Changing of the guard at Lee Health

Sep 3, 2026 By CJ HADDAD 10 min read

The long-time leader of Southwest Florida’s largest healthcare provider is saying goodbye. 

President and CEO of Lee Health, Dr. Larry Antonucci, is stepping away from his post and leaves behind a legacy of service spanning decades and immense growth in the region.

Stepping in will be Ben Spence, who currently serves as Lee Health’s chief operating officer.

“At some point you’ve got to decide when it’s time, and I think the timing is really right for me personally right now and also for my family and most importantly for the system,” Antonucci said of why now. “You never want to leave a position or a health system in a bad place, and that’s not the case here. Lee Health is strong. We’re in a great position. We’ve got a great strategic plan, (we’re) financially strong, and so I’m very optimistic about what’s going to happen in the future. Growth will continue, the commitment, and delivering high-quality care will always continue.”

Antonucci, 72, has served as Lee Health’s president and CEO since June of 2017. Before joining Lee Health, Antonucci was a well-respected, practicing obstetrician and gynecologist in Fort Myers for 24 years. In 2007, Antonucci joined Lee Health as chief administrative officer for Cape Coral Hospital. In 2009, he was appointed Chief Operating Officer of Hospital Services for the health system and assumed responsibility for Physician Services in early 2010. In October 2011, Dr. Antonucci was named chief operating officer for the health system.

Antonucci said he is looking forward to spending more time with his family and three grandchildren, and wants to pursue opportunities he was unable to serving in his role. 

Currently the Chairman of the Board at Florida Gulf Coast University, he said he wants to work more with the university and learn more about higher education. 

“And see what else comes my way that I may want to do,” he said. 

Antonucci attended medical school at the University of Miami and completed his residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Eastern Virginia Graduate School of Medicine. He also earned a master’s degree in business administration from the University of South Florida.

Antonucci serves on the Florida Hospital Association Board of Directors, the Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida Board of Directors, the America’s Essential Hospitals Political Action Committee Board of Directors, the Florida Gulf Coast University Foundation Board, and the LeeSar Board of Directors.

As for his rising the ranks over the years with Lee Health, Antonucci said it was an unplanned career path. 

“Opportunities came up as I continued to work, and it’s been incredibly rewarding,” he said. 

Antonucci is a strong believer in engaging and empowering front-line staff to improve an organization’s culture and quality. During stints as chief administrative officer for Cape Coral Hospital and as chief operating officer for Lee Health, he frequently embedded himself with front-line work teams, such as housekeeping and patient transport, as a way to stay connected to the care provided to patients each day and identify ways to improve quality and remove barriers.

Antonucci said his experience being face-to-face with patients is a driving factor in his success. 

“One of the things that is so critical as a leader is the ability to listen, and the ability to teach,” he said. “And I think that started from the very first day I walked into an exam room. I felt one of my roles was to teach my patients about their healthcare and what they were facing and what they were doing, and I never forgot that. Whether I was in an exam room or a boardroom, I used those same principles to move the organization forward. Having a background in practicing medicine was invaluable for me moving forward, because I understood the issues that were being brought to me by the nursing staff, by physicians. It just made it that much easier for me to be able to navigate through a lot of the complexities of healthcare because I was there.”

Over decades of tenure working in healthcare in Southwest Florida, the growth of the community has been immense. With more people comes a greater need for additional healthcare services to meet the need. 

“It’s been remarkable,” Antonucci said of the local growth. “If you think about the history of Lee Heath dating back to 1916 with a small four-bed hospital in downtown (Fort Myers) to where we are today, we’ve been able to grow with the community and really, that’s what this is all about. We’re a community healthcare system. We’re a nonprofit — every dollar that we bring in is paid out in salary, supplies and reinvested in the community so we can build new facilities and serve patients as the population grows.”

The growth in Cape Coral has been especially eye-opening, with Lee Health expanding capacity at Cape Coral Hospital and adding various outpatient facilities throughout the city in recent years. 

“Cape Coral is obviously one of the fastest-growing areas in the region,” Antonucci said. “We have been able to expand our physician practices there, to expand the hospital to the point now where we’re just about completely built out on the Cape Coral campus. We’ve added a lot of robust outpatient centers on Pine Island Road, etcetera, and now we’re looking at a facility on Veterans Parkway that’s going to be really amazing.”

Of course a tenure as long as Antonucci’s doesn’t come without challenges. 

A global pandemic and destructive hurricanes top the list. 

“We were hit with a disease we had never seen before and really didn’t know how to treat,” he said. “One of the biggest challenges we faced was the amount of information that was being circulated. One of the most important roles we had, in addition to caring for patients, was to be that source of truth for the community — that’s one of the reasons why we did so much outreach and so much media coverage to be able to be that source of truth. To be able to say we’re learning what we’re doing every day. The things that we did last week, we’re not doing this week because we’ve discovered that they really don’t work. And I think the humility that it brought to us in dealing with a disease that we didn’t know about was eye opening, and it was very challenging. But I couldn’t be more proud of our team and how they handled it and what they did. If you remember back then, I mean, there were staff members that were sleeping in their garage. They were afraid they would bring disease into their homes and just (heard) remarkable stories.”

Working in Southwest Florida of course presents the chance of major hurricanes, and one came via Hurricane Ian in 2022. 

“Hurricane Ian was an amazing challenge for us when we lost our municipal water supply and we had to deal with that,” Antonucci said. “And again, watching the staff working day and night to take care of the patients — both before, during and after the storm — was a challenge.” 

Antonucci said guiding the system through Ian is possibly the highlight of his entire career.

“It provided so much pride for me, and gratitude, to have the opportunity to lead a team like this,” he said. “We had staff members’ cars floating away out of the Health Park hospital, and I’m seeing this looking out the window, but yet our staff is providing care to patients around the clock. That moment really stands out.”

And of course, there are healthcare concerns on a broader scale.

“If you think about things more globally, the challenges we’re facing in healthcare right now with regard to access, affordability — these are the things that really do keep us up at night,” Antonucci said. “It’s how can we deliver care in better ways and more efficient ways so that we can drive the cost down?”

As for successes, Antonucci said, “It’s leading the organization through change, through dynamic things that happen in terms of community and maintaining the focus on patients and their families. That’s really been what I’m most proud of through it all. It really really comes out to, what are you doing for patients and their families? Are you doing the right things and making the right decisions big or small? That’s what I’m most proud of over my career.”

Under Antonucci’s leadership, Lee Health has embedded a culture that elevates the human experience in health care through the ExceptionalLee Promise, which simply means that team members go the extra mile to treat everyone they meet and care for with kindness and respect. That means listening, communicating and compassionate care — all in a safe environment.

Of his “mantra,” and what Antonucci preached during his tenure, he said, “No. 1 is being patient-centered. Historically, we’ve built health systems around the providers — what’s easy for providers? What’s best for providers? That’s created an environment that’s not always very patient friendly. So putting patients first, I think, is top of the list.”

Antonucci said he often spoke to his team about four key attributes of leadership in his mind, which are trust, compassion, stability, and hope. 

“I think you’ve got to have a trusting relationship with your staff,” he said. “You’ve got to have a trusting relationship with the patients and their family. They’ve got to trust you that you’re looking out for them. You’ve got to have compassion for them and what they’re going through. Stability — just think about hurricanes, think about the pandemic — we had to be that stable force here. And then the last is hope. No matter what’s going on, you’ve always got to provide hope that you’re going to make it through this. So those are lessons that I’ve really always kept front-of-mind for me, and that I’ve talked to my team about.”

Being a New York native and spending time in Virginia for his residency before coming to Southwest Florida, Antonucci said the region has been “unbelievable” for him and his family. 

“It’s been an incredible place for us, and we’ve lived all over the county,” he said. “We lived in Cape Coral for a number of years, in Fort Myers, and now, south Lee County.  So we’ve seen the entire community, we’ve seen it grow, and it’s a special place. I think the thing about it that’s most amazing are the people here. It’s a very special group of people that made this area their home. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.

“I feel overwhelming gratitude. Gratitude to this community. Gratitude to lead this organization, and I give a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to everyone.”

Ben Spence

Spence joined Lee Health in 1995 and has served in many key roles during his healthcare career. As CEO he is responsible for the health system daily operations, strategic execution, and performance improvement across hospitals, clinics and administrative services. has 31 years of extensive experience in healthcare finance and administration.  He served as Chief Financial & Business Services Officer from 2014 to 2025 and was promoted to chief operating officer in 2025.

“(Spence) understands the culture, understands the people, and understands the organization and how we work and what we do,” Antonucci said. “So I feel really good about the future of Lee Health and the opportunities that are going to be out there.”

To reach CJ HADDAD , please email cjhaddad@breezenewspapers.com