Who Owns Mayo Clinic?

The organization's origins trace to 1864, when English-born physician William Worrall Mayo settled his family in Rochester, Minnesota, and opened a medical practice. His sons William James Mayo and Charles Horace Mayo joined the practice in the 1880s, forming what became the first integrated group practice in American medicine.

The institutional founding date is generally given as 1889, when the Mayos partnered with the Sisters of Saint Francis to open Saint Marys Hospital after a devastating tornado prompted the need for a permanent hospital in Rochester. The hospital became the nucleus around which the group practice grew.

Through the early twentieth century, the Mayos pioneered the multispecialty group practice model: physicians pooling patients, records, and expertise under a salary-based system rather than competing individually for fees. The name Mayo Clinic entered common use around 1903 and was formally adopted. Surgeons from around the world traveled to Rochester to observe the brothers' operative techniques.

The practice incorporated as the nonprofit Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research in 1919, when the Mayo brothers transferred their assets to a charitable trust, an act that established the nonprofit character the organization retains. Saint Marys Hospital and a second facility, Methodist Hospital, anchored clinical operations for decades.

Mayo expanded beyond Minnesota with a Scottsdale, Arizona campus in 1987 and a Jacksonville, Florida campus in 1986, creating the three-destination-medical-center structure it maintains. The Mayo Clinic Health System added a regional network of community hospitals and clinics across Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa.

Under CEO Gianrico Farrugia since 2019, Mayo has pursued a strategy combining physical expansion, including a multibillion-dollar redevelopment of its Rochester campus, with digital transformation through Mayo Clinic Platform, its data and AI initiative. In 2025 the organization reported record results: $21.5 billion in operating revenue, $473 million in core operating income, and income from current activities of about $1.5 billion, while adding 12,400 employees to reach nearly 85,000 total staff.