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<\/p>\nDr. Larry Antonucci, M.D., MBA<\/p>\n
The long-time leader of Southwest Florida\u2019s largest healthcare provider is saying goodbye.\u00a0<\/p>\n
President and CEO of Lee Health, Dr. Larry Antonucci, is stepping away from his post and leaves behind a legacy of service spanning decades and immense growth in the region.<\/p>\n
Stepping in will be Ben Spence, who currently serves as Lee Health\u2019s chief operating officer.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt some point you\u2019ve got to decide when it\u2019s time, and I think the timing is really right for me personally right now and also for my family and most importantly for the system,\u201d Antonucci said of why now. \u201cYou never want to leave a position or a health system in a bad place, and that\u2019s not the case here. Lee Health is strong. We\u2019re in a great position. We\u2019ve got a great strategic plan, (we\u2019re) financially strong, and so I\u2019m very optimistic about what\u2019s going to happen in the future. Growth will continue, the commitment, and delivering high-quality care will always continue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Antonucci, 72, has served as Lee Health\u2019s president and CEO since June of 2017. Before joining Lee Health, Antonucci was a well-respected, practicing obstetrician and gynecologist in Fort Myers for 24 years. In 2007, Antonucci joined Lee Health as chief administrative officer for Cape Coral Hospital. In 2009, he was appointed Chief Operating Officer of Hospital Services for the health system and assumed responsibility for Physician Services in early 2010. In October 2011, Dr. Antonucci was named chief operating officer for the health system.<\/p>\n
Antonucci said he is looking forward to spending more time with his family and three grandchildren, and wants to pursue opportunities he was unable to serving in his role.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Currently the Chairman of the Board at Florida Gulf Coast University, he said he wants to work more with the university and learn more about higher education.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd see what else comes my way that I may want to do,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Antonucci attended medical school at the University of Miami and completed his residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Eastern Virginia Graduate School of Medicine. He also earned a master\u2019s degree in business administration from the University of South Florida.<\/p>\n
Antonucci serves on the Florida Hospital Association Board of Directors, the Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida Board of Directors, the America\u2019s Essential Hospitals Political Action Committee Board of Directors, the Florida Gulf Coast University Foundation Board, and the LeeSar Board of Directors.<\/p>\n
As for his rising the ranks over the years with Lee Health, Antonucci said it was an unplanned career path.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOpportunities came up as I continued to work, and it\u2019s been incredibly rewarding,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Antonucci is a strong believer in engaging and empowering front-line staff to improve an organization\u2019s culture and quality. During stints as chief administrative officer for Cape Coral Hospital and as chief operating officer for Lee Health, he frequently embedded himself with front-line work teams, such as housekeeping and patient transport, as a way to stay connected to the care provided to patients each day and identify ways to improve quality and remove barriers.<\/p>\n
Antonucci said his experience being face-to-face with patients is a driving factor in his success.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that is so critical as a leader is the ability to listen, and the ability to teach,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I think that started from the very first day I walked into an exam room. I felt one of my roles was to teach my patients about their healthcare and what they were facing and what they were doing, and I never forgot that. Whether I was in an exam room or a boardroom, I used those same principles to move the organization forward. Having a background in practicing medicine was invaluable for me moving forward, because I understood the issues that were being brought to me by the nursing staff, by physicians. It just made it that much easier for me to be able to navigate through a lot of the complexities of healthcare because I was there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over decades of tenure working in healthcare in Southwest Florida, the growth of the community has been immense. With more people comes a greater need for additional healthcare services to meet the need.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been remarkable,\u201d Antonucci said of the local growth. \u201cIf you think about the history of Lee Heath dating back to 1916 with a small four-bed hospital in downtown (Fort Myers) to where we are today, we\u2019ve been able to grow with the community and really, that\u2019s what this is all about. We\u2019re a community healthcare system. We\u2019re a nonprofit \u2014 every dollar that we bring in is paid out in salary, supplies and reinvested in the community so we can build new facilities and serve patients as the population grows.\u201d<\/p>\n
The growth in Cape Coral has been especially eye-opening, with Lee Health expanding capacity at Cape Coral Hospital and adding various outpatient facilities throughout the city in recent years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cCape Coral is obviously one of the fastest-growing areas in the region,\u201d Antonucci said. \u201cWe have been able to expand our physician practices there, to expand the hospital to the point now where we\u2019re just about completely built out on the Cape Coral campus. We\u2019ve added a lot of robust outpatient centers on Pine Island Road, etcetera, and now we\u2019re looking at a facility on Veterans Parkway that\u2019s going to be really amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course a tenure as long as Antonucci\u2019s doesn\u2019t come without challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A global pandemic and destructive hurricanes top the list.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were hit with a disease we had never seen before and really didn\u2019t know how to treat,\u201d he said. \u201cOne of the biggest challenges we faced was the amount of information that was being circulated. One of the most important roles we had, in addition to caring for patients, was to be that source of truth for the community \u2014 that\u2019s one of the reasons why we did so much outreach and so much media coverage to be able to be that source of truth. To be able to say we\u2019re learning what we\u2019re doing every day. The things that we did last week, we\u2019re not doing this week because we\u2019ve discovered that they really don\u2019t work. And I think the humility that it brought to us in dealing with a disease that we didn\u2019t know about was eye opening, and it was very challenging. But I couldn\u2019t be more proud of our team and how they handled it and what they did. If you remember back then, I mean, there were staff members that were sleeping in their garage. They were afraid they would bring disease into their homes and just (heard) remarkable stories.\u201d<\/p>\n
Working in Southwest Florida of course presents the chance of major hurricanes, and one came via Hurricane Ian in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHurricane Ian was an amazing challenge for us when we lost our municipal water supply and we had to deal with that,\u201d Antonucci said. \u201cAnd again, watching the staff working day and night to take care of the patients \u2014 both before, during and after the storm \u2014 was a challenge.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Antonucci said guiding the system through Ian is possibly the highlight of his entire career.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt provided so much pride for me, and gratitude, to have the opportunity to lead a team like this,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had staff members\u2019 cars floating away out of the Health Park hospital, and I\u2019m seeing this looking out the window, but yet our staff is providing care to patients around the clock. That moment really stands out.\u201d<\/p>\n
And of course, there are healthcare concerns on a broader scale.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you think about things more globally, the challenges we\u2019re facing in healthcare right now with regard to access, affordability \u2014 these are the things that really do keep us up at night,\u201d Antonucci said. \u201cIt\u2019s how can we deliver care in better ways and more efficient ways so that we can drive the cost down?\u201d<\/p>\n
As for successes, Antonucci said, \u201cIt\u2019s leading the organization through change, through dynamic things that happen in terms of community and maintaining the focus on patients and their families. That\u2019s really been what I\u2019m most proud of through it all. It really really comes out to, what are you doing for patients and their families? Are you doing the right things and making the right decisions big or small? That\u2019s what I\u2019m most proud of over my career.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under Antonucci\u2019s leadership, Lee Health has embedded a culture that elevates the human experience in health care through the ExceptionalLee Promise, which simply means that team members go the extra mile to treat everyone they meet and care for with kindness and respect. That means listening, communicating and compassionate care \u2014 all in a safe environment.<\/p>\n
Of his \u201cmantra,\u201d and what Antonucci preached during his tenure, he said, \u201cNo. 1 is being patient-centered. Historically, we\u2019ve built health systems around the providers \u2014 what\u2019s easy for providers? What\u2019s best for providers? That\u2019s created an environment that\u2019s not always very patient friendly. So putting patients first, I think, is top of the list.\u201d<\/p>\n
Antonucci said he often spoke to his team about four key attributes of leadership in his mind, which are trust, compassion, stability, and hope.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you\u2019ve got to have a trusting relationship with your staff,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to have a trusting relationship with the patients and their family. They\u2019ve got to trust you that you\u2019re looking out for them. You\u2019ve got to have compassion for them and what they\u2019re going through. Stability \u2014 just think about hurricanes, think about the pandemic \u2014 we had to be that stable force here. And then the last is hope. No matter what\u2019s going on, you\u2019ve always got to provide hope that you\u2019re going to make it through this. So those are lessons that I\u2019ve really always kept front-of-mind for me, and that I\u2019ve talked to my team about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Being a New York native and spending time in Virginia for his residency before coming to Southwest Florida, Antonucci said the region has been \u201cunbelievable\u201d for him and his family.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been an incredible place for us, and we\u2019ve lived all over the county,\u201d he said. \u201cWe lived in Cape Coral for a number of years, in Fort Myers, and now, south Lee County.\u00a0 So we\u2019ve seen the entire community, we\u2019ve seen it grow, and it\u2019s a special place. I think the thing about it that\u2019s most amazing are the people here. It\u2019s a very special group of people that made this area their home. We\u2019ve thoroughly enjoyed it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel overwhelming gratitude. Gratitude to this community. Gratitude to lead this organization, and I give a heartfelt \u2018thank you\u2019 to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ben Spence<\/p>\n
Spence joined Lee Health in 1995 and has served in many key roles during his healthcare career.\u00a0As CEO he is responsible for the health system daily operations, strategic execution, and performance improvement across hospitals, clinics and administrative services. has 31 years of extensive experience in healthcare finance and administration.\u00a0 He served as Chief Financial & Business Services Officer from 2014 to 2025 and was promoted to chief operating officer in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Spence) understands the culture, understands the people, and understands the organization and how we work and what we do,\u201d Antonucci said. \u201cSo I feel really good about the future of Lee Health and the opportunities that are going to be out there.\u201d<\/p>\n