NYU Langone Health CEO Robert Grossman and the medical center’s namesake Kenneth Langone, who chairs its board of trustees, will retire next year, Grossman announced Wednesday.
A national search for Grossman’s successor “will begin soon” ahead of his retirement in August 2025, NYU Langone spokesperson Steve Ritea told WSN. Ritea also said Fiona Druckenmiller, co-chair of the board of trustees for the past seven years, will assume Langone’s position as the sole chair of the board next summer. Langone will stay on the board as a member.
“These leadership transitions follow years of careful succession planning to ensure NYU Langone was fully prepared for this transition, remaining a world-class institution,” Ritea wrote.
In a message to the NYU Langone community, Grossman — who will also step down from his position as dean of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine — said his time at the medical center has been “immensely gratifying.” Since Grossman’s tenure began in 2007, NYU Langone’s revenue grew from $2 billion to over $12 billion, including more than $4.9 billion in philanthropy. The center has also seen a rise in donations in the last 17 years, with its research awards from the National Institutes of Health having risen from $129 million to $815 million.
“I take enormous pride in each and every one of your efforts that have enabled this achievement,” Grossman said in the message. “Without you, it never would have been possible. But all good things must come to an end.”
Under Grossman’s leadership, NYU Langone saw the employment of over 49,000 people across more than 300 sites in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Florida. In the fall, NYU Langone received the highest possible safety grade for the seventh time, based on assessments of the hospital’s harm-prevention measures and number of accidents, injuries and infections.
Langone, who made his fortune as co-founder of Home Depot, became the medical center’s namesake in 2008 after he and his wife, Elaine Langone, made a $200 million donation — the largest in its history. Last summer, the couple donated another $200 million to help the NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine guarantee tuition-free scholarships for all students.
Grossman and Langone’s stepping down comes amid a turbulent time for the medical center, which has faced several lawsuits related to unlawful termination, gender discrimination and disability discrimination among other allegations in recent years.
This past academic year, NYU Langone underwent a series of removals and terminations due to workplace tensions over the war in Gaza. In November, the medical center removed a physician from his residency program after he posted a story in support of Palestinian resistance on his private Instagram account. More recently, the medical center fired a nurse after she spoke about the suffering of women in Gaza in an acceptance speech for a labor award.
The former director of NYU Langone’s Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center was also terminated after making social media posts related to the war, which some have called “racist” and “anti-Arab.” Benjamin Neel, the former director, has since filed a lawsuit against the medical center, citing email conversations between himself and other NYU Langone administrators, including Grossman, claiming they shared similar sentiments on the conflict. According to the complaint, Grossman allegedly argued that NYU should revoke scholarships from students who protest against Israel and that universities “interpret free speech to benefit their own political interests.”
Contact Dharma Niles and Yezen Saadah at [email protected].
