Virginia
Business
Person
of the Year
Nancy Agee
President and CEO
Carilion Clinic
Roanoke
Somewhere, Nancy Agee says, there’s a photograph of her as a 5-year-old on Christmas morning, holding her new puppy while wearing her first nurse’s cap. The photo captures the beginning of Agee’s interest in a medical career.
“That poor puppy got bandaged and poked,” says the president and CEO of Carilion Clinic, a nonprofit regional health system. “He was very tolerant.”
As a teenager, Agee was a patient. She had five knee surgeries. Early on, she was told the problem was cancer and doctors would have to amputate her leg. Luckily, it wasn’t cancer and she kept her leg. The nurses and doctors who took care of Agee came to mean a lot to her. “I wanted to be like them,” she says.
