• Press Release

John B. Hess Named Chairman of the Mount Sinai Health System Boards of Trustees

Hess
  • New York, NY
  • (March 31, 2026)

Mount Sinai Health System announced today that John B. Hess, a longstanding trustee and philanthropic leader, was elected Chairman of the Mount Sinai Health System Boards of Trustees yesterday. A trustee since 1988, Mr. Hess currently serves as Chairman of the Research Committee of the Boards of Trustees and as a member of the Executive and Strategic Planning committees. Over decades of leadership and service, he has helped guide Mount Sinai’s growth to become a top integrated academic health system and a global leader in biomedical discovery.   

Mr. Hess will work closely with Health System leadership and fellow trustees to advance Mount Sinai’s mission of delivering exceptional patient care, driving groundbreaking research, and educating the next generation of physicians and scientists. He succeeds Co-Chairmen Richard A. Friedman and James S. Tisch, who have served in their roles since 2019.  

“It is a great honor to serve as Chairman of the Boards of Trustees of the Mount Sinai Health System after seeing first-hand the excellent example set by Co-Chairmen Friedman and Tisch,” said Mr. Hess. “Mount Sinai stands at the forefront of academic medicine, where world-leading care and transformative research intersect. My family’s commitment to this institution spans generations, and it is a privilege to continue that legacy. I look forward to partnering with my fellow Trustees and working closely with Brendan Carr and Mount Sinai’s leadership to build on the organization’s strong foundation and shape an even brighter future.”  

“John Hess brings vision, leadership, and a deep personal commitment to Mount Sinai’s mission. He succeeds Co-Chairmen Richard Friedman and James Tisch, whose leadership over nearly a decade has been extraordinary, and I am personally grateful for their counsel and dedication to Mount Sinai,” said Brendan G. Carr, MD, MA, MS, Chief Executive Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System. “John understands the power of academic medicine to transform lives locally and globally. As Chairman, John will help guide Mount Sinai into its next chapter—driving growth and innovation, and ensuring we deliver exceptional health care to the communities we serve.”  

Mr. Hess served for three decades as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Hess Corporation, leading the Fortune 500 company through a strategic transformation from an integrated oil company into a global independent exploration and production company that culminated in its 2025 merger with Chevron. In addition to his longstanding Trusteeship at Mount Sinai, Mr. Hess serves on the Board of Directors of Chevron and Goldman Sachs, the Board of Trustees of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Board of Directors of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the New York Philharmonic, and the Board of Dean’s Advisors at Harvard Business School, among other leadership roles in business, education, and the arts.  

The Leon and Norma Hess Center for Science and Medicine, a 500,000-square-foot research facility on Mount Sinai’s campus established in 2012, was made possible by the Hess family’s commitment to advancing translational science and interdisciplinary collaboration. The Hess Center is home to leading institutes in neuroscience, cancer, genomics, cardiovascular research, and children’s health, among others.  

In July 2022, the Mount Sinai Health System and Hess Corporation embarked on a transformative health effort to improve health care in Guyana, led by Mount Sinai’s Arnhold Institute for Global Health and Mount Sinai International. The work was funded jointly by the Government of Guyana and by Hess Corporation. Since the program’s launch, more than 83,000 Guyanese children have received health screenings, over 1,200 new nursing assistants graduated in 2025, a new state-of-the-art pathology lab has reduced diagnosis times and accelerated life-saving treatments, and the first Digital Health Training Institute was launched to create an digital health workforce with 250 professionals to be trained in the first year. In March 2025, the Government of Guyana, the Mount Sinai Health System, and Hess Corporation announced a five-year extension of the national health care initiative through 2030.  

About the Mount Sinai Health System

Mount Sinai Health System is one of the nation’s leading integrated academic health systems and one of the largest in the New York metropolitan area. The Health System includes approximately 48,000 employees, more than 9,000 physicians, and 8,600 nurses across seven hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, over 600 research and clinical laboratories, a school of nursing, and schools of medicine and graduate school of biomedical sciences.  

As a leading learning health system, Mount Sinai combines clinical expertise with scientific discovery to improve patient care while training the next generation of health care and biomedical leaders. The Health System provides care across every stage of life, from prenatal care through geriatrics, while advancing personalized medicine through artificial intelligence, data science, and biomedical research.  

Mount Sinai is consistently recognized among the nation’s leading academic health systems for patient care, research, and education. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 1 in New York and recognized as one of the world’s top Smart Hospital by Newsweek. The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai ranks No. 11 among U.S. medical schools for National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding and No. 1 among freestanding medical schools, reflecting the strength of its scientific enterprise and leadership in biomedical research. 

For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, and YouTube. To listen to news and stories from Mount Sinai, visit the Mount Sinai Podcast Network.

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