March Member Spotlight featuring Deb Gordon
The WBL Member Spotlight is a chance to get to know a fellow member of our network as she shares her background, experience, and insights as a leader in health care. This month, we are excited to feature Deb Gordon, Senior Managing Director, Korn Ferry Interim Executives Healthcare Practice. Deb has been a member of WBL since 2013.
Deb Gordon is a Senior Managing Director with Korn Ferry Interim Executives Healthcare Practice. She works with clients on critical initiatives, leveraging an “executives on demand” model proven to be a strategic lever for business agility. A trusted advisor, Deb’s authentic approach to relationships provides substance and the innovation healthcare leaders need to solve cost, quality, operations, and access challenges.
Deb currently serves on the Gillette Children’s Hospital Board Philanthropy Committee. She previously served as National Board Chair for Free Bikes for Kidz, and on the boards of ACHE-MN and Children’s Cancer Research Fund.
How did you become a leader in healthcare?
Becoming a leader in healthcare came over time. I’ve always had a heart for patient care coupled with a relentless commitment to serve and be of service to others. My career started on the tech side, with NCR and AT&T, providing enterprise-wide computing and communications strategies to large hospital systems in the Midwest. This era was about helping clients move from mainframe to client-server computing, along with new innovations such as notepad-based computing to chart and diagnose patient conditions. There were many challenges in this! The software struggled with handwriting recognition and there was no infrastructure beyond lap link for data transfer—WiFi didn’t exist.
A lightbulb moment came when I attended a HIMSS conference in the early 90’s. John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco, spoke about the hospital of the future, with a vision of bedside computing and consultation. This was truly an early version of e-ICU and telehealth as we know it today. Chambers compared the state of healthcare as being on the outer ring of the solar system compared to other industries.
At this point, I had been serving cross-sector clients so the call to action for me was to look for opportunities to bring best practices learned from other industries into healthcare. I became a contributing member of the Minnesota Health Information Exchange’s Technology Standards Committee. We researched models used in the UK and regional health exchanges across the US. This gave way to e-MRs as we know them today. Although it is years later and advancements abound, it’s still about evolving care delivery models to advance patient outcomes.
GE Healthcare’s Consulting Division provided the entrepreneurial opportunity to build a regional presence from the ground up. A memorable contribution was commercializing Hospital of the Future capabilities coming out of the Global Research Center using Lean to align facility design, care pathways and operating strategies; developing master change agents to enable organizational transformation, and whole hospital patient flow projects to identify improvement opportunities from the point of entry to discharge. At Johnson Controls, I advised C-Suite leaders regarding healthcare energy efficiency and sustainability to improve patient safety and environments of care. My role at Korn Ferry brings expertise to the point of need to address open roles and critical initiatives via an “executives on demand” model.
The most successful teams I have been part of have all had a common vision. Getting to know members’ alignment with the mission and why they intentionally chose to come along on the journey was key. When a leader can bring out the power in people is when the magic happens. It channels individual and collective purpose that affects productivity in order to make an impact. A most fulfilling piece that can’t ever be overlooked—the drive for continuous improvement. Being accountable to the goals, objectives, and outcomes achieved (or yet to be achieved) can illuminate new pathways to approach and solve challenges.
What do you see as the most pressing challenge affecting today’s healthcare leaders? What advice do you have for members on how they can continue to adapt and thrive?I’m always widening my lens by learning from thought partners and colleagues in the Korn Ferry Institute, our internal research group. This gives me a more informed view of what is happening and coming on the horizon.
A major challenge in healthcare today is building change-ready leaders for the future. We need leaders who don’t just inspire others but also inspire change itself. We need to nurture and cultivate leaders who can embrace success, hardship, and disruption, and who can commit to learning from it and moving forward. We need leaders who can foster allyship to advance common causes, initiatives, or the careers of others—inclusive sponsorship—and find ways to make progress over perfection. A prior manager once told me, “It doesn’t have to be a polished apple—just give us the apple.” It’s a compelling time to innovate while iterating along the way.
Personally or professionally, what might WBL be surprised to know about you?I grew up in a military family and was born in Germany. We moved on average every three years, which taught me to be adaptive. This upbringing fostered a natural love of travel and learning about cultures around the world. It also developed my ability, from an early age, to speak with people at all levels, including officers in high-ranking positions. When I think about my life from this perspective, it’s not really a surprise to have transitioned into a career with high-performing organizations involved in global business development and international healthcare work.
Eleanor Roosevelt’s motto to “do one thing that scares you every day” inspires me to get out of my comfort zone for personal growth. Skydiving in Hawaii would be a most memorable example of putting this into action!