Garet Hil
- Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Garet Hil is the Founder & CEO of the National Kidney Registry. Mr. Hil became involved in transplantation when his daughter was diagnosed with kidney failure at age 10. After he and his wife were both deemed incompatible, a difficult and extensive donor search finally resulted in a successful transplant for their daughter. That process inspired them to create a better way to facilitate transplants for the thousands of people with incompatible donors in desperate need of a kidney transplant.
In 2007 they founded the National Kidney Registry (NKR) to organize paired exchange transplants. The NKR quickly became the largest and most productive paired exchange program in the world, essentially eliminating the problem of incompatible living donors in the United States. In 2015 Mr. Hil donated his kidney through the NKR’s Voucher Program, facilitating eight transplants and generating a voucher for his daughter, should she ever need another transplant.
Prior to founding the National Kidney Registry, Mr. Hil held leadership positions in companies from a variety of industries including securities processing, technology, logistics, digital printing, fulfillment, steel distribution and textile manufacturing. He has successfully led five startups, three turnarounds, four acquisitions and two divestitures including the successful $1.1 billion sale of the company he started and led for 14 years.
Mr. Hil earned his BS cum laude from the University of Montana in three years and his MBA from The Wharton School. He has authored many medical research papers and a book to help patients achieve a successful living donor transplant. Mr. Hil personally organized the largest kidney swap in history, which included 70 participants across 25 hospitals, and was certified as the Guinness World Record.
His work in transplantation was featured on the front page of the Sunday New York Times and has been profiled in numerous national television programs including CBS Evening News, ABC World News and Nightline. Mr. Hil served in the USMC, completing Navy Combat Dive School and Army Airborne training while serving in a Recon unit prior to his honorable discharge in 1985. He is a Donor Games athlete and lives with his family in Greenwich, Connecticut.
