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CFO Bradley Clark’s pay rose 83%, the biggest increase; Advocate Health CEO Gene Woods’ pay was not disclosed
(Charlotte Ledger file photo)
by Michelle Crouch
Co-published with N.C. Health News
The compensation of Atrium Health’s top executives rose by an average of 21% in 2025, according to newly released records.
The executive compensation report from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority, which does business as Atrium Health, lists 11 executives who earned annual compensation ranging from $906,000 to $5.2M.
Atrium released the report Tuesday in response to an Aug. 20 request from The Ledger/NC Health News.
The report did not include the pay of Gene Woods, CEO of Atrium parent Advocate Health, or other top Advocate executives.
Last year was the first time Atrium excluded Woods from the report, saying he was not included because he is an Advocate Health executive rather than an executive of the hospital authority. That means his pay will not become public until Advocate files its 990 tax form, which typically happens in November.
Woods earned $25.8M in 2024, a 49% increase from the year before, according to the Advocate tax filing released last November.
Atrium has previously said that competitive compensation is necessary to recruit and retain top leaders capable of running increasingly complex hospital systems.
In 2025, Atrium Health brought in a record $14.1B in revenue. It ended the year with $1.66B in excess revenues-over-expenses – the nonprofit equivalent of profit. That’s a 26% increase from 2024. Those figures do not include Wake Forest Baptist Health or hospitals in Illinois and Wisconsin that joined with Atrium in 2022 to create Advocate Health.
Double-digit raises
Among executives with comparable figures from 2024, compensation rose by an average of 21.5% in 2025, well below the 41% average increase the previous year.
The highest compensation and biggest increase went to Chief Financial Officer Bradley Clark, whose compensation jumped 83% to $5.18M.
The next highest-paid executive was Ken D. Haynes, who is now chief enterprise services officer at Advocate Health. The report listed his compensation as $5.02M, essentially flat from 2024.
A note said he was president of the hospital authority only until June 1, “but dollars represent the full year of compensation.” The Atrium attorney who released the report did not respond to a question asking if the $5.02 million includes compensation Haynes received from Advocate after his promotion.
After Clark and Haynes, Atrium’s highest-paid executives were:
Scott Rissmiller, chief clinical officer: $4.59M, up 14% from $4.03M in 2024.
Brett Denton, chief legal officer: $4.48M, up 15.9% from $3.87M in 2024.
Carol Lovin, chief of staff and chief integration officer: $3.65M, up 1% from $3.61M in 2024.
Rasu Shrestha, chief innovation and commercialization officer: $3.27M, down 0.6% from $3.29M in 2024.
Each executive’s total compensation includes their base salary, as well as bonuses, plan-based incentives and other forms of compensation.
Whose pay must be disclosed?
Atrium operates both as part of Advocate Health, a $39B multistate nonprofit hospital system, and as the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority, a public body.
That unusual corporate structure makes it difficult to know which executives fall under the state’s disclosure requirements for public hospitals, and the distinction between Atrium and Advocate can be hard to follow. Woods, for example, appeared before Wake County commissioners in June on Atrium’s behalf to answer questions about a proposed combination with Raleigh-based WakeMed Health and Hospitals.
North Carolina law requires hospital authorities to disclose the compensation of anyone serving as their CEO or “acting in a similar capacity.”
Public hospitals must also disclose their highest-paid other executive officers and the five highest-paid “key employees” who are not already included in that group.
Executive pay under scrutiny
Hospital executive pay has come under scrutiny recently in North Carolina and across the country. Critics say multi-million-dollar executive compensation packages are hard to justify for nonprofit systems that receive millions in state and federal tax exemptions and whose mission is to serve the public.
Woods’ compensation has also drawn attention as Atrium looks to combine with WakeMed, a regional health system in Raleigh, with some pointing to the disparity between the two systems’ executive pay. WakeMed CEO Donald Gintzig earned about $1.9M in 2024.
This year, Sen. Jim Burgin (R-Angier) introduced legislation that would cap nonprofit hospital CEO compensation at 400 times the lowest-paid full-time worker’s compensation. That would limit Woods’ compensation to about $15.7M annually — a 39% pay cut from his 2024 compensation. The bill would also require nonprofit hospitals to report their CEO pay by March 1.
The bill, SB 978, cleared the Senate Health Care and Judiciary committees and was referred to the Senate appropriations committee on June 16.
Michelle Crouch covers health care. If you have tips or ideas for her, please shoot her an email at [email protected].
This article is part of a partnership between The Charlotte Ledger and North Carolina Health News to produce original health care reporting focused on the Charlotte area.
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