Jack O. Bovender, Jr., is retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Nashville, Tenn.-based Hospital Corporation of America, the nation’s leading provider of healthcare services. HCA has 163 hospitals and 105 Ambulatory Surgery Centers in the United States and England.
Bovender is a 40-year veteran of the healthcare industry and worked at HCA for 31 years. He began his hospital administrative career in 1969 as a lieutenant in the United States Navy stationed at the Naval Regional Medical Center in Portsmouth, Va. He later served as Chief Executive Officer of Medical Center Hospital in Largo, Fla., and West Florida Regional Medical Center in Pensacola, both owned by HCA.
From 1985 to 1992, Bovender held several senior-level positions with HCA, including Division Vice President in HCA’s Atlanta Division and President of HCA’s Eastern Group Operations. In 1992, he was named Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for HCA.
Following HCA’s merger with Columbia in 1994, Bovender retired and served on the boards of several public and private companies, including Quorum Health Group, Inc., American Retirement Corp. and Nashville Electric Service. He returned to HCA in 1997 as HCA’s President and Chief Operating Officer. He was appointed to HCA’s Board of Directors in 1999 and was named President and CEO in 2001. He became Chairman and CEO of HCA in January 2002 and Chairman in January 2009. He retired as Chairman and CEO in December 2009.
Bovender is a vice chair of the Duke University Board of Trustees and a member of the Executive Committee, the Duke University Health System Board, and the Board of Visitors at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke. Bovender received Duke University’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2012. In addition, Bovender is a former member of Duke University Divinity School’s Board of Visitors and former chairman of the Duke University Divinity School Capital Campaign Committee. He is a founding member of the Nashville Health Care Council. He has served on the boards of several Nashville human services and arts organizations. In 2012, he was elected to the Board of Directors of Bank of America and became the Lead Independent Director in 2014.
He served on the Board of Governors of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), an international professional society of nearly 30,000 healthcare executives. In 2007, he was awarded ACHE’s Gold Medal Award, recognizing his significant career-long contributions to the healthcare profession. Bovender was lauded by Institutional Investor magazine as “Best CEO in America” for healthcare facilities in 2003, 2004 and 2005. Bovender was inducted into the Health Care Hall of Fame in 2015.
He received his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Duke University in 1967 and his master’s degree in hospital administration from Duke University in 1969. Bovender and his wife, Barbara, live in Nashville. They have a son, Richard, who received his MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University in May 2008. Richard and his wife, Sara, and their three children live in Nashville. Bovender was born on August 16, 1945.