St. Louis and the Midwest will lose one of its prominent health care leaders on Oct. 1, 2025, when BJC Health System’s CEO, Rich Liekweg, retires, the nonprofit organization has announced.
While he oversaw one of the nation’s largest healthcare providers, with a St. Louis headquarters, Liekweg never lost touch with the patients BJC servers and its thousands of employees.
“It is unusual to see the CEO of a business the size of BJC never lose or forget human kindness. This is a true loss for the community,” said Dr. Donald M. Suggs, St. Louis American publisher and executive editor who sat on several boards with Liekweg and collaborated with him on projects. [Grab final quote from e-edition]
The human kindness extolled by Liekweg also included his refusal to ignore the racism and social division that continues to plague the St. Louis region
In a June 1, 2020 commentary he shared with BJC Healthcare employees and the St. Louis American, Liekweg wrote:
“St. Louis is still challenged by decades of segregation, structural racism and pockets of socioeconomic despair that exacerbate health disparities between races.”
“The shooting death of Michael Brown by a white police officer almost six years ago exposed how volatile race relations were in St. Louis. And, it placed a magnifying glass on the underlying root causes. Yet six years later, sadly, we have made little progress in improving the quality of life for those most at risk in our community.”
Liekweg also acknowledged what few CEOs and corporate leaders do.
“I can’t deny my privilege, but I can stand up, step forward, and call out these injustices that people who look like me have perpetuated, supported and promoted far too long,” he wrote.
“And I will do just that each and every day going forward. I now call on my white friends to do the same. Use the unearned privilege of birth for the benefit of all. If you cannot, then step aside, sit down, and get out of the way. The health and future of all God’s children depend on it.”
Kelvin Westbrook, a former BJC board chair who helped recruit Liekweg, said the retiring CEO impressed him as “a highly talented, thoughtful, strategic, and respected leader.”
“Under his stewardship, I watched BJC greatly expand its operations and increase its efforts to further its mission to ‘improve the health of the communities which it serves,” said Westbrook.
“Many WMBEs and other contractors, suppliers and vendors became more meaningful participants in BJC’s activities, including its campus renewal and other capital projects, all of which served to benefit the overall health and economy of the region.
Michael P. McMillan, Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis president and CEO, called Liekweg “a champion of DEI.”
“Rich and BJC were partners of the Urban League on numerous projects,” said McMillan.
“We applaud him on his career and wish him the best in this next chapter of his life.”
Tony Thompson, founder and chair of Kwame Building Group and a BJC Healthcare board member, called Liekweg “a good man.”
“Many women and minorities ascended to leadership during his term. He had the right personality and demeanor for such an important position,” said Thompson.
Liekweg served 40 years in the health care industry including the past at the helm of 16 BJC Heath System.
“It has been an honor to serve and lead our team members these past 10 years as they deliver exceptional care to our patients and communities,” Liekweg stated in his resignation announcement.
“Together, we successfully navigated through unprecedented times in the industry, never losing sight of our singular purpose to improve the health and well-being of the communities we serve. I am deeply proud of our caregivers, the culture we have created, and the values we share that place the patient at the center of all we do.”
Liekweg joined BJC in 2009 as president of Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital and served as group president of BJC HealthCare. He was later named executive vice president and then president of BJC HealthCare in 2015.
In 2018, he became CEO of BJC Health System. During his tenure it has grown to be one of the largest nonprofit academic health systems in the United States.
BJC is “a powerful economic engine that helps lift the entire Midwest region,” according to a release.
BJC’s 47,000 caregivers care for more than a million patients each year across 24 hospitals and more than 250 clinics and service centers located throughout Missouri, southern Illinois, and eastern Kansas.
BJC remains “a safety-net provider helping ensure everyone who needs care gets care, and a trusted community partner investing more than $1.2 billion annually in community benefit to improve lives for those in communities it serves.”
Liekweg will be succeeded by Nick Barto, the system’s president.
“As Rich leaves to enjoy a well-deserved retirement, BJC is well positioned to continue to pursue its mission and I would expect his successor, Nick Barto (who has worked extensively with Rich and been an integral part of BJC since 2018), to continue to build on the successful track record he is inheriting,” said Westbrook.
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