The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth Houston) is headquartered in the largest medical complex in the world, the Texas Medical Center. Each year, UTHealth Houston educates and trains more than 5,000 future physicians, nurses, biomedical researchers, dentists, public health professionals, and informaticians through its seven schools. Its students, faculty and staff deliver care through 1.8 million outpatient visits annually, and in partnership with the many affiliate hospitals across the region for complex, acute care. UTHealth Houston’s seven schools provide cutting-edge, innovative and integrated health education and attract top students from across the state and around the world.

UTHealth Houston is Texas’ resource for health care education, innovation, scientific discovery, and excellence in patient care. With 50 years of experience, UTHealth Houston is one of the nation’s most comprehensive health centers.

• McGovern Medical School

• Cizik School of Nursing

• UT M.D. Anderson UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

• School of Dentistry

• School of Public Health

• McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics

• School of Behavioral Health Sciences

UTHealth Houston faculty, fellows, residents and students deliver excellent clinical care through more than 1.8 million outpatient visits as part of UT Physicians, the faculty practice of McGovern Medical School, and thousands more to UT Dentists, UT Health Services (Cizik nursing), and other outpatient services. These serve as the primary patient care locations for the UTHealth Houston system.

Additionally, UTHealth Houston providers also serve patients in inpatient and outpatient settings with many partner hospitals and clinics including:

UTHealth Houston is also heavily invested in behavioral health care, including two large inpatient hospitals on one campus. Combined, these 538 beds make the largest academic behavioral health campus in the nation.

UTHealth Houston is also a major participant in the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium, including providing telemedicine visits for 19 ISDs for the Texas Child Health Access Through Telemedicine (TCHATT) and more than 500 enrolled primary and pediatric care providers through the Child Psychiatry Access Network (CPAN). Additionally, in 2025, Dunn will open a new urgent care and pediatric/adolescent day treatment center to provide intensive outpatient and partial hospitalization programs to improve access to care with a focus on adolescent depression and self-harm behaviors. This program should reduce emergency department visits, costly inpatient hospitalizations, and provide early intervention behavioral health care when it is most effective.

With 14 institutions that enroll more than 256,000 students overall, the UT System is the largest university system in Texas and one of the largest public university systems in the United States. UT institutions produced over 66,000 graduates last year and awarded more than one-third of the undergraduate degrees in Texas. They also educate more than one-half of the state’s health care professionals and award 63% of the state's medical degrees annually. The combined efforts of UT-owned and affiliated hospitals and clinics resulted in nearly 10.8 million outpatient visits and more than 2.1 million hospital days in the last year reported. UT’s $4.3 billion research enterprise is one of the nation’s most innovative, ranking No. 1 in Texas and No. 2 in the U.S. for both total and federal research expenditures. With an operating budget of $30.9 billion for fiscal year 2025, UT institutions collectively employ more than 160,000 faculty, health care professionals, support staff and students.

The President, UTHealth Houston articulates and executes the strategic direction of the organization, working closely with the UT System Leadership Team and Board of Regents to elevate the brand, promote and advance the journey of academic excellence, and energize UTHealth Houston’s workforce and leadership to achieve goals. The President drives innovation and growth, ensuring that UTHealth Houston remains financially strong, responsive to consumers, and adaptive to ever-evolving market conditions.

The President is responsible for providing executive leadership and is accountable for all operations, management, and financial performance for UTHealth Houston. They assist in the development of, and are responsible for, carrying out goals, objectives, plans and policies established by the UT System Board of Regents. They ensure that UTHealth Houston is community-focused and meets the needs of the people it serves.

The President supports the system’s environment of accountability for operational and financial performance while assuring excellence in clinical quality, patient safety, customer service, employee engagement, as well as both faculty and patient satisfaction. The President manages key partnerships and stakeholder relationships across the region, the state, and with the national government. The President will have the opportunity to shape UTHealth Houston with their own new vision and programs, leveraging the existing strengths of an already strong university system.

The successful candidate will be an accomplished academic leader, one with a strong record of clinical excellence, committed to education and training, and have a history of growing extramurally funded research. They must be a compelling leader whose passion for educational, clinical, and research missions energize faculty, students, and staff, focusing their efforts on a strategic vision of excellence in all missions. They seek consensus among diverse stakeholders and deliver confidence to a broad audience. The President must be a respected executive who is operationally savvy, highly knowledgeable of cutting-edge science, and capable of managing complexity. The new President will be an expert at building internal and external relationships and possess communication skills that inspire individuals and teams to work synergistically. In addition, they will be a person of the utmost integrity and possess outstanding people skills.

The President will lead development programs, setting philanthropic strategy and goals, serving as the public and private philanthropic face of UTHealth Houston, building relationships with prospective and established donors, identifying and developing relationships with individuals and organizations, and collaborating with clinical and scientific leaders to engage and inspire donors to help build the UTHealth Houston’s balance sheet and support future capital expenditures and growth initiatives; develop broad and deep relationships with the existing and potential donor communities.

In addition, the President must be a competent and prudent steward of UTHealth Houston, guiding it through an ever-changing healthcare and social environment. Importantly, the President must be viewed by all stakeholders as a strong advocate for balancing the academic, educational, and clinical missions of the system. They will promote a culture of institutional stewardship and transparency, including commitment to improved business operations, effective development and fundraising, and a willingness to re-align resources with evolving strategies.

• Commitment to advancing UTHealth Houston’s role as a world-class academic health science center.

• Oversee the creation and implementation of a strategic business plan, subject to Board approval, that will enable the organization to achieve its vision.

• Advance and balance all missions – clinical, education, research, and service to the community - and lead through innovation and execution.

• Cultivate a culture that enables employers and leaders, promotes healthy dialog, and provides participation in decision-making. Ensure high levels of employee and faculty engagement as well as trust in executive leadership.

• Ensure, build and/or maintain strong and stable leadership teams with a commitment to talent development and effective succession planning to advance the organization.

• Champion UTHealth Houston’s local, national and international reputation by articulating the strategic goals and messages of the university to build broad support both internally and externally.

• Serve as principal advocate and spokesperson for the institution.

• Provide leadership for faculty and staff in all academic matters, including research and curricular initiatives and faculty recruitment to strength UTHealth Houston’s position among the top tier schools in the country in each respective discipline.

• Demonstrates and promotes professionalism, high ethical standards.

• Ensure consistent translation of UTHealth Houston’s strategic priorities into operational tactics that support the organization’s continued status as one of the state’s and nation’s leading academic institutions.

• Ensure that UTHealth Houston achieves positive financial performance for the investments required of its strategy; develop and achieve budgetary, financial, quality, and operational goals.

• Provide leadership, support, and consistent messaging to senior leaders to support programmatic alignment, collaboration, and optimal use of system assets – reducing duplication of services, where appropriate, and enhancing efficiency.

• Provide necessary stewardship of resources to ensure successful execution of its primary missions and oversee the financial and administrative systems required to ensure prudent utilization of resources.

• Ensure programs provide a positive learning experience, offering high-quality and innovative educational opportunities to facilitate the transition from student to professional.

• Promote a positive and constructive relationship between the Board of Regents, the Chancellor, and the Executive Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs, and executive leadership, providing an appropriate level of communication and seeking guidance as needed to support the needs of the organization.

• Be an effective ambassador to the communities and the regions in which UTHealth Houston operates by engaging with consumers, business and political leaders, public health, and regulatory authorities. Communicate to external constituencies the innovation, strategy, and quality differences or “value-add” that the institution brings to health care.

• Actively lead a high performing philanthropy program and advance a culture of giving to the organization.

• Ensure that UTHealth Houston continues to be a leader in working in the community it serves, addressing a broad list of needs that bear on the community’s health and social welfare.

• Promote collaborative relationships across UT to further the goal of interdisciplinary health science education, research, and patient care.

The next President will be a nationally recognized scholar and leader in academic medicine, one who is passionate about the about the academic mission, vision, and values of the UTHealth Houston and has a deep understanding of academic health science centers and how they succeed in an evolving health care environment. The President will be prepared to manage cultural, strategic, and operational changes necessary to continue the institution’s success.

The President will have a track record of collaborative partnership across organizational boundaries, demonstrate the learning agility that is characteristic of great leaders, and exhibit the cultural intelligence to effectively engage all those that contribute to the institution’s success while focusing their efforts to benefit UTHealth Houston, the community, and society. They will be a people leader and developer of talent. The President selects, progresses, and motivates key academic, research, and health system leaders and fosters the development and career advancement opportunities of talented employees at all levels of the organization.

The new President will be recognized as a natural leader, possess outstanding communication, listening and interpersonal skills, and be able to quickly establish credibility and rapport with a broad set of executives and constituencies. The President will be an individual of unwavering integrity and sense of purpose.

• A track record of successfully achieving results through compelling leadership, strategic capability, vision, and effective culture building.

• Demonstrated success in an executive leadership position at a higher education institution of similar size, scope, and complexity to UTHealth Houston.

• An understanding and embracing of the central role of faculty, staff, and students within the university community and be personally engaged in the education process and student life experiences and activities.

• Experience working effectively with boards, senior management teams, community leaders, government officials, and consumer groups to achieve results.

• A track record of recruiting, retaining, and developing high-performing and engaged leadership teams.

• Skilled at motivating individuals, teams, and an entire organization to perform at a higher level that embraces change.

• Experience managing financial and budgeting operations of a higher education institution of similar size, scope, and complexity to UTHealth Houston

• Demonstrated ability to secure and deploy resources effectively and efficiently.

• A track record of engaging with donors and other constituents to advance philanthropic efforts.

• Strong business acumen with an ability to interpret financial indicators in making sound decisions.

• A person of high integrity, sound judgment, and strong work ethic.

• Ability to anticipate and innovate, creating new ways for an organization to be successful, looking ahead to future possibilities and translating them into breakthrough strategies.

• Possesses a strong executive presence and a leadership style that is humble, authentic, inspirational, and aspirational, politically astute with a high level of emotional intelligence.

• A highly effective communicator and listener at all levels of an organization as well as within the community.

• A strategic thinker with knowledge and experience in advancing the goals of public research universities.

• Ability to collaborate and build consensus within and across a University System, with the interpersonal and communication skills required to form productive partnerships with internal and external stakeholders.

• Fundraising capacity, enthusiasm, and skill for serving as a key spokesperson. Possesses a keen appreciation for and experience with all aspects of fundraising.

• Strong relationship-building and communication skills to work and engage multiple and diverse constituencies.

• Ability to support and advance all missions of academic medicine – education, research, and clinical care, working with colleagues and other organizations to achieve that end.

The President must possess an M.D., M.D./Ph.D., or Ph.D.; a well-respected academician with significant leadership accomplishments, as well as having progressive senior administrative experience with national/international recognition.

Interested and qualified candidates are welcome to submit a resume and cover letter to: UTHealthHoustonPresident@KornFerry.com

UTHealth Houston and the University of Texas System are equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, age, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other basis protected by federal, state, or local laws, unless such distinction is required by law.