Ngozi Ezike

Ngozi Ogbunamiri Ezike is an American internist and pediatrician who was the first African-American woman director of the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) and served from January 2019 to March 2022. In 2022, she was appointed CEO and President of the Sinai Chicago hospital system.

Early life and education Ezike's father was an emigrant from Nigeria who settled in Los Angeles. He always dreamed of her becoming a doctor.

Ezike graduated with honors from Harvard College with a concentration in chemistry before earning her medical degree from the University of California, San Diego and completed her internship and residency at Rush Medical Center. She also earned a management certificate from Harvard Business School.

Ezike has an honorary Doctor of Community Health degree from Southern Illinois University Carbondale based on a recommendation that she “has been widely praised for her dedicated efforts as part of a leadership team within the State of Illinois to address the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the citizens of the Land of Lincoln.”

Ezike is fluent in Igbo, Spanish and French in addition to English, and also speaks some Swahili and Portuguese. In the early months of the pandemic in 2020, when both the governor and Ezike were on television and radio nearly every weekday to discuss the state's pandemic situation, Ezike would make her daily speech twice, first in English and then again in Spanish.

The Sinai Chicago hospital system hired Ezike as president and CEO, effective June 13, 2022, taking the place of retiring Karen Teitelbaum.

Ezike has also been a national policy advisor on juvenile correctional health topics, 2020 Illinois Academy of Family Physicians (IAFP) President's Award USA Today's Women of the Year for 2022