About Saima Aftab, MD

Saima Aftab, MD, serves as Senior Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer and President of Network Services for Nicklaus Children’s Health System, the region’s only specialty licensed healthcare system exclusively for children.

With deep expertise in clinical practice and medical leadership, Dr. Saima Aftab’s strength as a senior global healthcare executive stems from her passion for inclusive leadership and mentorship. Drawing from more than two decades of experience as a practicing neonatologist, Dr. Aftab brings together clinical teams with their operations counterparts to develop and deliver strategies that increase access to care for families. With her guidance, teams work together to grow services and offerings throughout South Florida and beyond.

In her role, Dr. Aftab oversees the planning and development of programs aligned to the strategic and tactical vision of Nicklaus Children’s operational networks, situated in Miami-Dade, Broward, Collier, Martin, Monroe and Palm Beach counties. She leads business development initiatives, identifies new growth areas and assesses and negotiates strategic partnerships and market opportunities to move Nicklaus Children’s forward. Dr. Aftab helped redesign the health system’s operating model to best support the growing footprint of Nicklaus Children’s in South Florida.

Dr. Aftab also leads core shared services that support Nicklaus Children’s networks including Strategy and Business Development, Global Health, and Marketing, Communications and Branding. 

Prior to joining Nicklaus Children’s, Dr. Aftab served as director of education in the Department of Pediatric Newborn Medicine and assistant director of the STRATUS Center for Medical Simulation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and has held academic appointments at Harvard Medical School, Tufts University School of Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. She attained her Executive MBA at the University of Miami Herbert Business School. Dr. Aftab serves on the Boards of March of Dimes, Women in Healthcare, and the Cognizant Classic, and was an inaugural member of the Chief Miami chapter.