Leana Wen

Current Company

George Washington University — Professor & Health Policy Leader

The Doctor Who Became a Public Health Force

Dr. Leana Wen came to the United States as a child immigrant from China, earned her medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis and a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, and became an emergency physician with a fierce commitment to public health. As Baltimore's Health Commissioner, Leana Wen made national headlines by declaring the city's opioid epidemic a public health emergency and issuing a blanket prescription for naloxone — the overdose-reversal drug — to all Baltimore residents.

Leana Wen's willingness to treat addiction as a medical crisis rather than a criminal justice issue put her at the forefront of a public health movement that has since been adopted nationwide. She later served briefly as president of Planned Parenthood before returning to academic medicine, emergency practice, and her role as one of America's most visible public health communicators.

A Voice for Science in the Public Square

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Leana Wen became one of the most prominent medical voices in American media, serving as a CNN medical analyst and writing for The Washington Post. Her ability to translate complex epidemiological data into plain language for a general audience made her an essential resource during a period of extraordinary public confusion about masking, vaccines, and risk assessment.

As a professor at George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health, Leana Wen now focuses on pandemic preparedness, healthcare policy, and training the next generation of public health leaders. Her career arc — from immigrant child to ER doctor to city health commissioner to national public health voice — reflects the kind of impact-driven leadership that defines the emerging class of healthcare leaders on CEO Watchers.