Jennifer Nickoles, the president of Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and a decades-long health care executive, will become the next president and chief executive at LifeBridge Health.

Nickoles will start at LifeBridge Health on March 1, taking over for the company’s current CEO, Neil Meltzer. Meltzer will remain at LifeBridge Health until June 2026 as his successor transitions into leading the organization.

For three decades, Nickoles worked at Johns Hopkins Medicine and held several leadership positions there, according to a biography from Johns Hopkins Medicine. She was the first woman to be president at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, which has been her position since 2023.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Nickoles worked with state and Baltimore leaders to build and license a field hospital to care for hundreds of COVID-19 patients at the Baltimore Convention Center.

She is LifeBridge Health’s third CEO and first woman to lead the organization since it was founded in 1998. The company is one of the largest health care providers in Maryland and employs over 14,000 people.

Meltzer said in a statement that he was impressed with the “breadth of her healthcare experience” and that Nickoles would embrace “digital solutions and her commitment to supporting and growing our workforce.”