Corporate turnaround specialist gives Mayo Clinic $200 million

Jay Alix, the corporate consultant who helped General Motors survive the Great Recession, is giving $200 million to Mayo Clinic to be dedicated to the medical school, which will be renamed the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine in his honor.

The largest single gift in Mayo's history will expand scholarship opportunities, further innovation in the school's curriculum and establish a professorship, according to a statement from the clinic.

"My primary philanthropic interests are medicine and education. Mayo will offer an ideal opportunity to advance both fields," Alix said in the statement. "This gift will further enable Mayo's medical school to recruit the best medical students and to create a curriculum that trains them to harness evolving radical advances in medical science and technology to the greatest benefit of patients

Alix is a Mayo patient, a member of the Clinic's Board of Trustees and co-chairs Mayo's Global Advisory Council.

According to the statement, Alix began supporting the clinic in the 1980s and modeled his own company after Mayo Clinic's approach to medicine, which is predicated on collaboration among multiple specialties.

Mayo Clinic CEO John Noseworthy called the gift a "transformative endowment," saying "it enables faculty and students to explore new academic fields to better patient care, conduct research, apply new technologies and develop innovative teaching methods far into the future."

Scholarships are increasingly essential to medical schools, said Dr. Fredric Meyer, dean of the medical school. "They help attract diverse, high-potential learners who will care for our nation's increasingly diverse patient populations."