Orange County’s largest health system just showed the entire region how leadership is supposed to be handed forward. Dr. David Kim steps up as MemorialCare’s next CEO: a physician leader, a 12-year succession plan, and a standing ovation moment for two leaders at once.
When MemorialCare announced that David S. Kim, MD, would become president and chief executive officer effective July 1, 2026, with longtime CEO Barry Arbuckle, PhD, elevated to executive chairman, it capped one of the most thoughtful leadership transitions Southern California healthcare has seen. Per the company’s announcement, the handoff is the product of a deliberate succession planning process Arbuckle began years ago with MemorialCare’s board, a plan built patiently and executed exactly as designed.
Dr. Kim’s path made the outcome feel inevitable in the best way. Named president of the health system in early 2025, he took direct leadership of the clinical enterprise: four acute care hospitals, the medical foundation, and the clinical institutes. As CEO he now holds oversight of strategy and day to day operations across one of Orange County’s largest private employers, spanning Long Beach Medical Center, Miller Children’s & Women’s Hospital, Orange Coast Medical Center, and Saddleback Medical Center. Arbuckle, after 24 years in the seat, will co-chair the governing board and continue guiding the strategies he helped build.
“It’s a great honor to step into this new role and lead such an innovative and mission-driven organization like MemorialCare. When I returned to MemorialCare, I felt a profound and deeply personal calling to our mission, vision and values. This organization has always been more than a place of work for me; it has been a community, a purpose, and a home.”
Dr. David S. Kim, President & CEO, MemorialCare
Read that again: community, purpose, home. That is what leadership continuity sounds like when it is real, and it is exactly the quality the best boards are hiring for across the SoCal talent market right now. Board chair Resa Evans said it plainly in the announcement: MemorialCare is fortunate to have two extraordinary and proven leaders, and the organization will keep benefiting from both.
There is a lesson here for every organization in the region. Succession is not an event, it is a discipline. MemorialCare promoted its next CEO into the president seat first, gave the market time to watch him lead, and let the transition arrive as a celebration instead of a surprise. That is the model, and it is the same principle we champion in hiring for character: build the leader before you need the title filled.
The move also confirms something beautiful happening in healthcare leadership: the physician CEO is becoming a defining profile. Clinical credibility at the very top changes how strategy gets made, and MemorialCare now stands as Orange County’s flagship example. For the thousands of clinicians building leadership resumes across LA and OC, Dr. Kim’s appointment is proof that the path from patient care to the corner office is wide open.
To Dr. David Kim: congratulations on leading the system you call home. And to Barry Arbuckle: 24 years of stewardship, finished with the rarest gift a CEO can give, a seamless handoff. That is legacy.
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Sources & verification
Appointment: MemorialCare press room · PR Newswire (effective July 1, 2026)
Chief Talent Strategist & Editor-in-Chief | 26-year global recruiting veteran, #1 bestselling author, cancer survivor & humanitarian. Founder of Recruiter Hustle, OC/LA's no-filter media platform for talent, finance & recruiting professionals. Heart. Human. Hustle.