Gary C. Butts

Gary C. Butts, MD, is a visionary leader with decades of experience in designing, developing, and managing diversity and inclusion programs and strategies. Dr. Butts is Executive Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, as well as Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer for the Mount Sinai Health System. He also is the Dean for Diversity Programs, Policy and Community Affairs for the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. In these roles, Dr. Butts is responsible for oversight, management, and integration of all aspects of diversity programs and policies for the Mount Sinai Health System to ensure diversity and inclusion as an integral core institutional value and resource across the health system, including the medical and graduate schools, graduate medical education, and the Mount Sinai Health System hospitals.

Additionally, Dr. Butts holds joint appointments as Professor of Pediatrics, Medical Education, and Environmental Medicine and Public Health, and has been an integral member of the senior leadership team at the Icahn School of Medicine since 1998. He has spent more than three decades providing health care services to East and Central Harlem residents.

Under his tenure, and with the support of an extraordinary leadership team in the Office for Diversity and Inclusion, Mount Sinai has been recognized by Higher Education Excellence in Diversity and the Human Rights Campaign for LGBTQ inclusion and quality care. His efforts helped propel the Health System to a No. 1 ranking on DiversityInc’s “Top Hospitals and Health Systems” list for 2017 and 2018. And, for the past two years, Forbes has ranked Mount Sinai among the top 20 employers for diversity in the nation. Recently, Dr. Butts led the effort to launch the Diversity Innovation Hub, of which he is Director and a co-Founder. The program addresses the inclusion of women and ethnic minorities in health care innovation and technology as well as advances social entrepreneurship for the demographic.Since 2004, he has directed the Center for Multicultural and Community Affairs (CMCA), which has been recognized as a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Center of Excellence for Minority Health. Under his leadership, the student body at the School of Medicine has become one of the most diverse among U.S. private medical schools, and the School has doubled the percentage of black and Latino faculty and housestaff. Dr. Butts has directed the Mount Sinai Office for Diversity and Inclusion since 2014.