Then the taps on the shoulder started. Take on this project. Take on this unit. Take on another.
Today, Kelly is the president of Orlando Health Orlando Regional Medical Center, one of the largest and most complex hospitals in Florida and home to the region's Level 1 Trauma Center — and senior vice president of the Orlando Region. She got there without an MBA, without a finance background, and without ever checking all the boxes first.
In this episode of Inspiring Women, Laurie McGraw sits down with Kelly to trace the path from the bedside at Hackensack University Medical Center, to leading OSF Healthcare Children's Hospital of Illinois in Peoria — where she built a care-closer-to-home model so families no longer had to drive four hours to Chicago — to becoming the inaugural president of Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies, one of the busiest delivery hospitals in the nation.
Then came the second yes: leading the adult flagship hospital, where the one thing they don't do is the one thing she was trained in.
Laurie and Kelly met at the Women Business Leaders Conference, where Kelly spoke about complexity in healthcare today.
Topics Covered:
- From Wall Street in the late 80s to nursing school on loans — a second career with no roadmap
- Why Kelly said yes to every tap on the shoulder, and the Plan B mindset that made her fearless
- Why women wait to check every box before saying yes — and why she never did
- The move from New Jersey to Peoria, Illinois, and convincing a resistant leadership team with data
- Recruiting physicians to middle America — and why they stayed
- Interviewing for the Winnie Palmer presidency while on vacation in Fort Lauderdale
- Why she puts on scrubs in every role: answering phones, filling water jugs, showing the team she cares
- Walking into a Level 1 Trauma Center as a mom-baby nurse — and why not knowing made her a better leader
- Four years in, every member of her original team is still there or has been promoted
- "The keeper of the culture": what a hospital president actually does
- Why her team members — not patients — are the most important people in the building
- Move fast, fail fast: why healthcare's caution can leave patients behind
- Transforming a large, tactical board into a smaller, strategic, deliberately diverse one
- The patient suicide that shook her — and the board meeting where she cried, said "I'm not doing well," and was met with open arms
- Her advice to senior women executives: you're not perfect, no one expects you to be, and vulnerability will serve you
Kelly's story is proof that the path to the top doesn't require a pedigree — it requires the courage to say yes before you feel ready, the humility to learn from the experts around you, and the heart to never lose sight of who you're serving. As she puts it: "We're not perfect. We're just people trying to do a good job every day. Be open about that, and you will be just fine."
Inspiring Women is hosted by Laurie McGraw, Chief Commercial Officer at Transcarent, former SVP of the American Medical Association, former President of Allscripts, and a 30-year healthcare executive committed to advancing women into leadership.
Full episode wherever you get your podcasts.
Subscribe so you never miss a conversation.