Episodes

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Dr. Geeta Nayyar, nationally recognized chief medical officer and author of Dead Wrong: Diagnosing and Treating Healthcare’s Misinformation Illness. We are dropping this episode at HLTH2024 where Dr. Nayyar provides both the diagnosis and the treatment for misinformation illness and how this can impact the entire system and ultimately the patients being served. About Dr. Nayyar: Geeta Nayyar, MD, MBA, is a globally recognized chief medical officer...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Rebecca Darr, CEO of Wings, the largest organization in Illinois focused on breaking the cycle of domestic violence. Wings provides housing, integrated services, education and advocacy to end domestic violence with tremendous success when people seek help. October is Domestic Violence Awareness month. The definition of domestic violence is the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, and/or other abusive behavior as part of ...

Join Inspiring Women Host Laurie McGraw as she sits down with Dr. Karen Knudsen, the groundbreaking first female CEO of the American Cancer Society. In this episode, Karen shares her journey from oncology researcher to leading one of the most influential organizations in cancer care. She sheds light on the staggering statistics that show one in two men and one in three women will face a cancer diagnosis in their lifetime, and discusses the ACS’s mission to improve the lives of cancer patients an...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Jessica McGlory, CEO and Founder at Guaranteed, a care company that focuses on end of life care. And we start by talking about death. Jessica shares her deeply personal journey that led to the creation of Guaranteed, when she was suddenly and unexpectedly thrown into becoming the primary caregiver for her father during a very emotional and confusing time as he needed to go into hospice. Losing a loved one is difficult. Couple this with needing to m...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Rebekah Swain, Vice President of Managed Health Strategy, Planning, and Membership Performance at Advocate Health. Rebekah began her career in healthcare early, an original candy striper volunteer as a teenager and progressing through various roles in healthcare management. Her passion for healthcare stems from witnessing firsthand the impact hospitals have on their communities. Today Rebekah oversees a complex portfolio involving over 600 managed...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Michelle Fitz-Henley, Group Human Resources Manager at Jamaica Broilers Group. Michelle shares her journey from aspiring lawyer to impactful HR leader. Despite initially aiming for a legal career, Michelle found her calling in HR at Jamaica Broilers, where she manages human resources across diverse locations and oversees the company’s commitment to employee well- being and development. Michelle discusses her role in fostering a culture of civility...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Camille Wright, Director of Human Resources at American Health Marketplace. Camille oversees HR for a health insurance marketplace firm which spans 28 states. She shares her path from early days when she wanted to be a university dean to finding her calling in HR through unexpected opportunities. Joining American Health Marketplace when it lacked a formal HR department, Camille took charge and built it from the ground up as the company grew 5x in ...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Tiffany Gamblin, Director of HR Business Services at Paycom. Tiffany shares her journey into HR, initially considering a career in veterinary medicine but pivoting into HR under the guidance of her mother-in-law. She describes her role at Paycom overseeing HR business partners, employee relations, compliance, and more. Tiffany emphasizes the importance of a culture of support and development, aiming to create a workplace where employees thrive. Re...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Dr. Kayla Randolph. Managing Director of Human Resources at IDEA Public Schools, as part of the Women Who Inspire: HR Leaders Series – A collaboration between Transcarent and the Inspiring Women Podcast with Laurie McGraw. Kayla oversees HR for 11,000 employees across multiple states, emphasizing values like respect, dignity, and integrity. Kayla discussed challenges in education, such as teacher retention, and highlighted IDEA’s focus on comprehen...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Lana Krasnyansky, Senior Manager of HR Transition at TriNet, as part of the Women Who Inspire: HR Leaders Series – A collaboration between Transcarent and the Inspiring Women Podcast with Laurie McGraw Lana shares her journey and insights into leadership. Her diverse career path started with a passion for creativity and the arts. From launching a dance studio in her kitchen at 13 to managing HR at a prominent PEO, Lana emphasizes the importance of ...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Women Drs. Marjorie Rallins and Holly Miller who are experts in the space of data standards setting and the landscape of interoperability. Both Marjorie and Holly have devoted their expertise and careers towards building the infrastructure and plumbing that fuels the clinical data information highway so that clinical data is trustworthy, useful and actionable. They share the progress made over the past few decades and the opportunity in front of us with ...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Melissa Bell, long time health tech executive ad CCO of Enliven Health. For Melissa, working hard was obvious and natural. She was always one to raise her hand for the next challenging assignment which gave her the reputation of being the company’s go to person for the most visible difficult projects. One of Melissa’s “fun facts” includes a lot of prison time…. having led a multiyear implementation at the nation’s largest correctional corporation. A...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Dr. Jenny Schneider about the new Home[ward] Grown program to elevate women founders and leaders that was launched last year. Dr. Sipra Laddha, CoFounder and CEO of Luna Joy discusses her experience with the program. Jenny is very vested in female founders and believes that the worn battle scars are useful to others. She has particular affinity to founders who are also physicians. And with Sipra, not only are they both doctors, but being Mom first i...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Jami Youmans, President and CEO of HealthEco. Jami is an athlete and expected to be seven feet tall when she grew up and likely playing professional basketball. It was her sincere curiosity that led her to healthcare and building her company HealthEco. In this 2024 WBL (Women Business Leaders) Series finale, Jami talks about her early stage career as a healthcare administrator which gave her tremendous experience understanding the front lines of h...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Denielle deWynter, CFO and SVP of Hearst Health. Denielle has spent twenty years in finance and half of them in various Hearst businesses. It’s the mission driven focus that Denielle finds so meaningful, making this her best position so far. In this 2024 WBL (Women Business Leaders) Series, Denielle describes her natural curiosity growing up in rural Canada which led her to travel the world. She credits her ability to think broadly and strategicall...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Kristin Rodriguez. Kristin is many things, and one of those things is that Kristin is funny. Don’t confuse her quick wit and humorous approach to career trajectory (a winding path indeed!) with anything less than her seriousness in how she expects to help Heroes. Who are the Heroes? The people who are trying to improve their health while often taking on more financial risk, navigating new places to receive care, and sorting through a complicated sys...

In this 2024 WBL (Women Business Leaders) Series, Emily talks about her leadership journey from the point of view of a “mid careerist”. Today she is leading innovation operations at Geisinger. Her path to leadership was not a clear straight journey and she credits her prior diverse experience to giving her the confidence to lead innovation where she doesn’t need to be the subject matter expert in everything. We go back to the time when Emily was first becoming a manager. She is quick to thank h...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Michelle Wright. In this 2024 WBL (Women Business Leaders) Series, Michelle begins our conversation talking about what it means to play the long game. She has always been in Maryland and for nearly thirty of those years she was a senior executive at Carefirst BlueCross BlueShield. To play the long game, it must be interesting. Michelle started off in finance and then moved into HR. Michelle is quick to point out that the HR field has evolved signi...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Nadine Hauf. In this 2024 WBL (Women Business Leaders) Series, Nadine begins our conversation with a view into how she developed an innovative technology hub for health plan members. A place where people can come into the care system and understand what is available to them. She built this hub at a time when there was no playbook to look to, so innovation began with an idea and a blank piece of paper. This is where working collaboratively with her ...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Karen Walker Johnson. In this 2024 WBL (Women Business Leaders) Series, Karen begins our conversation talking about her path to sorting out retirement. What I learned from Karen is that she is exceptional at just about everything she has ever set her mind to with the minor exception of retirement. Welcome to Karen Walker Johnson’s world of “reWIREment”. I am here for all of it. Karen is a nurse… and she is a lawyer… and then decided she wanted to...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Carla Harris. THE Carla Harris…the renowned international public speaker, top 40 female speakers in the world who is sharing her “Carla’s Pearls” on career success. This is the first of the 2024 WBL (Women Business Leaders) Series where Laurie and Carla are speaking to a live audience of senior executive women in healthcare. “There is NO question where I will not have a prescriptive answer” and Carla most certainly lived up to that promise. In thi...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Judy Goldberg about her book WonderSHIFT , a guide and program for results driven transformation This Inspiring Women conversation was recorded in the New York office of Redesign Health and followed by a WonderSHIFT workshop. Judy’s life’s work is centered around education and teaching. This started in her basement at 8 years old where she would “teach classes”. Fast forward to years of teaching in schools and abroad and then focusing her studies ...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Dr. Jenny Schneider about the new Home[ward] Grown program to elevate women founders and leaders that was launched last year. Nikita Singareddy and Cydney Kim, co-founders of Fortuna Health, are the first mentee graduates of Home[ward] Grown and join this Inspiring Women conversation. Home[ward] Grown has both an external and internal focus to strengthen and support women in their leadership journeys. Jenny shared Home[ward] Grown was launched beca...

Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Cheryl Capps, a trail blazing leader and maverick in the world of supply chain. Supply chain came to be in the late ‘90s, early 2000 time period. Cheryl viewed the discipline of attacking problems from many different angles as simply, interesting. She did not view it as a disadvantage to be one of HARDLY ANY women in the field at the time (less than 11% of senior executives in the discipline of supply chain are women), rather an advantage to provid...