The Power 50 list identifies the city’s most influential people in business and related communities. Louisville Business First selected honorees from individuals nominated by the public and those covered in the publication’s own reporting and sourcing, and did not include elected officials.

Schatzel secured a position on the fifth annual edition of the list in 2024 after being included in 2023’s “Five on the Rise.”Ěý

Under Schatzel’s leadership, UofL secured a $24 million funding package to launch the Louisville Clinical and Translational Research Center, a statewide effort to transform the university’s clinical research infrastructure and combat chronic conditions that disproportionately affect Kentuckians, like cardiovascular disease, stroke and cancer.Ěý

The UofL president also oversaw procurement of the funding for the new planned Health Sciences Simulation Center and Collaboration Hub at the downtown Health Sciences Center campus, a project made possible by a landmark $280 million investment by the state of Kentucky. The center will increase the impact of the university’s research and health professions education effort, benefitting people across the commonwealth by producing highly qualified physicians, dentists, nurses and public health professionals and fostering collaboration among the city’s health care organizations.

Also returning to the Power 50 list isĚý, who has led the university’s academic health system since early 2019 and was the overseer for the recently opened UofL Health – South Hospital. The new facility provides access to health care for residents of Bullitt County and southern Jefferson County.

The 2025 Power 50 list also includes numerous Cardinal alumni and donors, along with current and past members of UofL boards.

Additionally, Business First announced an inaugural Power 50 Hall of Fame category of honorees, all who have UofL-ties. They are:

• Ulysses “Junior” Bridgeman, most recently the owner of Heartland Coca-Cola Bottling Co. and Bridgeman Sports and Media
• Christina Lee Brown, philanthropist, UofL Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute
• Edward “Ed” Glasscock, chairman emeritus, Frost Brown Todd LLC
• Alice Houston, co-founder and owner, HJI Supply Chain Solutions
• David Jones Jr., president and founder, Chrysalis Ventures
• Mike Mountjoy, founding partner and chairman emeritus, MCM CPAs and Advisors (now Cherry Bekaert)
• Phoebe Wood, principal, CompaniesWood and co-founder of KirtleyWood

The honorees will be recognized in the March 28, 2025, print edition of Louisville Business First, and online around this time.

“More than 1,200 people — students, staff, faculty, alumni, donors, business and community partners, legislative leaders in Frankfort and D.C. — participated in those sessions,” said Schatzel, who began her tenure at the university in February and will be . “I hope that you take away from my remarks that I did not just listen, but that I heard from you during my listening sessions and that I’m committed to these eight presidential priorities.”

The eight priorities are:

1. To improve communications on our campus and trust in our community;
2. To enhance UofL’s research and innovation enterprise;
3. To advance inclusion and institutional equity;
4. To realize student success inclusive of all students;
5. To establish “s˛â˛őłŮ±đłľ˛Ô±đ˛ő˛ő” by standardizing and centralizing key systems and processes throughout the university;
6. To retell . “We are no longer a commuter school,” she said, calling UofL a “university with international impact and influence, an anchor institution for Louisville and Kentucky, and renown for our excellence in collegiate athletics.”
7. To create a coordinated community engagement plan to focus efforts for the best impact and become the foundation of UofL’s 2024 application for recertification as a .
8. To begin addressing concerns from the recently released faculty/staff compensation study. Reiterating that she is firmly committed to a deadline of Oct. 1 to present an initial plan that will address some concerns, she said, “Despite how we got there, addressing those concerns is now my responsibility.”

Schatzel also pointed to three items from the approved by the Board of Trustees earlier this year.

The first is the five-year Undergraduate Success Plan to advance inclusive student success and raise UofL’s six-year graduation rate from 62% to 70%. The plan also focuses on eliminating completion gaps for several demographic groups, such as Pell-eligible students who graduate approximately 10 percentage points below the overall student population.

The second is to complete and begin implementation of an Institutional Equity and Inclusion Plan that emphasizes UofL’s commitment “that all members of our community — inclusive of all identities, demographics, life experiences, abilities and ideologies — will be welcomed and supported so they can thrive and reach their fullest potential.”

Finally, she highlighted the new Five-year Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity Plan. It is aimed at retaining UofL’s coveted status as a with very high research activity by using benchmarks from other members of the . The AAU is made of the nation’s 71 leading research institutions.

“This is indeed one of the greatest universities in our nation and has created tremendous opportunity for thousands of students through the transformative education UofL offers,” she said. “… UofL graduates teachers, police officers, doctors, legislative leaders, entrepreneurs, pastors, engineers, accountants, artists, musicians and farmers. All our neighbors. … There is much to be proud of here at UofL and working together, there is indeed further greatness in our future.”

View photos from the Sept. 5 campus update event on .

Watch the entire address: