Dr. Fatih Mehmet Gul is a physician and international healthcare CEO who has built, commissioned, listed and turned around hospitals across the Gulf and Türkiye, setting the strategy and carrying the P&L himself. His record includes a USD 500 million greenfield teaching hospital in Dubai delivered through the pandemic, a NEOM hospital commissioned to full surgical capability within three months of handover, a USD 764 million IPO on the Saudi Tadawul, and a hospital brought to breakeven within twelve months. He has worked alongside owners, chairmen and boards through a public listing and a series of major capital projects, and has led enterprise EMR implementations and digital transformation across multi-hospital systems. He holds the view that technology in healthcare is only as good as what it does for the people giving and receiving care.
He is an Honorary Professor at University College London's Global Business School for Health, where he teaches on the healthcare MBA, and the author of Connected Care: A Digital Transformation Roadmap that Elevates Human-Centred Healthcare. He hosts The Chief Healthcare Officer, a podcast and newsletter bringing together health system leaders from around the world, and writes regularly for a following of more than 146,000 international healthcare professionals.
He has been named a Forbes Top 50 Healthcare Leader three times and is a member of Newsweek's CEO Circle, and has twice been listed by Becker's Hospital Review among its academic healthcare leaders. He is an early member of the Terra Carta initiative founded by His Majesty King Charles III, and has held hospital CEO roles in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, including at The View Hospital, a Cedars-Sinai affiliate. Trained as a physician at Erciyes University, with executive education at Harvard Business School and Cornell, he works in English, Turkish and Arabic.
Five hospitals
Different hospitals, different jobs: building, opening, listing, turning around, and running several at once.
I am usually brought in for the hardest years of a hospital's life - the building, the opening, the turnaround - and I have made a specialism of exactly that.
Fakeeh Care Group
Fakeeh University Hospital, Dubai
Greenfield construction, commissioning and operation — a USD 500 million teaching hospital delivered through the pandemic, opened with an academic partnership and a full clinical programme, and JCI accredited in its first year of operation.
NEOM Hospital
Rapid commissioning — from construction handover to complex surgery in three months, standing up a full hospital workforce, systems and clinical governance for a new city with no healthcare infrastructure around it.
Fakeeh Care Group, Jeddah
Revenue growth and IPO listing — as CEO for group operational strategy, preparing a family-owned group for the public market: the USD 764 million IPO on the Saudi Tadawul, one of the largest healthcare listings in the Kingdom.
Apex Health
The View Hospital, Doha — Cedars-Sinai affiliate
Turnaround to profit and international accreditation - breakeven in twelve months; Qatar's first private hospital accredited to the JCI 8th Edition.
Apex Health Qatar
Multi-asset portfolio leadership - Country CEO across three institutions: The View Hospital, a Cedars-Sinai affiliate, and the Korean Medical Center, an Asan Medical Center affiliate, run side by side to American and Korean clinical standards.
Earlier
Before these, I ran operations for Fakeeh Care Group in Jeddah — a group I am proud to have named — and led KAUST Health, the hospital serving the university's international community under an Aramco partnership, where we were the first in the region to outsource a hospital warehouse to a logistics company, Aramex. Earlier still I founded a healthcare consultancy in Istanbul, and spent eight years with Abdul Latif Jameel in Jeddah and Istanbul on healthcare and strategic projects. I qualified as a physician at Erciyes University.
The people who shaped me
I have been fortunate in the people who shaped me. Dr Mazen Fakeeh, whose group I ran and whose trust I carried through a listing, taught me what ownership actually means. Keith Hague has been my mentor for many years and has had a hand in most of the decisions I'm proud of. Whatever is good in how I lead owes something to both of them.
Credentials
Education. Doctor of Medicine, Erciyes University · Strategy and Value Measurement for Global Health Care Delivery, Harvard Business School · Master Certificate in Healthcare Leadership, Cornell University · Business Administration and Management, Yeditepe University · Hospital and Healthcare Facility Management, Marmara University
Academic. Honorary Professor, UCL Global Business School for Health
Recognition. Forbes Top 50 Healthcare Leader · Newsweek CEO Circle · Becker's Hospital Review, Academic Leaders · Early member, Terra Carta · LinkedIn Top Voice
Standards. JCI (including 8th Edition) · CAP · Magnet/ANCC · ISO 9001 and 14001 Lead Auditor · AABB · CBAHI
Languages. English, Turkish, Arabic