Michael J. Alkire is the President of Premier. As President, Alkire leads the continued integration of Premier’s clinical, financial, supply chain and operational performance improvement offerings helping member hospitals and health systems provide higher quality care at a better cost. He oversees Premier’s quality, safety, labor and supply chain technology apps and data-driven collaboratives allowing alliance members to make decisions based on a combination of healthcare information. These performance improvement offerings access Premier’s comparative database, one of the nation’s largest outcomes databases.

Alkire also led Premier’s efforts to address public health and safety issues from the nationwide drug shortage problem, testifying before the U.S. House of Representatives regarding Premier research on shortages and gray market price gouging. This work contributed to the president and Congress taking action to investigate and correct the problem, resulting in two pieces of bipartisan legislation.

Prior to serving as President, Alkire was president of Premier Purchasing Partners, which offers group purchasing, supply chain and resource utilization services to hospitals and health systems. Premier remains among the top group purchasing organizations in the industry as the value of supplies purchased through its contracts has increased to more than $56 billion. Upon joining Premier in late 2003, Alkire worked closely with the Purchasing Partners team to develop and implement a three-year transformation plan designed to dramatically increase returns to the alliance’s shareholders while building stronger relationships with members and suppliers.

Alkire is a past board member of GHX and the Healthcare Supply Chain Association. He recently was named one of the Top 25 COOs in Healthcare for 2018 by Modern Healthcare. In 2015, Alkire won the Gold Stevie Award for Executive of the Year and in 2014 he was recognized as a Gold Award Winner for COO of the Year by the Golden Bridge Awards. He has more than 20 years of experience in running business operations and business development organizations at Deloitte & Touche and Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. Before joining Premier, he served in a number of leadership roles at Cap Gemini, including North American responsibilities for supply chain and high-tech manufacturing.

Byron Jobe is president and chief executive officer of Vizient. He has a long history of leadership roles within Vizient and in the health care industry, specifically in the areas of strategy, operations and finance.

Prior to becoming CEO, Jobe was Vizient chief administrative and financial officer, leading several functional areas including finance, accounting; information technology; marketing; product management; corporate development; and sales operations. During this time, Jobe assisted the company in growing the business through the merger and acquisitions of legacy companies VHA, University HealthSystem Consortium, MedAssets, Sg2 and Novation, resulting in revenue and membership growth of 176 percent and 190 percent, respectively. Additionally, during his tenure with Vizient, Jobe served in other roles, including executive vice president, service delivery and chief financial officer.

Prior to Vizient, Jobe worked for Healthvision, an EMR-based clinical services company focused on connecting regional health information organizations, physicians and hospitals nationwide. While serving as the chief financial and operating officer at Healthvision, he was responsible for the company's business delivery and administrative operations, including product development and implementation. He also led the company on two acquisitions and one divestiture. Finally, he helped the company complete several rounds of debt- and equity-based financing, which ultimately positioned the company for its merger with Quovadx Inc. in 2007.

Prior to joining Healthvision in 1999, Jobe worked served in different roles at VHA, Baylor Scott & White Health and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Ed Jones, the President and CEO of HealthTrust/ SVP of HCA, is responsible for the strategic direction and leadership of a comprehensive spend management business that is majority-owned and managed by HCA.  Jones oversees all dimensions of a $45B portfolio; as well as, directs all consulting, managed services and outsource relationships, including accountability for HCA supply-chain, contract labor staffing performance, and clinical education.   

Ed’s leadership encompasses several HealthTrust/ HCA business ventures that strengthen provider performance and competitive advantage, including:

• HealthTrust Workforce Solutions- Clinical labor staffing and consulting company including a proprietary program called StaRN (training program for all new nurses)
• HCA Healthcare Center for Clinical Advancement-Responsible for providing continual education for over 90,000 nurses at HCA through a team of approximately 650 clinical educators and several simulation labs
• HealthTrust Europe, which provides sourcing and supply chain services to 39 Provider trusts in the U.K.
• HealthTrust Global Sourcing Office in Shanghai, China
• CoreTrust – the leading commercial market souring and sourcing company for indirect spend

He has more than 38 years of experience within HCA, serving previously as Chief Operating Officer for HealthTrust for three years, with responsibility for strategic sourcing, clinical operations, custom contracting, supplier diversity, and regional operations.  Prior to that, Jones served in several leadership roles within HCA for 20 years and prior to that served in front line roles at a hospital for seven years.  

Jones is a founding board member of the Health Sector Supply Chain Research Consortium. He is also a member and subcommittee member of the Federation of American Hospitals, serves as the past board chair on the Healthcare Supply Chain Association (HSCA) board.  He also serves on the board of Galen College of Nursing and is the Chairman of the finance committee. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Virginia Commonwealth University.