Stuart Wright, who has served as chief financial officer of Upstate University Hospital for more than 15 years, has been named to Becker’s Hospital Review’s 2024 list of 77 top academic medical center CFOs to know.

Wright has made the list previously, most recently in 2023 and 2022.

As CFO, Wright oversees all financial functions for the hospital, patient access services, utilization management, and retail/contract pharmacy operations. Among Wright’s accomplishments during his tenure as CFO is his role in facilitating and driving the growth of the enterprise from $500 million in annual revenues to more than $2 billion. Part of this growth was related to his key role in successfully acquiring and integrating Community General Hospital. He also led an organization-wide re-engineering of revenue cycle processes, facilitated the growth of our retail pharmacy operations to more than $200 million in revenues in 5 years, and drove a paradigm shift in the organization toward financial disciplines, which has resulted in the hospital earnings profits in nine of the past ten years.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Wright was instrumental in monitoring hospital finances, ensuring funding for needed resources to fight the pandemic, working closely with the state and federal governments to address the financial implications of COVID-19 on hospitals, and promoting appropriate methodologies for the distribution of funds.

Before joining Upstate University Hospital, Wright served in other divisional CFO roles for both Cigna, Inc. (a national healthcare insurer) and Empire Blue Cross (a Medicare fiscal intermediary).

According to Becker’s, CFOs are key players in strategic financial planning, growth and partnerships for their organizations. These CFOs are responsible for the financial viability of their hospitals and health systems and are crucial to the overall success of their respective organizations.

Becker’s Hospital Review is a leading publication covering hospitals and health systems.