The Vanderbilt University Board of Trust has elected the members of the governing board for Vanderbilt University Medical Center. This independent board will immediately begin planning for VUMC to operate as a separate entity and will govern the Medical Center once its financial and administrative transition from the university is complete.
Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos and Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs Jeff Balser are joined by nine others with experience in a variety of relevant fields, including health system management, biomedical research, technology development and transfer, law and banking. Four of the VUMC board members, including Zeppos, are current members of the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust.
In November 2014, Vanderbilt’s Board of Trust directed the institution’s senior leadership to reconfigure VUMC as a not-for-profit academic medical center that is financially distinct from Vanderbilt University. However, the two organizations will remain tightly woven together by mission and the respected Vanderbilt name.
Once the Medical Center is established as a separate financial entity, the title of vice chancellor for health affairs will be retired and Balser will become president and CEO of Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He will continue as dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
In the first meeting of the Medical Center’s governing board, Edith Scott Carell “Edie” Johnson was chosen to serve as board chair and John F. Stein was chosen to serve as board vice chair.
In addition to Zeppos and Balser, the VUMC board will comprise:
Michael M. E. Johns of Atlanta, interim executive vice president for health affairs, director of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center and chief executive officer for the Emory System of Health Care. He previously was interim vice president for medical affairs and interim chief executive officer of the University of Michigan Health System. From 2007 until 2012, Johns was Emory University’s chancellor. For nine years before that he led the Woodruff Health Science Center as chief executive officer. He was dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and vice president of the medical faculty from 1990 to 1996. Johns holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Wayne State University and received his medical degree from the University of Michigan. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of the American Medical Association and recently became a member of the advisory council to the Congressional Taskforce on Biomedical Research and Innovation.
Edith Scott Carell “Edie” Johnson of Nashville, president and legal counsel for the Carell Family LLC, a private investment company. She was elected to the Vanderbilt Board of Trust in 2007 and served as board secretary until her recent resignation to serve on VUMC’s board. She was the chair of the Vanderbilt University board’s Medical Center Affairs Committee, and has also served on the Executive, Athletics, Budget, Audit, and Governance and Board Affairs committees. A graduate of Centenary College and Wake Forest University School of Law, she is the former chair of the board of trustees at Harpeth Hall School and co-chair of its recent capital campaign, a director of the Nashville Zoo and the McNeilly Center for Children. She is the daughter of the late Ann Carell and the late Monroe J. Carell Jr., for whom the Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital is named. She and her sisters have continued the family’s support with a lead gift to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital expansion campaign, “Growing to New Heights.”
Richard B. “Dick” Johnston Jr. of Denver, associate dean for research development and professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School Of Medicine. He holds a bachelor of arts and medical degree from Vanderbilt. Johnston is renowned for leading efforts that led to federally mandated folic acid fortification and for heading a public education campaign on the benefits of vitamin B in preventing serious birth defects of the brain and spine. As an immunologist and pediatrician, he has served in academic roles at several institutions, including National Jewish Health, Yale University, Rockefeller University, University of Colorado and the University of Philadelphia. In addition, he was physician-in-chief at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and chair of the department of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania. He also served as the national medical director of the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation. He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 2008, and he has been a community member on the Medical Center Affairs Committee for the Board of Trust since 2011, serving as vice chair from 2013 to 2015.
Samuel E. “Sam” Lynch of Franklin, Tenn., co-founder in 2014 of Lynch Biologics, a biomedical research company. In 1999, he founded BioMimetic Therapeutics, a biotechnology company that specializes in the development and commercialization of products to promote the healing of musculoskeletal injuries and diseases. The firm was acquired in 2013 by Wright Medical Group. Also in 2013, Lynch became chairman of Life Science Tennessee, a statewide nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance and grow the life science industry in Tennessee through advocacy, partnerships and alignment with economic and workforce development. He is a director of the Nashville-area chapter of the Red Cross and is a former director of Capital Bank Financial Corporation and Green Bankshares, Inc. At VUMC, Lynch is a member of the advisory board for the Clinical and Translational Science Awards. He is a former member of the Vanderbilt School of Engineering Committee of Visitors. He holds a Doctor of Dental Medicine from Southern Illinois University and a Doctor of Medical Science from Harvard Medical and Dental Schools.
Thomas J. “Tom” Sherrard II of Nashville, founding member of Nashville law firm Sherrard & Roe. His legal practice includes mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, corporate and securities law, and commercial law. He serves as the general outside counsel for public and private corporations and advises those clients on a broad range of corporate and securities law issues. Sherrard is a current trustee and past president for Leadership Nashville; a founding chairman of Partnership 2020, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce’s economic development initiative; and is a past chairman of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Governors. He is a former adjunct professor at the Vanderbilt University Law School and at the Owen Graduate School of Management. He is a current member of the Owen Graduate School of Management’s Health Care Advisory Board and the Canby Robinson Society Board of Directors. Previously, Sherrard was a member of the Vanderbilt Medical Center Board, the Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center’s Board of Overseers, and the Cancer Center and Medical Center committees for the Shape the Future Campaign. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Duke University and a law degree from the University of Florida.
John F. Stein, Tennessee state president and national market executive of for-profit health care in global commercial banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. In this role, he manages the bank’s national for-profit health care operation, working with health system financing nationwide, as well as biotech companies and other health-related entities. He joined Bank of America as executive vice president and manager in 1987 and was named Tennessee president in 2002. Stein was honored with the Vanderbilt School of Medicine Distinguished Service Award by the Vanderbilt Medical Alumni Association in 2014. He has been a member of the Children’s Hospital Board since 2003, and has served as chair of the board and as co-chair of the Major Gifts Task Group. He is a past member of Vanderbilt University Medical Center Affairs Committee. He received his bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt and his MBA from Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management.
In addition to Zeppos, the current Vanderbilt University Board of Trust members who will serve on both the Vanderbilt and VUMC boards are:
Bruce R. Evans of Boston, managing director of Summit Partners, a growth equity, venture capital and credit investment firm. He is chairman of Summit Partners’ Board of Managers, of which he has been a member since 1999. He joined Summit Partners in 1986 and served on its executive committee from 1999 to 2011. Evans has served as a director of 30 companies, including more than a dozen public companies. He graduated from Vanderbilt in 1981 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and economics. He received an MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1986. A member of the Vanderbilt Board of Trust since 2009, he is chairman of the Investment Committee. He first joined the committee in 1998 as a community member. Other Vanderbilt activities include serving as the initial chair of the Vanderbilt Technology Transfer Advisory Committee, as fundraising chair for the 2006 Class of ’81 Reunion, and on search committees for senior university personnel. He also serves on the Board of Trust’s Medical Center Affairs Committee, the ad hoc Technology Transfer Advisory Committee and the ad hoc Medical Center Study Group.
Jackson W. Moore of Memphis, principal of private investment firm Moore Management and longtime banking executive. A Vanderbilt Board of Trust member since 2002, he is currently the board’s vice chairman. A 1973 graduate of the Vanderbilt Law School, Moore was the managing partner in one of Memphis’ largest law firms prior to joining Union Planters Corporation in 1989. He was chairman, president, and CEO of Union Planters and assumed those same roles with Regions Financial after the two banks merged. Following a merger of Regions Financial and AmSouth Bancorporation, he became executive chairman of the consolidated company, one of the 10 largest bank holding companies headquartered in the United States. Moore retired from Regions Financial in 2008. He serves on board of Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare and as a director of EDGE, the economic growth engine of the City of Memphis and County of Shelby, Tennessee. On the Vanderbilt Board of Trust, he is vice chairman of both the Executive Committee and the Governance and Board Affairs Committee and is a member of the Medical Center Affairs Committee and ad hoc Medical Center Study Group.
David W. Patterson of Great Falls, Va., an internal medicine specialist in private practice in the Washington, D.C., area. He is also an associate clinical professor of medicine at George Washington University Medical Center, where he served on the Education Evaluation Committee from 1990 to 2013. He earned both his bachelor’s degree and his medical degree from Vanderbilt. A past president of the Medical Alumni Association, Patterson joined the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust in 2013 and is a member of the Executive Committee, Medical Center Affairs Committee and the ad hoc Medical Center Study Group. He is a member of the American College of Physicians and was elected to the Vanderbilt Chapter of AOA medical honor society in 2012. Patterson has been chosen by his peers as one of the Best Doctors in America in each selection since 1995. From 1999 to 2005, he served on the Board of Governors of the Abramson Scholarship Foundation, which provides financial and mentoring support to D.C. public school students interested in a college education. He has a strong interest in recruiting efforts for underrepresented medical school candidates.
The restructuring of the university and Medical Center into distinct entities is expected to be completed next year.
