Nick Olson is executive vice president and CFO of Sanford Health, the largest rural health system in the United States, headquartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
He is responsible for the overall financial stewardship of the organization, overseeing operational finance, planning, revenue cycle, strategic reimbursement, treasury and corporate finance. Mr. Olson joined Sanford Health in 2017 and held a series of director and vice president roles across the finance organization before being named CFO in 2024. He helped guide the system through its merger with Marshfield Clinic Health System, completed in January 2025, which created a combined nonprofit system of 56 hospitals, 4,500 providers and nearly 56,000 employees serving communities across the upper Midwest.
He also co-chairs Sanford Health’s Value-Based Care Committee, an enterprise effort to align care delivery, coverage and financing in order to improve outcomes and lower the total cost of care. His financial approach centers on integrated care delivery, philanthropic support and financial diversification, with an emphasis on reinvesting in the rural communities the system serves.
Before joining Sanford Health, Mr. Olson held finance leadership positions in the banking and retail industries.
He earned bachelor’s degrees in business administration and accounting from Augustana University in Sioux Falls and an MBA from the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business. A frequent voice on rural health care finance, he has spoken at Becker’s Healthcare’s Annual Meeting and CEO + CFO Roundtable and on national panels addressing margin pressure, reimbursement and long-term financial sustainability.