In September, Henry Ford Health System made the unusual but bold move to announce it would hire nurses from overseas in order to address the staffing shortage hitting the entire industry.

Lassiter has served as president and CEO of Henry Ford Health System since 2016. He has more than 30 years of experience managing complex health systems, including Dallas Methodist Health System and JPS Health Network in Fort Worth, Texas. He was also CEO of Alameda Health System in Oakland, California. Lassiter has served on the boards of the American Hospital Association, America’s Essential Hospitals, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the Motown Museum.

Lassiter speaks: “The pandemic has caused us to ask ourselves the question of can we do more, and should our expectations of ourselves as an organization be higher? Of all the accolades we've gotten for our efforts, let's not let those accolades cause us to think the job is done.”