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Milton Johnson retired as chairman and CEO of hospital giant HCA Healthcare Inc. in 2018 after 37 years at the company — but his influence hasn’t faded in the years since. Johnson is chair of the Belmont University Board of Trustees, overseeing the local university’s growth. Johnson and his wife, Denice, have also been instrumental in creating the university’s new medical school, the Dr. Tommy Frist Jr. College of Medicine. The couple donated $10 million to the school in 2021. The college, named for HCA’s co-founder, will begin taking applications for its first class in November. Throughout his career, Johnson has been an active participant in Nashville’s community, serving on boards such as the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee and the Nashville Health Care Council, among others. This year, in the wake of the shooting at The Covenant School, Johnson joined other prominent business executives on the advisory board of Voices for a Safer Tennessee, a nonprofit promoting gun safety laws. The longtime HCA executive continues to be a powerful voice in the local business community and beyond.

Gregory Jones is President of Belmont University, a position he has held since June 1, 2021. He was educated at the University of Denver (B.A. and M.P.A.) and Duke University (M.Div. and Ph.D.). He is committed to serving in the Nashville and middle Tennessee region to strengthen partnerships and cultivate flourishing across the region.

Greg is known as a leader and strategist whose creative engagement has helped institutions across the world and in local communities to create transformational resource models. He is known for an entrepreneurial mindset as well as emphases on character and purpose in higher education, emphases in his leadership at Belmont.

He is the author or editor of 19 books and has authored more than 200 essays/articles. He is known for books on forgiveness (Embodying Forgiveness and the co-authored Forgiving as We’ve Been Forgiven), Christian leadership (the co-authored Resurrecting Excellence) and social innovation (Christian Social Innovation). His most recent book is the co-authored Navigating the Future: Traditioned Innovation for Wilder Seas (2021).

In Nashville, Greg serves on the boards of The United Way, the Nashville Public Education Foundation, the Nashville Health Care Council, and on the Steering Committee for Nashville’s Agenda. He is a member of the Leadership Nashville Class of 2022. More broadly, he serves on the Boards of the John Templeton Foundation, the McDonald Agape Foundation, and the India Collective. He is an ordained minister. He is married to The Reverend Dr. Susan Pendleton Jones, also an ordained minister who currently serves in a variety of capacities at Belmont and in Nashville (including on the boards of The Store and The Next Door). They have three children, all married, and four grandchildren.