Cedars-Sinai Health System announces next CEO

After more than three decades, the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is getting a new leader.

Peter Slavin, MD, will serve as the next president and CEO of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Health System.

Peter L. Slavin will serve as the next president and CEO of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Health System. He will succeed Thomas Priselac, who has served as president and CEO for 30 years. Priselac announced his plans to retire in January.

Slavin will begin his new role on Oct. 1. He certainly understands leading a healthcare institution for a long period, as he served as president of Massachusetts General Hospital for 18 years, from 2003 to 2021.

“I am humbled to follow in Tom Priselac’s footsteps,” Slavin said in a news release. “He has been one of my heroes as I’ve watched Cedars-Sinai’s progress over the years from 2,700 miles away. It is an incredible honor to join Cedars-Sinai and to do my part to build on the organization’s growth and success.”

Priselac had said he would stay in his post until the Cedars-Sinai board found a replacement, and he offered a robust endorsement of his successor.

“Dr. Slavin is the ideal individual to lead Cedars-Sinai,” Priselac said in a statement. “He is guided by conscience, heart, vision and ingenuity, and he understands the challenges of complex organizations like Cedars-Sinai. We are in excellent hands with him.”

Lawrence B. Platt, chair of the Cedars-Sinai Health System board of directors, pointed to Slavin’s “deep experience in academic medicine.”

“Dr. Slavin is perfectly suited to lead Cedars-Sinai’s ongoing effort to serve the Los Angeles region,” Platt said in a news release. “We truly appreciate a leader of his caliber.”

Slavin has also served as the board chairman of the Association of American Medical Colleges and is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Since stepping down as president of Mass General in 2021, Slavin has focused on healthcare investing and consulting. And he follows a leader who has made an indelible mark on Cedars-Sinai.

In addition to leading Cedars-Sinai for three decades, Priselac has spent 45 years with the organization. Cedars-Sinai officials credited Priselac with transforming a strong regional hospital into a leading academic health system.

Under Priselac’s leadership, Cedars-Sinai acquired Marina del Rey Hospital in 2015. The facility is now known as Cedars-Sinai Marina del Rey Hospital. Cedars-Sinai has also formed affiliations with Huntington Health and Torrance Memorial Health in recent years.

David Kaplan, chairman of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center board of directors, paid tribute to both Priselac and Slavin.

“We express our profound gratitude to Tom Priselac for his remarkable leadership in building Cedars-Sinai into an internationally recognized name in healthcare, and we warmly welcome Dr. Slavin to the Cedars-Sinai family,” Kaplan said in a statement. “We wish Dr. Slavin every success in strengthening Cedars-Sinai’s mission to serve as a beacon of healing for our patients and community.”

Cedars-Sinai received a $100 million gift last month from Jim and Eleanor Randall and the Randall Family Foundation to expand and transform surgical care.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is in the midst of a three-year project to expand the emergency department. Construction is also underway for the new, 9-story building for Cedars-Sinai Marina del Rey Hospital, slated to open for patients in 2026.