The rapid advance of AI, state legislative battles, and even a Great Dane—these are just a few of the things keeping our new CSO Advisory Council up at night.
We’ve assembled an expert panel of senior strategy leaders to consult on our research throughout the year. The council’s inaugural members include:
Chris Watts, Chief Strategy Officer, BJC Healthcare
Patrick McGill, President and CEO, Community Health Network
Caryn Esten, Chief Transformation and Integration Officer, Froedtert ThedaCare Health
Jimmy Phillips, Chief Strategy Officer, Kettering Health
Stephanie Fendrick, EVP, Chief Strategy Officer, Virtua Health
This group will help Strategy Catalyst continually update our research agenda and offer quick reactions to breaking news and major developments. This will supplement (but not replace) our existing outreach to the full membership.
As an icebreaker to introduce the panel’s members, we had each of them briefly describe “what keeps them up at night” as strategy and transformation leaders:
Chris Watts, Chief Strategy Officer
BJC Healthcare (St. Louis, Mo.)
“The only thing that really keeps me up at night is our Great Dane!
Otherwise, it’s about filtering out the signal from the noise. There’s always a lot coming at us, whether that be opportunities for growth, changes in reimbursement, policy, etc. I think a big part of our jobs is to try to sift through the noise to identify the strategies and actions that will position our organizations to be successful for a long time. So, I often think about whether we’re focusing on the right signals.”
Patrick McGill, President and CEO
Community Health Network (Indianapolis, Ind.)
“I'm a family physician by background and I do still see patients. I get to live and breathe everything that our providers are doing. Even as the CEO, I’m still seeing patients.
There’s a lot of legislative action we’re following in Indiana. There’s a lot of pressure on growth, a lot of pressure on margin. I’m currently 22 days on the job, so the other thing that’s keeping me up at night is figuring out who’s going to backfill my role with transformation and strategy. So, if you have good candidates, send them my way!”
Caryn Esten, Chief Transformation and Integration Officer
Froedtert ThedaCare Health (Milwaukee, Wis.)
“What keeps me up at night—in a good way—is making sure we successfully execute our strategy with discipline and intention to change health care for the better. As a newly combined health care system, we are modernizing our core platforms, including consolidating onto a single EHR and implementing a new ERP in parallel. The complexity isn’t just the technology—it’s the sequencing and adoption across people, processes and operating model. We are treating these efforts as enterprise transformation initiatives so we can simplify and standardize how work gets done and build for the future.”
Jimmy Phillips, Chief Strategy Officer
Kettering Health (Kettering, Ohio)
“With all of the advances in AI and simply how fast the world is changing, it’s my fear that as health systems we’re not evolving fast enough. What is done to us, versus what we are proactively doing to provide better care in a rapidly changing world.
There are other forces that keep me up, mainly my kids coming into my room to tell me they had a bad dream and trying to deal with that in the middle of the night.”
Stephanie Fendrick, EVP, Chief Strategy Officer
Virtua Health (Marlton, N.J.)
“I think a great deal about whether we are transforming our work quickly enough, including how we embrace technology and redesign workflows. We know the headwinds in front of us, including issues with workforce shortages, and I worry if our strategies and solutions are sufficient to help us meet our challenges. There are pockets of receptivity, but we need to consistently set new expectations for how we do our work moving forward.”
Is something else keeping you up at night? We’d love to hear from you—let us know at StrategyCatalyst@hmacademy.com.