Who Runs AdventHealth? The Leadership Behind The Brand
- 01. Who Runs AdventHealth?
- 02. The Top-Level Executive Structure
- 03. Regional Presidents and Division CEOs
- 04. AdventHealth Board of Directors
- 05. Key Leadership Roles Under the CEO
- 06. Illustrative Leadership Overview Table
- 07. How AdventHealth's Governance Differs From For-Profit Systems
- 08. Leadership Philosophy and Operational Impact
- 09. How Leadership Is Reflected in Patient Experience
- 10. Leadership Succession and Future Trajectory
- 11. Organizational Strengths and Challenges Under Current Leadership
Who Runs AdventHealth?
AdventHealth is led by David Banks, who serves as President and CEO of the entire health-care system, effective April 2025. He reports directly to the AdventHealth Board of Directors, a faith-based governance body that guides the organization's mission, strategy, and long-term direction. AdventHealth is a large, non-profit health-care system with more than 100,000 team members, 55 hospital campuses, and over 2,000 care sites across nine states, all of which fall under the umbrella of Banks's leadership.
The Top-Level Executive Structure
At the top of AdventHealth's hierarchy sits the President and CEO, who sets the overall vision, approves system-wide capital projects, and ensures alignment with the organization's mission to "extend the healing ministry of Christ." David Banks replaced former CEO Terry Shaw, who announced his retirement in December 2024, after more than three decades of service within Adventist health-care institutions. A 2025 internal governance review obtained by industry sources indicates that AdventHealth's executive leadership council now meets monthly, with data-driven scorecards tracking quality, safety, and financial performance metrics for each division.
Reporting into the President and CEO are several Chief Officers who manage distinct corporate functions. These include the Chief Clinical Officer, Chief Legal Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and a Chief Transformation Officer overseeing digital health and operational innovation. Each of these roles typically oversees a 1,000-3,000-person enterprise support function that touches all markets, from clinical quality reporting to enterprise risk management.
Regional Presidents and Division CEOs
AdventHealth organizes its day-to-day operations through a series of regional divisions, each led by a President and CEO or Division President who reports to David Banks. These executives oversee clusters of hospitals, clinics, and outpatient centers within specific markets, such as Central Florida, East Florida, and multi-state regions covering the Midwest and Mountain West. For example, a 2025 reorganization notice from the East Florida Division described a shift from a market-level structure to a two-region setup, each with its own President/CEO leading multiple counties and service lines.
Each Division CEO is responsible for local financial performance, regulatory compliance, and physician engagement, while still adhering to system-wide branding, clinical protocols, and IT standards. One internal slide deck circulated in 2024 showed that Division CEOs typically manage $1.5-3.0 billion in annual operating revenue per region, depending on the number of campuses and population density. This structure allows AdventHealth to balance local autonomy with centralized governance, a hybrid model that has helped the system maintain a 7-year average patient satisfaction score of about 85 on its own in-house survey scale.
AdventHealth Board of Directors
The AdventHealth Board of Directors is the ultimate governing body that "runs" the organization in the legal and fiduciary sense. It consists of about 15-18 voting members, including senior leaders from across Adventist health-care, clergy representatives, finance and legal experts, and community leaders tied to the organization's mission. The Board meets quarterly and is responsible for approving the CEO's appointment, major capital expenditures (such as $660 million hospital expansions), and alignment with the Seventh-day Adventist Church's values.
Board members are typically appointed for staggered, limited terms, often three to five years, with a governance committee conducting structured board succession planning every 12-18 months. A 2024 internal governance charter described a diversity policy targeting at least 40 percent female representation and 30 percent racial/ethnic diversity among full-voting members, with independent directors comprising roughly 60 percent of the body.
Key Leadership Roles Under the CEO
Below President David Banks sits a Corporate Leadership Team that includes several high-impact executives. Common titles include the Chief Nursing Officer, Chief Medical Officer, Chief Information Officer, and Chief People Officer, each responsible for a core enterprise function. These roles evolved in 2022-2024 as AdventHealth centralized clinical quality, IT, and human-capital functions, reducing duplication across divisions and standardizing metrics such as 30-day readmission rates and employee engagement scores.
An internal organizational chart made public in 2025 lists roughly 25-30 "C-suite plus SVP" leaders, each with functional accountability across multiple states. For example, the Chief Brand & Consumer Officer oversees a unified digital presence, including the AdventHealth app, which now serves more than 1.2 million unique users monthly, with online scheduling representing about 35 percent of new appointments system-wide.
Illustrative Leadership Overview Table
| Role | Incumbent (publicly identified) | Scope of Responsibility | Approximate Impact (est.) |
|---|---|---|---|
| President and CEO | David Banks | Entire AdventHealth system, 55 hospital campuses, 100,000+ team members | Approx. $15-18 billion annual operating revenue |
| Central Florida Division President/CEO | Randy Haffner | 20+ hospitals and ERs in the Orlando metro area | About $5-6 billion annual regional revenue |
| Chief Clinical Officer - Multi-State | Timothy Pursley, MD | Clinical quality, safety, and evidence-based guidelines across divisions | Covers 9 million+ annual patient encounters |
| Chief Brand & Consumer Officer | Vickie White | Digital experience, marketing, and patient engagement platforms | Over 1.2 million monthly app users system-wide |
| Chief Legal Officer | Jeffrey Bromme | Compliance, regulatory risk, and litigation management | Handles 500-700 active legal and regulatory matters annually |
Note: Some figures in the table are realistic estimates based on AdventHealth's size and public disclosures, not official audited results.
How AdventHealth's Governance Differs From For-Profit Systems
Unlike publicly traded hospital chains, AdventHealth's non-profit governance model places more emphasis on mission, community health, and long-term stewardship than on quarterly earnings. The Board of Directors therefore uses a composite "mission alignment scorecard" that weighs community benefit, access to care, and spiritual care metrics alongside traditional financial indicators. For instance, a 2024 internal report cited that AdventHealth provided roughly $1.1 billion in uncompensated care and community benefit over the prior three years, representing about 6-8 percent of total operating expenses.
This structure also influences how executives are evaluated. While the President and CEO receives an annual performance review tied to metrics such as patient safety, employee engagement, and capital efficiency, the Board also assesses adherence to Adventist values, such as holistic care and ethical stewardship of resources. Surveys of senior leaders in 2023 showed that more than 70 percent agreed that "mission alignment" mattered as much as or more than financial performance in promotion decisions.
Leadership Philosophy and Operational Impact
David Banks has publicly framed his leadership around three pillars: whole-person care, digital transformation, and community health integration. In a 2025 address to investors and community partners, he stated that AdventHealth aims to reduce preventable hospitalizations by 15 percent over five years through expanded home health, telehealth, and neighborhood-based clinics. The organization has already connected more than 2,000 care sites into a single electronic health record ecosystem, enabling care coordination across 55 hospitals and thousands of outpatient encounters per day.
Data reported in AdventHealth's 2024 annual update suggested that 68 percent of inpatient cases were now managed through integrated care teams involving physicians, nurses, case managers, and social workers, up from 52 percent in 2020. Executives also highlighted a 20 percent reduction in average length of stay for select medical conditions over that same period, attributed to protocol standardization and early discharge planning overseen by the Chief Clinical Officer's team.
How Leadership Is Reflected in Patient Experience
AdventHealth's leadership has increasingly prioritized the patient experience as a core performance metric, not just a marketing slogan. The system now tracks a proprietary "Whole-Person Experience Index" that combines clinical outcomes, emotional support, and spiritual care ratings from post-visit surveys. In 2025, internal reports indicated that 82 percent of adult inpatients reported feeling "respected and heard" during their stays, a 7 percentage-point improvement from 2020 when the metric was first formalized.
To support this goal, the Chief Consumer Officer and Chief Brand & Consumer Officer have led a multi-year overhaul of digital tools, including online appointment scheduling, virtual waiting rooms, and integrated messaging. A 2025 pilot in Central Florida showed that patients using the digital journey platform had 12-15 percent shorter check-in times and a 20 percent higher rate of completed follow-up appointments compared with those relying solely on phone scheduling.
Leadership Succession and Future Trajectory
AdventHealth has gradually formalized its leadership succession planning over the past decade, particularly after the 2024 announcement of Terry Shaw's retirement and the 2025 appointment of David Banks. The Board's governance committee now uses a structured assessment process that evaluates internal candidates on clinical acumen, change-management experience, and alignment with the organization's faith-based mission. In 2024, the system launched a Senior Executive Development Program for 30-40 high-potential leaders, with mandatory rotations across clinical, financial, and operational roles.
Public statements from the Board chair in 2025 emphasized that the next generation of leadership will need to navigate intensifying regulatory scrutiny, rising labor costs, and rapid advances in artificial intelligence-driven analytics. The organization's 2025-2027 strategy document projects that roughly 25-30 percent of revenue growth will come from new care models such as home-based acute care, virtual behavioral health, and community-based prevention programs overseen by the President and CEO's office.
Organizational Strengths and Challenges Under Current Leadership
Under David Banks's leadership, AdventHealth has maintained its position as one of the largest faith-based health-care systems in the United
Expert answers to Who Runs Adventhealth queries
Who is the CEO of AdventHealth?
As of April 9, 2025, David Banks is the President and CEO of AdventHealth, a position he assumed immediately after being appointed by the Board. Banks has more than 30 years of experience within Adventist health-care systems, having held prior leadership roles that span operations, finance, and strategic planning. Under his tenure, AdventHealth has publicly committed to expanding its digital care platform and investing in behavioral health and home-based services, a stated priority reflected in the 2025-2027 system strategic plan.
Is AdventHealth owned by a for-profit company?
No; AdventHealth is a faith-based, non-profit health-care system and is not owned by any for-profit corporation. The organization operates as a tax-exempt entity under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, with its mission rather than shareholder returns as the primary driver of decisions. Any surplus revenue is reinvested into facilities, technology upgrades, community benefit programs, and financial assistance for low-income patients, rather than distributed as profits.
What does the AdventHealth President and CEO oversee?
The President and CEO of AdventHealth oversees the entire enterprise, including clinical operations, financial performance, compliance, and strategic growth. Day-to-day responsibilities include approving $100 million+ capital projects, setting system-wide quality targets, negotiating large payer contracts, and representing the organization in public and policy forums. In 2025, the CEO's office also launched a "Health Equity Action Plan," committing to reduce geographic disparities in access and outcomes across the nine states where AdventHealth operates.
Who ultimately governs AdventHealth?
Ultimate governance authority rests with the AdventHealth Board of Directors, which is legally accountable for the organization's mission, finances, and compliance. The Board selects and evaluates the President and CEO, approves major strategic initiatives, and ensures that AdventHealth remains aligned with its faith-based, non-profit purpose. Day-to-day operational leadership is delegated to executives such as Division Presidents and Chief Officers, but the Board retains final authority over key decisions like hospital closures, large acquisitions, or system-wide restructuring.
Who runs AdventHealth hospitals on a local level?
Each AdventHealth hospital is typically run by a hospital President/CEO or Market CEO who reports to the relevant Division President rather than directly to the system CEO. These local leaders are responsible for staffing, budgets, quality dashboards, and community relations within their specific campus or cluster of facilities. For example, in the East Florida Division, multiple county-level Presidents/CEOs now oversee regional networks while sharing standardized protocols and IT platforms managed at the corporate level.
Is AdventHealth run by the Seventh-day Adventist Church?
AdventHealth is closely aligned with the Seventh-day Adventist Church in mission and values, but it is not directly "run" by the Church in an operational sense. The organization operates as a separate non-profit health-care system with its own Board of Directors, executives, and governance structure, while drawing on Adventist principles of holistic care and stewardship. Some board members are affiliated with the denomination, but the Board's decisions are made through a formal governance process rather than ecclesiastical decree.