North Shore University Hospital announces new executive director

Rose Weldon
Dr. Alessandro Bellucci (left) is stepping down from his position as Executive Director of North Shore University Hospital, and will be succeeded by Jon Sendach (right). (Photos courts of Northwell Health)

Dr. Alessandro Bellucci, North Shore University Hospital executive director, will step down from his position at the end of the year, Northwell Health said last week. He will be succeeded by Jon Sendach, the hospital’s deputy executive director.

Bellucci, a nephrologist who has served on North Shore’s medical staff for 37 years, has served as the hospital’s chief executive for the past six years after a brief term as medical director.

“My background is not a traditional academic background that leads to a position like this,” Bellucci said. “I’ve been in clinical positions since 1979. I needed somebody who could help me though a new job that I didn’t know much about.”

Shortly after Bellucci was named executive director in 2013, Sendach was brought in as deputy executive director, a new position at the time.

“John has been my right arm and my left brain,” Bellucci said. “He had the functional and organizational understanding of how the hospital runs, so he was the perfect person.”

Sendach, a graduate of Roslyn High School, Colgate University and the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University, served as associate executive director of finance at Glen Cove Hospital before coming to North Shore in 2009 to begin his term as associate executive director for hospital operations, and also worked as an emergency medical technician at the hospital’s Center for Emergency Medical Services in New Hyde Park.

“I have a much more traditional administration background,” Sendach said. “I started after business school in finance at Glen Cove Hospital. Here, I was promoted to deputy, a role we didn’t have at the time. And we were paired up to work together.”

Bellucci and Sendach worked together to develop programs for the hospital, including expanding North Shore’s kidney transplant program and adding heart and liver transplant programs, the only such programs in any hospital east of New York City.

The appointment was the result of discussions between the hospital’s board of trustees and Northwell Health CEO and president Michael Dowling, with Bellucci’s input.

A news release from Northwell Health said that Bellucci will remain at North Shore as “a senior physician within the Division of Nephrology” and that he will “continue to serve as an associate professor of medicine at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell.”

“It’s really an opportunity to be back in my clinical role, which I never really abandoned, to see patients, to mentor and teach young physicians,” Bellucci said.

Sendach, who will begin his position on Jan. 1, said that his sights will remain on growth for North Shore.

“There’s a change coming on Jan. 1, but it’s a continuation and an organized succession that’s been in the works formally and informally in the last few months,” Sendach said. “We remain dedicated to being the best hospital in the area.”

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