Michael Dowling will be stepping down from his longtime role as Northwell Health’s president and CEO on Oct. 1, the 28-hospital nonprofit announced Wednesday.
Dowling, who has held the top spot for over 23 years, will be shifting to an advisory role as CEO Emeritus. He most recently oversaw the New York-based system’s merger with Nuvance Health, effectively expanding the organization into Connecticut.
He will be succeeded by John D’Angelo, M.D., who is currently executive vice president of Northwell’s central region.
“It has been an extraordinary privilege to lead Northwell through a period of unprecedented growth and clinical transformation that has enabled our team members to make a meaningful difference and improve the lives of the tens of millions of patients and families who we’ve cared for over the last 25 years,” Dowling said in the announcement.
Dowling grew up in Limerick, Ireland, as the oldest child in a family facing extreme poverty and has often credited that upbringing for his proactive stance on social support and public health programs. Prior to joining North Shore University Hospital (later Northwell) roughly three decades back, he held a professorship on social policy at Fordham University and spent more than 10 years leading and advising New York’s state government’s health programs on issues like AIDS, homelessness and drug epidemics.
Northwell today is one of the country’s largest nonprofit systems, and the largest in the northeast, with a $22.6 billion operating budget. It delivers care to more than 13 million people, employs more than 104,000 people and runs over 1,000 care sites.
Alongside the growth, the system’s announcement credited Dowling for supporting substantial investments in medical research, such as through the expansion of the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, and for backing medical education through the organization’s the Zucker School of Medicine, the Hofstra-Northwell School of Nursing and Northwell’s Center for Learning and Innovation.
Dowling has also been among the hospital industry’s most outspoken chief executives on social issues such as housing insecurity and gun violence, and has led the launch of initiatives tackling such issues at Northwell.
“I think a lot of leaders are nervous these days because politics are toxic; the political system is like a freak show these days,” Dowling told Fierce Healthcare in 2023, when he was named as a Social Impact Honoree of the Fierce 50. “Many leaders are afraid to go out publicly and take on some social issues because they get slapped on the wrist.
“I think if you don’t get slapped on the wrist every so often by taking on something that’s controversial, you’re not doing your job right,” he continued. “We can’t just stand idly by and say ‘Not my job.’ Especially if you’re in the healthcare field, it’s our responsibility.”
D’Angelo, who will be taking the reins, joined Northwell as an emergency medicine physician before taking on clinical and administrative leadership roles across the broader organization. This included time as senior vice president of Northwell’s emergency medicine service line, where he oversaw 18 EDs and a network of dozens of urgent care centers.
In his current role as president of the central region (western Nassau County and Queens), D’Angelo’s purview includes six hospitals, more than 270 ambulatory practice locations and nearly a quarter of Northwell’s total workforce.
“In Dr. D’Angelo, the Board of Trustees has selected a tremendous leader who will lead Northwell to greater heights,” Dowling said in the announcement. “John is someone who understands and champions Northwell’s unique and differentiated culture and his clinical and operational acumen coupled with skills as a decisive and collaborative leader will enable Northwell to raise the bar on the quality of care we deliver to the communities we serve in New York and Connecticut. I look forward to partnering with Dr. D’Angelo in the coming months to help ensure a seamless transition to what will be an exciting new chapter in the 33-year history of Northwell.”
Northwell said D’Angelo was selected “after an extensive nationwide search, and confirmed in a unanimous vote.”
Word on the change in leadership comes just days after the close of Northwell and Nuvance’s merger, for which both parties had spent several months securing regulatory approvals. The deal with state attorneys general and health regulators came with commitments to preserve or increase Nuvance’s care services and facilities, maintain financial assistance policies and refrain from practices that would extract value from hospitals' real estate. Northwell also plans to invest at least $1 billion into Nuvance’s hospitals over the coming years.