Premier, Inc. announced that Dr. Emad Rizk, M.D., will serve as the company’s Chief Executive Officer, President and Chairman of the Board. The appointment follows Premier’s transition to private ownership by Patient Square Capital in late 2025 and positions a physician with three decades of experience in healthcare transformation at the helm of a company that is shifting from a traditional group purchasing organization (GPO) model to a data‑centric performance‑improvement platform.
Dr. Rizk brings a deep clinical and operational background, having held senior roles at Cotiviti, R1 RCM and McKesson Health Solutions. He has led large‑scale transformation projects and navigated complex regulatory environments. “I’ve seen healthcare from every angle, and I know what is at stake for Premier’s members. Providers are being asked to do more with less in an environment that is only getting more complex. Premier has the scale, the data and the relationships to help providers make better decisions and deliver better outcomes. This is where we can make the greatest impact,” he said.
Premier’s business is organized around two segments: Supply Chain Services, which includes its GPO and related supply‑chain solutions, and Performance Services, which delivers SaaS informatics, advisory and collaborative services. The company completed the acquisition of IllumiCare on June 30 2025, adding an EMR‑agnostic real‑time clinical decision‑support platform, and launched a large‑scale technology investment program in February 2026 that partners with Palantir, Microsoft and Databricks to accelerate data analytics and AI capabilities. Mark Anderson, M.D., Ph.D., Dean of the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago, noted, “I’ve had a front‑row seat to Emad’s leadership and healthcare expertise. He steps into complexity, brings clarity and drives results without ever losing sight of the mission of the health system.”
Under Dr. Rizk’s leadership, Premier aims to complete remaining GPO contract renewals, scale its advisory and SaaS offerings, and fully integrate IllumiCare to deliver real‑time clinical decision support. The new CEO will also focus on accelerating the FY27 inflection point and strengthening the company’s competitive moat built on data, analytics and clinical partnerships. Michael J. Alkire, the outgoing CEO, said, “Alkire will remain in his current role during a targeted search process for a new CEO to support future growth as a private company.”
Premier’s financial backdrop underscores the urgency of the transition. The company reported total net revenue of $1.01 billion in FY 2025, a 10.86% decline from the prior year, and a 3% drop in revenue for the first quarter of FY 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier. Premier withdrew its FY 2026 guidance following the acquisition, but the new CEO’s mandate is to reverse the revenue decline, improve margin performance, and position the company for sustained growth as a private entity.
The appointment of Dr. Rizk signals a strategic pivot toward technology‑enabled services and data‑driven performance improvement, aligning Premier’s operations with the expectations of a private‑ownership structure and the evolving needs of its provider members.
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