Katherine Gottlieb is resigning as president and chief executive of Southcentral Foundation, one of the state’s largest medical providers and a hub of the Native health care system.
The news was announced Monday morning, two weeks after Southcentral fired three dentists, including Kevin Gottlieb, the CEO’s husband, who was also a senior executive at the organization.
The dentists were alleged to have falsified health records to show a different provider had conducted a number of routine dental exams than the practitioner who’d done the work. The motivation for falsifying records in that manner is not clear. Southcentral says all exams were conducted by qualified, licensed dentists.
Katherine Gottlieb has been with Southcentral since its early days and has built the organization into a massive operation with 2,500 employees and revenues of $400 million. She was hired in 1987 and has been its chief executive for 29 years. She will stay on until the end of August, according to an emailed announcement from Southcentral.
Gottlieb is a celebrated leader of Alaska Native and American Indian health care and wellness. She is on the faculty of Harvard Medical School as a part-time lecturer on global health and social medicine. She’s received numerous national awards, including a 2004 MacArthur Fellowship – known as a “genius grant.”
The Southcentral announcement provides no reason for the resignation. Her annual salary was $641,000, according to the organization’s 2018 tax return. Kevin Gottlieb, as vice president and chief of staff, earned $724,000 that year.
Southcentral Vice President April Kyle will serve as interim CEO.
