U.S. companies across industries are turning to retired CEOs to lead turnarounds, The Wall Street Journal reported July 28. Will health systems take a page out of their book?
To an extent, they already have — though the practice looks different in healthcare than it does in corporate America.
Most recently, Cracker Barrel appointed 69-year-old David Deno as its new CEO. Mr. Deno served as CEO of Outback Steakhouse’s parent, Bloomin’ Brands, from 2019 to 2024. The move followed similar appointments by Boeing and Verizon Communications in recent years, the Journal reported.
Boards turning to retired leaders for turnarounds are betting on the credibility and seasoning that comes with having already run a company, according to the Journal, though the track record for repeat CEOs is uneven: while nearly all experienced CEOs outperformed the market in their first role, only about 40% did so in subsequent positions, according to research published by Spencer Stuart in 2020.
Hospitals and health systems have their own turnaround pressure building. Nonprofit hospital margins are still recovering unevenly: Kaufman Hall projections describe a “new normal” of elevated costs, a shifting payer mix and persistent margin pressure, with safety-net hospital margins potentially shrinking by close to 30% as new federal Medicaid provisions phase in. Separately, an analysis from the Commonwealth Fund estimated that Medicaid work requirements alone could cut operating margins by an average of 13.3% in expansion states, with steeper declines at safety-net and rural hospitals.
Against that backdrop, boards may increasingly value the same thing corporate boards are seeking in retired CEOs: someone who has already steered an organization through hard numbers and does not need a learning curve to start doing it again.
Executives who return from retirement to lead an organization generally fall into two camps, Santa Clara (Calif.) University associate management professor Jo-Ellen Pozner told the Journal: those who have stayed engaged through board or advisory work, and those who found retirement left them without enough to do.
“I’m not really sure there’s such a thing as a retired CEO in the U.S.,” Matteo Tonello, who leads data benchmarking and analytics at the Conference Board, told the newspaper. “In this country, CEOs don’t really retire, they just become professional directors.”
Retiring as CEO but staying on in a board or advisory capacity is common practice at health systems. Leaving retirement altogether to take on another full-time CEO role is rarer — and when it occurs, it is most often to fill an interim leadership role.
One example is Aurelio Fernandez III, who retired as president and CEO of Hollywood, Fla.-based Memorial Health System in 2022. He returned to the organization in October 2024 as interim CEO of Memorial Regional Hospital, part of the same health system.
Melvin McNea retired as CEO of North Platte, Neb.-based Great Plains Health in 2021. He came out of retirement in December 2022 to serve as interim CEO of Scottsbluff, Neb.-based Regional West Health Services after the system’s previous CEO had his contract terminated. Mr. McNea led Regional West for about two years before Ned Resch was named permanent CEO, effective March 2025.
Krista Roberts retired in 2023 as CEO of St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Enid, Okla., after 33 years with the organization, including six as CEO. She returned in 2024 to serve as interim CEO after the hospital’s COO and interim CEO resigned.
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