Carilion Clinic CEO Agee announces retirement

After more than a decade at the helm of Carilion Clinic, Nancy Howell Agee plans to retire at the end of September, the health system announced Wednesday. Steve Arner, who was promoted to president in May 2023, will replace her as Carilion’s top executive, effective Oct. 1.

Agee was born at Roanoke Memorial and later lived there while attending nursing school. As the leader of the Roanoke-based health system, she helped transform Carilion into a fully integrated, physician-led clinic that includes a medical school and research institute with Virginia Tech.

“To do the work I love with the people I love at the place I love has been a privilege beyond measure,” Agee said in a video produced about her retirement.

Agee will serve as CEO emeritus through September 2025. In that role, she’ll focus on philanthropy. Last week, Agee celebrated the announcement that former U.S. Ambassador Nicholas F. Taubman and his wife, Jenny, have given $25 million toward a new building and expanded cancer program at Carilion Clinic.

Agee and her husband U.S. Circuit Judge G. Steven Agee gave $1 million to launch fundraising for the cancer center in 2019. 

“Steve and I are taking this step now to enhance care in our region, building upon the dedicated work of those who have come before us,” Nancy Howell Agee said in a statement at the time.

Arner joined Carilion in 1996 as a financial analyst, according to Carilion. He’s also served as budget manager, human resources compensation and analytics director, president and CEO at Carilion Rockbridge Community Hospital and senior vice president of cardiothoracic and vascular Services. In 2003, Arner earned an MBA from Brigham Young University.

Arner continued to work as Carilion’s chief operating officer after being named president in 2023. Arner has led more than $500 million in facilities investments, including the Crystal Spring Tower addition at Roanoke Memorial Hospital that’s on schedule to be completed in 2025.

“Steve is a strong and capable leader whose commitment to our mission and deep knowledge of our entire organization make him well-suited for the CEO role,” James Hartley, chairman of Carilion Clinic’s board of directors, said in a news release.

In April, the American Hospital Association presented Agee with the Distinguished Service Award, its highest honor, recognizing her “significant lifetime contributions and service to health care.”

AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack noted that when Agee chaired the nonprofit organization’s board of trustees in 2018, her “visionary leadership” pushed the organization to “tackle value, affordability and disruptive innovation.”

Launching her career as a nurse, Agee went on to become the lead administrative director for a National Institutes of Health oncology grant in Roanoke. She was later promoted to a series of leadership roles at Carilion, becoming chief operating officer in 2001, a post she held for a decade before being named president and CEO in 2011.

In a video made by the AHA for the Distinguished Service Award, Jeanne Armentrout, executive vice president and chief administrative officer at Carilion, noted Agee is passionate about supporting other women working in health care: “She reaches out and mentors leaders regionally and even nationally and many times those leaders are women,” Armentrout said. “She really cares about mentoring women.”

Although women make up about 70% of health workers globally, they only hold 25% of leadership roles in health care, according to a 2023 report by Women in Global Health. 

In a statement issued Wednesday, Sean T. Connaughton, president and CEO of the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association, said that Agee “personifies health care servant leadership. Her journey has been a quintessential self-made American success story from her days as a candy striper following a teenage injury and hospitalization, as the first person in her family to graduate from high school, to her work as a hospice and surgery nurse, her civic engagement on behalf of the commonwealth and its people, her accomplished tenure leading Carilion Clinic, and her service as past Chair of the [AHA Board] and the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association’s board of directors,” he said in the statement. “She leaves Carilion in the capable hands of … Arner, a talented leader guiding Carilion to continued success.”

In Wednesday’s news release, Hartley added that he was grateful to Agee for her continued service. “Carilion and our community have been the fortunate beneficiaries of Nancy’s talents for more than 50 years,” he stated.

Earlier this month, Carilion announced plans to outsource dozens of functions including pre-registration and billing to Ohio company Ensemble Health Partners. All 780 Carilion employees who work in revenue cycle operations will be offered comparable positions with Ensemble, according to a Carilion news release. 

In U.S. News and World Report’s annual list of the best hospitals in the nation, released Tuesday, Carilion’s flagship hospital, Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, tied for third overall in Virginia.