Celebrating Pride with Melissa Bell || EP. 164

[00:00:00] . Maybe, um, you know, so maybe it is speaking out in support of someone else as well too. This is Inspiring Women and I'm Laurie McGraw. And today I am speaking with a very special guest

[00:00:46] on Inspiring Women. I'm speaking to Melissa Bell. Melissa Bell is an executive and I have known Melissa for almost 25 years. It's been a long time of seeing Melissa grow from just being one more hardworking, incredibly smart person who was the go-to counted on person when we worked

[00:01:10] together years ago at a company called Allscripts to the stunning executive that she is today. She is the CCO at Enliven Health. She has titles from various companies of chief growth officer, chief revenue officer, president, chief of everything. Melissa has done it all.

[00:01:30] Melissa, thank you for being on Inspiring Women. Thank you so much, Laurie, and thanks for that very wonderful intro. Still so much to accomplish at the same time, but appreciate it. Exactly. Exactly. So I mean, 20 years, 25 years, I don't know how many years it's been,

[00:01:50] Melissa. It seems like forever that we've worked together and even when Melissa and I haven't worked together, we're sort of like the go-to call each other when we have various issues that we're trying to resolve at our different companies that we happen to be working at.

[00:02:11] But Melissa, maybe for our audience on Inspiring Women, we're speaking both today to you because of the executive that you are, but it's also Pride Month and we want to talk

[00:02:24] about pride and we want to talk about what it means to be an out and gay woman in health care as an executive. Maybe you could just give us a little bit of your background. Absolutely. Absolutely, Laurie. Yeah, I think we did, if I date myself back,

[00:02:41] I think we were kids and we started working together. Yeah, children. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah, I like to reflect back and think back to my career because I consider it to be a pretty rich and diverse one. And it certainly paved the way for just a lot of great

[00:03:01] learnings throughout the last couple of decades. When I think back to early days, and again, you pulled out some pretty, gave me some funny remembrances of things that took place in our background and particularly the length of time that we worked at Allscripts. So I think

[00:03:23] back to those early days and my start, I'm excited about being part of that intersection of technology and health care and getting started in that so early on. And all the opportunities afforded to me, whether it was helping to build the great company that Allscripts

[00:03:43] was throughout those many years, getting a lot of great experience in learning how to scale a company, how to take care of customers and their health in the best way. And also how to continue in that journey with a variety of other companies then since through great commercial

[00:04:01] growth as well too. Melissa, when you started out in healthcare, those first jobs, when did you sort of realize like one, healthcare and technology, how did you know that was your thing? And then when did you really get the sense that you were pretty good at it?

[00:04:20] Yeah. It's an interesting question as far as how did I get there? Because I think when I think back to early days and even before starting a career or when I was a younger individual and

[00:04:33] thinking about being interested, I always had kind of a business mindset. I knew I was going to do something within the business realm. Whether it was when I think back to early days in,

[00:04:47] even in school, playing a lot of sports, I really enjoyed the ability to work within teams and it taught me how to continue to think about how to develop myself individually and how to

[00:05:00] develop within a team, even developing other people within a team too. And so business for me, the art of, I always took an opportunity to present or learn how to be better at communicating

[00:05:14] and persuading in my earlier days and even through college too. So those pieces, I can kind of like draw some connection points back to. Healthcare is interesting because while I got bit like a lot of people with the tech bug very early on in the very early 90s

[00:05:34] and thought that was like a lot of very glitzy and very fun and jumped into a couple of companies, healthcare wasn't my entry point. But learning how to work within companies that were really bettering outcomes for their end users was. And when I took a look around me,

[00:05:54] everybody was in healthcare, everybody and my family, my friend groups. And so when the opportunity presented itself, I too was, that was another bug I was bit by and I was certainly

[00:06:08] very jazzed to jump into. I don't think at the time though, I had the perspective of how special that was going to be of an entry point for me. And I've never looked back in my,

[00:06:19] I think I may have a few more than 25 years on me and my career. But so you're a little gracious there with me, Lori, but with that, it has been so much fun and there continue to be lots

[00:06:36] of different problems that we can still work on as we all know those of us that are in. So I think that for me, while it wasn't an obvious, it feels like such an obvious fit

[00:06:47] and has continued to, and it's so personal as we always say about healthcare too. So it's great to be within an industry, a career, a niche, so to speak. That's a pretty broad one

[00:07:01] too that is so personally impactful to ourselves and to our personal lives and our families and friends too. So Melissa, in this discussion, I actually wanted to indulge you a little bit

[00:07:15] in sort of the fun early stories of what it takes to sort of like, you know, go from just being hardworking to being known for being pretty great at something and then moving up the career

[00:07:28] chain. But I wanted to almost get, you know, today as an executive, a senior executive, what are the types of things that you think about now? What are you looking to impact

[00:07:40] at this stage of your career? Yeah, I think the things that I look to impact and the things that, you know, that get me very, very jazzed are certainly, you know, I touched on this a little

[00:07:53] bit too. I'm very, very excited partnering with companies that are going through high-stage growth. I really love the idea. And I think to me, growth symbolizes a number of things. I think

[00:08:07] of course there is the economics of it and the financial growth piece, which can be a lot of great, you can have a lot of great rewards that come out of that, both for your investors,

[00:08:19] your shareholders. But then I also think of it as really, there's another piece that's really compelling and I think it's, you know, growth for again, your end user. And so traditionally, within healthcare, a lot of times this can be your users, whether it's a provider space you're

[00:08:38] working within or within health plans, or your end user is really the patient. And I think the patient is really where right now I am very focused on is what can we do within our

[00:08:53] company? What can we do within the different technologies that we're bringing to the table, but also how can we derive the best outcomes for people's care and people's health as well? I feel like that's sort of a very mature understanding to bring it full circle.

[00:09:10] Healthcare, just where all consumers of health and care and just how it impacts us, our families. And I think the more you have larger responsibilities, you're thinking about that more than just what are the solutions, the dollars, the methods to get to

[00:09:32] certain outcomes. So I really appreciate that, but I don't think now I want to sort of go back to some of those more formative experiences where you sort of, I mean, let's face it,

[00:09:46] you have a job and then you start working really hard and then you get recognized for working really hard and you get some more responsibility. And so I actually wanted to tell a little Melissa Bell story in terms of some of those types of things that we experience

[00:10:07] together. And when Melissa and I did work together in the Wayback Machine, Melissa was always known around the company as if there was a hard thing to be done, it was going to be

[00:10:19] Melissa's job to get that hard thing done. We needed an adult, we needed a leader. Melissa was always a go-to person. Now, one of those things that we did together was when we were

[00:10:33] working on a project in a prison of all places and that was an unusual place for both of us. And I think I just remembered trying to implement software in a prison and you almost too,

[00:10:48] I felt like you were hazing me where you decided that the important thing for me to learn about it was to get a tour of the prison. So that was sort of a boss move. But then there was

[00:10:59] another time where the company had to sort of make its numbers and Melissa sort of brought a brigade of people with goods and deliverables in front of physician offices and parked a truck

[00:11:12] out there for like a week until they actually took the software and solutions. Am I getting that story right? I mean, that's just sort of like in the lore. Company- You are, you are. Yeah. There's been a couple of fun stories across the journey,

[00:11:27] for sure, for sure. And I'm probably getting that equal good humor back from you. I'm feeling a little bit of the hazing in humorous way, of course. But I deserve it, of course. I think I'd be remiss just reflecting too on, I mentioned two components as you,

[00:11:52] I think the last question you asked me and then now the items you're touching on are actually pretty interconnected for me when I think too about what are the things that are top of mind

[00:12:02] that I think about now as an executive and what are some of the formative things that came out of early career development? So I touched on, which is ever important and I'm giving you

[00:12:14] probably very apropos answers of someone in a role that is an executive or a C-suite and thinking about kind of the health of the company, both from a financial standpoint for its users.

[00:12:27] But I would be really remiss if I said that org health isn't another piece. So the people health is like, that is something that's on rinse and repeat for me on a day-to-day basis.

[00:12:38] And so how that connects back to some of those formative stories is I think I learned very early on by, which at the time I probably didn't realize that I was like you said, signing up. I was just signing up and raising my hand for many things because

[00:12:54] I did believe in what we were doing. And I think that is really important when you think about org health. Do you have people around the table that, and around your team that can do

[00:13:07] that. But it was because I believed in the leadership team I had at the time too. So there's two sides to that. I think in my role today about how can I instill trust and belief

[00:13:21] from my team in the way that you and other execs at Allscripts, when we had many of those great rewarding experiences in those funny stories could do as well too. But yes,

[00:13:35] the luck working and the assignment that you, I think you even handed it to me to work at the largest privately held correctional facility. That will be one that's my fun fact always. At parties or in professional situations. And then being the only member of the team,

[00:13:55] as I often say too, that was old enough to actually rent a U-Haul to drive all of those computers, the hardware and the software out for delivery so we could meet certain deadlines

[00:14:07] was another fun one as well too. I think that the other one that I think of too, Laurie, if you date back in the time machine, was, and another one of my favorites was how I

[00:14:19] actually ended up here in the West Coast. I was originally from the Midwest, as you know, lived in Chicago for a couple of decades as a young adult. And then had this great opportunity

[00:14:31] another time where it took a little convincing by you and I think the rest of the ELT from Allscripts at the time to convince me to jump on board and lead the largest flagship customer

[00:14:43] that we had signed. It was like a significant bump in the revenue for Allscripts at the time too. And boy, am I glad that I did that because that also there were so many things in that

[00:14:57] roughly three to four year project that I learned and made me better as a leader. But personally, it also allowed me to meet my wife and also put roots down in what I call now home

[00:15:13] in the state of California too. Well, boy, I really, I had forgotten that it was actually sort of like an orchestrated move to make it a great idea for you to move. And that was

[00:15:24] not actually just like came from you first. And I always think of you as pride as somebody who, when we did work together, it was many years before I knew this part of your life,

[00:15:38] which is such a critical part of your life. So I wanted to ask you about that. You are married, you have a family and you also are a gay woman. What has that been like

[00:15:51] for you? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, thanks. That's a big question by the way. But one that I love to talk about, this has been put in an arc for me, right? And I sit at kind of an interesting

[00:16:06] intersection too just given when I came out in life, when I came out, I was in college, I was 19. This is a number of decades ago. And so this is back in just to kind of put ourselves

[00:16:22] back there. This is back in like the early nineties, right? And times were really different then. I don't mean to take anybody who's listening right now that's in this generation and sound like I'm talking way back in a time machine, but they were. And for me, coming out,

[00:16:39] my initial kind of taking a step forward was one that I did choose to do. I was thinking about it the other day. I actually did it within an undergrad class and Lori, you're going to laugh,

[00:16:55] but I kid you not, this was a women in leadership class that I did in undergrad studies. Good for you. Kind of neat. There was an exercise, really favored professor of mine. She was this really

[00:17:10] dynamic individual, was a past exec in many companies successfully. And I had the opportunity to take her class. And one of the challenges that she was giving us towards the end of the semester was to essentially each individual, each student in the class had to go around

[00:17:29] and share something about themselves. That was something that was going to be surprising to everyone in the class, right? We had spent the semester getting to know each other and sharing a lot about ourselves. For me, I had shared up to a certain point.

[00:17:47] And so I had a decision to make. And I remember thinking really long and hard that there were all sorts of other available options for me to take. I had grown up overseas a bit when I

[00:17:58] was growing up. I had moved around a little bit. So those were really tempting areas for me to go. And I was also one of the last students to go and presenting. And I thought to myself,

[00:18:11] I'm going to muster up my courage and I'm just going to put it out there. And it was one of the most frightening experiences and at the same time exhilarating experiences for me. And it felt like a release for me, right? And just being open and being

[00:18:32] honest and putting out there was very emotional for me. And it was powerful for me to see. It was emotional for a lot of other people too. So that was kind of my first, I would say one

[00:18:43] of my first times of kind of taking that leap and seeing how things would go. And I actually was pleasantly surprised that it touched a lot of people. From that point forward, I was very,

[00:18:58] very out on campus for the rest of my short amount of time before I graduated. And then the interesting thing is, look, I got started in my professional career and this might surprise some people, but I actually kind of took a step back and I felt

[00:19:14] some pressure there. And I think, when I think back and reflect back on that, I think really what was behind a lot of that is I think for myself, I felt like I needed to kind of

[00:19:32] put myself within kind of a standard that I saw out there. And it's already jumping into an industry. So we talked a little earlier in the program of healthcare and technology,

[00:19:44] and there were some women in our field as you know, but not a ton. And so that showing up, making an impact, making my own sort of mark out there was really important to me. And like

[00:20:01] you said, doing the hard work and signing up for things. And for a period of time, I found a way to do that by just kind of keeping my life separate. So I had my work life and then

[00:20:13] I had my weekend life or my personal life. Yeah, well like I said, and first of all, I didn't know that early story, so thanks for sharing that. I'm tearing a little bit

[00:20:25] hearing that. It's amazing. It's a fun one to go back to. But when we did work together, I have to say, when I knew that this was part of who you were or are, it was such a surprise to me.

[00:20:42] And I also honestly felt embarrassed that I did not know. And so I just would love to know from you when you decided to, and I want to talk about today too, but when you decided to make

[00:20:58] that change to, I think today's words are really show up as your authentic self at work. At that point in time, it was a risk, more of a risk than it is today most certainly, but it was a

[00:21:13] risk back then. But what was that like to, again, that when people talk about today, showing up as who you are authentically, there's always some sense of risk in it. Absolutely. And when I think back on it too, and by the way, I think it's really important

[00:21:31] for me just to put this out there for any of your listeners too. The double life, so to speak, that I led to, I knew deep down, that wasn't the way that I wanted to be carrying myself

[00:21:44] forward. At the same time, I can very much understand from putting myself back again in that time machine. And I think it's important to do that, to say, gosh, what were the things

[00:21:56] that might have driven that? Look, there are all sorts of things to think about. Like you said, there was fear of disclosure, if it would have any impact on your job or your standing or even

[00:22:09] your upward mobility. And that was really important to me at the time. There were limited legal protections at the time too. So that was really squishy in thinking about that. And there was a lack of visibility with other people as well too. So it wasn't unheard of

[00:22:27] that I was aware of other people that were gay and part of LGBTQ. But at the time, a lot of us would just keep that into an inner circle. So we almost had, and those things

[00:22:42] were more comforting to know that you had a small community. But again, really didn't pave the way for long-term where I knew I wanted to go. And so as time went on, I think even little things

[00:22:58] matter sometimes. And I can remember either feeling support in some ways or feeling like I could be my truer self, but also more importantly, I think feeling that I was leaving something out. And I think as I started to move my career in a direction where

[00:23:19] I maybe had larger teams and also had some diversity occurring within my own teams and composition, I started reflecting on who I wanted to really, the brand of leadership I really wanted to bring to the table. And Lori, you summed it up really well. I know that the

[00:23:38] term authentic leadership gets tossed around a lot. For me, it's one that I really do connect with because it was for me the ability for me to say, hey, look, if I provide myself and put

[00:23:54] myself in that seat of I could be the increased visibility out there for someone. And for myself, I could use this as an opportunity to actually gain earlier trust with groups of people, credibility. And just kind of opening up who I was, I started to see that transformation.

[00:24:18] I started to get a lot more comfortable and I saw that across people that I worked with as well. And the leadership and just inspiration that it provides to so many others in many obvious ways

[00:24:32] and so many other intangibles. So that is really going back on well over 10 years in terms of that time. And now we've gone through a time of, I would say in many ways,

[00:24:49] a lot of increased inclusivity, a lot of celebration of the LGBTQ community. And yet we also know in many ways that rights are being taken away. We are seeing discrimination that is unabashed

[00:25:07] in ways that is frightening. And so as a leader today, I'd just love to get your perspective of given the realities of the world around us, how do you show up today? How does your

[00:25:21] leadership style change or modulate? Does it not change a beat? How do you think about that? And that's sort of like the outside world with the reality of the work at hand. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. No, it's a great question. And I think it's a great question

[00:25:40] because it's a great thing for us to continue to have conversations about, right? The work isn't done across the board. Right. I was just looking at some stats the other day and they

[00:25:50] were saying, you know, 7% of people identify as being part of the LGBTQ community. And if you look at adults under the age of 30, the percentage jumps up to 17%. Oh, wow. Which is really interesting because the community is a growing community. And

[00:26:17] additionally with that, they queried that they did another survey where they talked about looking at 10 years back to now, do people actually feel that we are in our community is in a better place? And it's interesting that I was surprised to see and enthused to see. And

[00:26:43] I think it does say something about 10 years ago to now, because there has been a lot of dramatic change, marriage equality, you know, like you said, legal protections, lots of things, even though there are still a lot of things that are shifting and potentially moving,

[00:26:55] which is scary. 92% of people said, yes, I believe that things are better in a better place. I think this really varies. It can vary depending on geographically where you are in the US or

[00:27:12] in the world for that matter. I think it also can be very dependent about on other components too of who you are in that very, very broad umbrella of LGBTQ. And if you're transgender,

[00:27:33] I think that story could be very different for you than say being a lesbian. So I do think that there are some differences there, but I think the way that I like to show up knowing that

[00:27:46] again, the work isn't done, but we have made a lot of progress. And I think it's really important to use your leadership platform for things like these as much as you can. And so, you know, my brand, my approach is really, again, coming in being authentic.

[00:28:08] It is not uncommon for me that when I did this, when I jumped on board with Enliven Health about a year ago, it is my talk track in my talk track is letting folks get to know who I am.

[00:28:24] As I say to folks sometimes, like I will come out again and again and again throughout my life and it is important to do that not so much for myself but for others out there because

[00:28:37] I know how impactful it can be to understand that you're not the only person in the room. And it's almost like granting, I would never want to say granting permission, but it's almost like

[00:28:49] giving an okay sign with, hey, it's okay to talk about things openly. And as much as you can, create that culture there, I think for people as well too. I think the other thing you

[00:29:04] mentioned, so promoting inclusion I think is always great and look, diversity can mean also, I know we're primarily talking about pride and LGBTQ, but diversity takes many shapes and forms too. And so I think that's the other piece too is as I try to remain pretty intentional

[00:29:22] about how I think about teams and how we look as a team and as a company as a whole too. Well, Melissa, it's inspiring to me to hear you talk about this and how you are using again your

[00:29:41] leadership platform to be your total self but also encourage others to be that alongside you. And I'm just so happy to have you on Inspiring Limit to talk about these things, particularly during this month of pride. As we close out this conversation, you have done

[00:30:03] so many things in your career. You have not done all the things that you will do in your career and I am confident of that. What is advice that you might want to give others either that really meant something to you at one point or along the way,

[00:30:22] or that you give to others as sort of your tried and true, like this is something others should be thinking about. What are your thoughts there? Absolutely, absolutely. So not to be

[00:30:33] redundant, but I would say the one piece, I've got two things. So one piece from me that I get, I try to practice and that I would recommend to other people to practice in their

[00:30:46] own way, of course, is being authentically you and whatever that means for you because it can take different forms or fashions. But I think from a leadership perspective, what has been very

[00:30:59] rewarding for me and also has continued to help me develop and grow is thinking about ways that I can continue to practice being authentic. And that might mean using your voice sometimes

[00:31:10] around a table where you don't feel your voice is as aptly heard or maybe, so maybe it is speaking out in support of someone else as well too. Or perhaps it just simply means being open and

[00:31:30] we all know in a lot of these roles and particularly in health tech haven't met a company yet where we're not spending a lot of time with our teammates across the board. So I

[00:31:40] think just being authentic to who you are and being open is something that is again, from an org health standpoint, it really does continue to build the strength there. The second thing that I would say too in the spirit of it being Pride Month, Lori,

[00:31:59] and I'll use you as a fine example here is listen, allyship and you are a perfect, perfect example of an ally in the LGBTQ community. That goes like a distance. So for folks listening, I would say if you don't have within your company or can get involved

[00:32:28] in something around providing your voice as an ally around Pride or around some sort of a LGBTQ kind of group, it's great. I think that those types of things matter and they matter to a variety of people across your company and probably outside your company as well too.

[00:32:54] I agree. I so agree. That is just great advice for others and for me as well. So thank you, Melissa. This has been an amazing Inspiring Women conversation. I've been speaking with Melissa Bell and Melissa, thank you so much. Thanks Lori. Appreciate it.

[00:33:12] This has been an episode of Inspiring Women with Lori McGraw. Please subscribe, rate, and review. We are produced at Executive Podcast Solutions. More episodes can be found on inspiringwomen.show. I am Lori McGraw and thank you for listening.