David W. Zaas, MD, MBA serves as Chief Executive Officer of Duke University Health System (DUHS), where he leads strategy, operations, and performance for one of the nation’s premier academic health systems, advancing excellence in patient care, research, and education. An accomplished leader with more than 20 years of executive experience, he has led complex, integrated organizations through growth, clinical transformation, and system integration. Across his career, he has held senior leadership roles at major academic medical centers, consistently driving performance, expanding access, and strengthening alignment across clinical, academic, and physician enterprise missions.

Most recently, Dr. Zaas served as President and CEO of Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist and
Executive Vice President for Clinical Health Affairs at Wake Forest University, where he led a $6+ billion academic health system encompassing multiple hospitals, a medical school with two campuses, and a large multispecialty clinical network.

Previously, at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Health, he served as System Chief Clinical Officer as well as CEO of both the MUSC Health Charleston Division and Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital, with responsibility for a $2.4 billion clinical enterprise and approximately 15,000 teammates.

Earlier in his career at Duke Health, he held progressive leadership roles, including President of Duke Raleigh Hospital, Chief Medical Officer for the Duke Faculty Practice and Vice Chair for Clinical Practice in the Department of Medicine, contributing to significant clinical and academic growth as well as enterprise alignment. He started his career as an academic physician scientist focused on clinical and translational research to improve outcomes from lung transplantation while leading the world’s largest lung transplant program as the medical director for lung and heart-lung transplantation at Duke University Hospital. 

A pulmonary and critical care physician, Dr. Zaas earned his undergraduate degree from Yale University, his medical degree from Northwestern University, and an MBA from Duke University. He completed his residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital and fellowship training at Duke University.