & Company in 1971, and moved to London in 1973 to manage one of the company's divisions. In 1974, he married Andrea Conte. In 1975, the family moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where Conte had been recruited by Hospital Corporation of America. In Nashville, Bredesen founded HealthAmerica Corp., an insurance company. He sold his controlling interest in HealthAmerica in 1986, and because of the wealth he earned from the company, did not accept his gubernatorial salary.

In 1987, Bredesen ran for mayor of Nashville. He finished second out of 10 candidates with 30% of the vote, behind only 5th District Congressman Bill Boner, who won 46%. Since Boner fell short of the necessary threshold for an outright victory, he and Bredesen faced each other in a runoff. Boner won the runoff, 75,790 votes to 66,153, largely by emphasizing that he was a Nashville native while Bredesen was a Northerner.