Glenn D. Steele Jr, MD, PhD, Renowned Health Care Leader and Innovator, Named Chair of City of Hope Board of Directors

Glenn D. Steele Jr, MD, PhD

Preeminent health care innovator and leader Glenn D. Steele Jr, MD, PhD, has been elected the new board chair of City of Hope, the world-renowned cancer and diabetes research and treatment center, effective June 1. He joined the City of Hope Board of Directors in January 2016. Prior to becoming chair, he was chair of the Executive Compensation and Governance Committee from 2018-2020.

“City of Hope has benefited from Glenn’s vision, expertise and leadership on our board for a number of years,” said City of Hope President and CEO Robert Stone. “His background and accomplishments as an academic physician-scientist have played an important role in propelling our research and innovative patient care. He will carry on the exceptional work of our immediate past chair, Selwyn Isakow, founder and chief executive officer of The Oxford Investment Group, to lead City of Hope into the future.”

“City of Hope is an extraordinary organization at the center of eliminating cancer and diabetes,” said Steele, “and I am honored to be elected as board chair.” Steele serves as chairman of GSteele Health Solutions, an independently-operated venture launched to help health care organizations create value and improve quality. He is the former chairman of xG Health Solutions and former president and chief executive officer of Geisinger Health System, an integrated health services organization recognized for its innovative use of the electronic health record and the development and implementation of leading-edge care models.

Steele’s leadership background is extensive. He is past chairman of the American Board of Surgery, and serves on numerous for-profit and not-for-profit boards and national committees, including vice chair of Health Transformation Alliance — founded by over 50 of America’s most successful corporations with a common goal to improve health care outcomes for their 6.5-7 million sponsored lives, Bucknell University Board of Trustees as an emeritus trustee, Stanford Board of Fellows, Peterson Center on Healthcare Advisory Board, and serves as an adviser on the private equity firms of General Atlantic and LRVHealth.

A member of the National Academy of Medicine, his extensive experience also includes academic leadership positions. Prior to leading Geisinger, Steele served as the dean of the Biological Sciences Division and the Pritzker School of Medicine and vice president for medical affairs at University of Chicago, as well as the Richard T. Crane Professor in the Department of Surgery. Prior to that, he was the William V. McDermott Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. His investigations have focused on the cell biology of gastrointestinal cancer and pre-cancer and, most recently, on innovations in health care delivery and financing. A prolific writer, he is the author or co-author of more than 500 scientific and professional articles.

Steele is the recipient of numerous awards, including New York University’s School of Medicine’s Solomon A. Berson Medical Alumni Achievement Award in Health Science, Medicine and the Arts, the American Hospital Association's Justin Ford Kimball Innovators Award and National Center for Healthcare Leadership’s Gail L. Warden Healthcare Leadership Award. He has been named numerous times to Modern Healthcare’s “50 Most Powerful Physician Executives in Healthcare” and Becker’s Hospital Review “100 Non-Profit Hospital, Health System CEOs to Know” list.

Steele received his bachelor’s degree in history and literature from Harvard College and his medical degree from New York University School of Medicine. He completed his internship and residency in surgery at University of Colorado, where he was also a fellow of the American Cancer Society. He earned his doctorate in microbiology at Lund University in Sweden.