Frist '74 joins investment firm

Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist '74 will join a Chicago-based private equity firm specializing in healthcare upon completing his one-year term as a visiting professor at the Wilson School.

Cressey & Co., announced Monday that Frist has joined the company as a partner and will serve as chairman of its executive board. Though the announcement may come as a surprise to some, Frist said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian yesterday that he has planned on entering the private sector ever since leaving the Senate in January.

"The philosophy of growing and building and creating new companies to deliver better healthcare was my basic premise," he said. "I wanted to get involved in taking ideas and finding appropriate management and expertise to execute them. I identified [working with] Bryan Cressey, who has been doing this for 30 years, as a good fit."

Though the appointment is effective immediately, Frist said that he will not begin working at the firm until the end of the academic year. At that time, he will redirect the four days per week that he currently spends at the University to working with the firm. The other three days will be devoted to partnering with policy organizations on global health projects.

Frist described the recently formed firm as a "middle-market sized fund" of $500 million that will help develop 12 to 15 new companies. Within the firm, the heart surgeon will focus on selecting firms for longterm investment.

"Senator Frist is a visionary and one of the most influential leaders in U.S. healthcare, and we are pleased that he is a part of our team," Bryan Cressey, a partner in the firm, said in a press release. "He has a unique combination of experiences — both as a practicing physician and as a former majority leader in the U.S. Senate — that we believe will help us immensely as we identify and partner with management teams to transform growing healthcare businesses into world-class companies."

Frist sees his new private-sector job as a way to forward his goals of making healthcare more transparent and efficient while limiting government waste and inefficiencies. "I will be most useful in public-private synergies, getting the best out of both the public world with Medicare and Medicaid and the private sector as far as innovation and creativity and flexibility," he said.

Though a spokesman for the firm declined to comment on the specifics of Frist's compensation, he did say that Frist "is a partner in every sense of the word."

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Prior to his time in the Senate, Frist taught at Vanderbilt Medical School as an assistant professor from 1986-93. In a previous interview with The Daily Princetonian, Frist referred to the Vanderbilt Chancellorship as a potential future job that would allow him to return to academics. He has also not ruled out running for an office such as the governor of Tennessee or the presidency.

Frist said that though he will probably stay with the firm for at least 10 years, his new position does not signify a permanent departure from academia.

"I'm having a blast at Princeton, and I will continue teaching in some way," he said. "It's confusing to people, going back and forth ... but I've been doing this my whole career."