BID-Needham’s John Fogarty Awarded Business Chamber Honor

November 13, 2026
• Fogarty, the outgoing president and CEO of the hospital, recounted highlights and challenges over the last 15 years at the regional chamber’s annual business breakfast on Friday.

After nearly four decades in the healthcare space, John Fogarty still declares that “hospitals are just the coolest places to work.”

Fogarty has led Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Needham as president and CEO since 2011, navigating an ongoing expansion, a neighboring hospital closure and a worldwide pandemic. Recruiting top talent to the Boston suburbs, facing steep and uncontrollable healthcare costs and other challenges force you “to live by your wits,” he said.

“Some days you go home with a big knot in your stomach,” Fogarty said, “but you never go home wondering if what you do makes any difference.”

At the end of this year, Fogarty will step down from his role and retire. During its annual fall business breakfast at the Newton Marriott on Friday, the Charles River Regional Chamber presented Fogarty with the R.L. Tennant Award, an annual honor presented to someone whose local contributions made an enduring impact.

In his remarks, Fogarty charted the milestones in his tenure: opening the Lank Cancer Center and a surgical pavilion in 2014, then a new breast care center in 2016 and an outpatient clinical center in 2019. In that time, the hospital physically doubled in size.

But the pandemic threw them for a loop, as did the simultaneous closure of Norwood Hospital, which brought a 50% bump in patient volume to BID-Needham’s emergency room. That “crushed our workforce,” Fogarty said, but community partnerships supported staff. They’ve since reduced employee turnover by almost 50%, he said.

“What was learned on this tumultuous journey… is despite all the technological advances, the advent of AI, our industry’s vulnerability to changes in political power, and all the rest of it, it still comes down to people,” he said.

Over the last 15 years, BID-Needham raised more than $81 million, said Joe Campanelli, the chair, president and CEO of Needham Bank. Those donations signal a collective trust in Fogarty and his leadership, he said.

“People invest like that because they believe in the institution, they believe in the mission, and they believe in his leadership,” said Campanelli, who also serves as a hospital trustee. “John, you built facilities, you expanded services, you raised extraordinary support for the hospital. But I like to think your legacy is the trust you build with patients and families, with your colleagues, and with this community. You leave BID-Needham stronger, and you leave this community better, because you’ve led it.”

Campanelli presented Fogarty with the award.

Fogarty previously spent 22 years at St. Joseph Health Services in Rhode Island, followed by a stint at CharterCare Health Partners.

When considering an honoree for this year’s award, “there really was no one better for it,” said CRRC’s Max Woolf, who manages government affairs and public policy.

“John has served the community for so many years,” Woolf said. “He kind of built the hospital back up, and he did so much to make it a really important institution in Needham… He’s just such a great community partner for us, always out there supporting the business community, and I think it’s time we recognized him.”

BID-Needham — located at 148 Chestnut St. and formerly Glover Hospital, until the mid-1990s — offers inpatient and outpatient services and is a 73-bed acute care facility.

The hospital now eyes its next chapter, without Fogarty at the helm, though he’s still had a hand in expanding on the other side of Chestnut Street. There, the hospital plans to strengthen its ambulatory services, surgery, behavioral health, primary care and more.

The future of Massachusetts healthcare remains bright, Fogarty said.

“There is no doubt that when it comes to healthcare, Massachusetts is still number one,” he said,
“and that’s something that we should all take a lot of pride in.”

His successor, Whitney Fenyak, starts in January.

Though he will miss the people and relationships built during his tenure, Fogarty admitted he won’t miss his “lousy 50-mile commute from Barrington, Rhode Island.”

There was a reason, though, why Fogarty stayed in the gig.

“We do these jobs, or at least I do, because in spite of it all, healthcare remains the most meaningful and impactful sector of our economy,” he said.