Irene Thompson

As president and chief executive officer, Ms. Thompson is responsible for the overall operation of the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC), an alliance of 101 academic medical centers and 170 of their affiliated hospitals representing approximately 90% of the nation’s nonprofit academic medical centers. Working with UHC’s governing bodies, she oversees corporate operations and performance, formulates and executes the organization’s strategy, and represents UHC to the business and health care communities and the public.

Ms. Thompson joined UHC in 2007 after serving for 11 years as president and chief executive officer of the University of Kansas Hospital Authority, where she was instrumental in establishing the hospital as an independent entity. Under her leadership, the hospital experienced a dramatic turnaround in quality of care, patient satisfaction, and revenue.
Ms. Thompson has also served as a chief financial officer for an academic medical center and as an audit partner for a major accounting firm.

Currently, Ms. Thompson serves on a regional affiliate board of the American Heart Association. Previously, she was board chairperson of UHC as well as the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Council of Teaching Hospitals and Health Systems. She was president of the Kansas City, Kansas, Chamber of Commerce and has also served on numerous other community not-for-profit boards.

She holds a bachelor of science degree in business from State University of New York and has participated in master’s studies in organizational management at the University of Pennsylvania.