Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / How Does Authentic Transparency Drive Growth? Denise Dettingmeijer's Approach to Healthcare Workforce Solutions

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How Does Authentic Transparency Drive Growth? Denise Dettingmeijer's Approach to Healthcare Workforce Solutions · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:03
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:07
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:10
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:13
adversity. My name is Anthony Kotasbodi,
0:16
and today's guest is Denise Dedingmeyer.
0:19
She serves as the Chief Financial Officer of Medical
0:22
Solutions, a healthcare workforce partner that delivers
0:25
consulting services, workforce technology, recruiting, and
0:29
staffing. Founded in 2001, Medical
0:32
Solutions empowers healthcare systems to optimize labor costs,
0:37
improve patient care, and prepare for future workforce
0:40
needs. Under Denise's leadership, the
0:43
company continues positive growth, receiving industry
0:47
recognition for its mission driven workforce solutions and
0:50
supportive work culture. Denise has extensive experience
0:55
in financial planning and risk management, having previously
0:58
served as CFO for Randstad North America.
1:01
She holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Connecticut
1:04
and remains passionate about uplifting others through
1:07
mentorship. She also advocates for
1:09
diversity, equity, and inclusion, encouraging women to
1:13
pursue leadership roles across all industries.
1:17
Her dedication to mentoring future female leaders continues
1:20
to inspire many professionals. Now before we get into all that
1:24
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Add Back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
1:55
today, the CFO of Medical Solutions, Denise Dedingmeyer.
1:59
I appreciate you making the time to Share your story today.
2:01
Yeah, Anthony, I'm so happy to be here.
2:03
Thank you. You know, and I should note that
2:05
folks, once you're done listening to today's episode
2:08
with Denise, you should check out an earlier episode with
2:11
Patty Artley, who works with Denise.
2:13
She is the Chief nursing officer of Medical Solutions and it was
2:16
a terrific interview. You should check out after this
2:19
one. Let's get into this one here,
2:21
Denise. I'm ready.
2:22
You received a bachelor's and an MBA from UConn.
2:26
I'm curious, was your career aspiration always to be ACFO or
2:31
did that intention develop later down the road?
2:34
Oh, and that, that's an easy one.
2:36
It was far later down the road, so I'll explain in another
2:40
segment perhaps my why I went right from undergraduate to grad
2:44
school. Short story, I played softball,
2:46
got hurt, could do another year of eligibility, Didn't want to
2:50
get an undergraduate degree in five years so petitioned to see
2:53
if I could get a master's. Back in the day that was a big
2:55
deal. Was able to go to grad school if
2:58
I got in. I got in and so I went right to
3:00
NBA. Played my first year, finished
3:02
my 2nd year, and then went off into the world.
3:07
Had no idea what ACFO was. I undergraduate I applied to the
3:11
School of Business thinking I would play softball my entire
3:14
career. That is what I would do Somehow
3:16
I'd get paid and have a life doing it but as a back up plan.
3:21
School of Business sounded like as a 18 year old girl I could
3:24
get a job if I had a business degree so I applied.
3:27
Wanted really to major in psychology.
3:30
Human resources was a degree that I could do 1 less required
3:35
class and get a minor so I picked human resources again.
3:39
So logical to be ACFO. Minored in psychology.
3:43
Went to grad school after I got hurt.
3:46
Did not understand finance, accounting, debits, credits,
3:49
multiples of EBITDA and thought I need to learn that.
3:52
So I took AMBA in finance and ended up learning that.
3:57
Wow, that's how so? You started.
3:59
You weren't hired for this. No, I mean.
4:03
A lot of people I, I interviewed that are on the finance side of
4:05
things, they're like, Oh yeah, I sort of came out of the womb
4:07
just loving numbers. I made spreadsheets as a kid.
4:10
Accounting. It was really.
4:11
Yeah, exactly. No, you.
4:13
You went through your undergrad and you still didn't grasp this
4:16
stuff and. I will publicly disclose the
4:18
grades I got in finance and accounting undergrad, but enough
4:22
to say that was not my cup of tea.
4:24
So why then did you decide to tackle that head on as you got
4:28
into your graduate program? Because it was interesting, it
4:32
was challenging. I could never understand how
4:34
honestly a debit and a credit equaled 0 multiples of EBITDA.
4:38
Like who decides what the company's worth?
4:41
Wall Street. I did my thesis on it being more
4:43
psychological than actually mathematical.
4:48
I just couldn't comprehend the financial side of an equation,
4:53
no pun intended, and found it fascinating.
4:57
The puzzle of it, the story behind it, how it all works and
5:01
fits together, why it's so important.
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And as soon as I started to understand it, I thought, oh,
5:06
this is really interesting because you see everything in a
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company. Everything.
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And so as you're taking the MBA then and you're, you've got this
5:15
heavy focus on finance, you, you realize this is my path, not the
5:20
psychology, not the human resources.
5:21
This is more where I want to go. Actually, I left grad school and
5:25
went to the Netherlands to coach a softball team.
5:27
So no. Which is what everybody does
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after getting their MBA. Exactly.
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So I thought I had got called and I thought what other chance
5:36
in life will I have to go do that?
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So the job I had lined up, like every good MBA student does when
5:41
they graduate, I asked if I could start in September instead
5:44
of June. They said no.
5:46
I said I quit. They said why do you quit?
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I said, 'cause I'm going Holland to coach.
5:49
They said, oh, start in September. 1st rule of
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negotiation, right? So I went to the Netherlands and
5:56
coached and then came back to my first job.
5:59
So I didn't have finance experience till six months after
6:03
an MBA. OK.
6:05
Yeah. And so as well, let's go back.
6:08
What? Position so funny now that I'm
6:10
like not 20. Now that you're saying it out
6:12
loud, yeah. So what position did you play?
6:16
I was a pitcher. But when they they asked you to
6:18
come over to the Netherlands, were you playing or were you
6:20
coaching? So 2 years prior I'd gone on an
6:23
All Star team there and one of the coach, the teams we played
6:25
against, the coach called back to see if I would come and coach
6:28
that team for the summer. So I went back as a coach to one
6:32
of the clubs we played against while I was there.
6:35
So you go and you do that, you kind of scratch that itch, come
6:38
back to the States, you start your first job.
6:41
I do. And is this now kind of where
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you actually got your feet wet in the real world with finance?
6:48
No. Of course not.
6:49
So I started as a business management advisor.
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It was the coolest title for a 22 year old softball playing,
6:56
NBA holding young lady. I worked with all engineers on a
7:02
top secret clearance thing for the US government.
7:05
I had secret clearance. So when they had top secret
7:07
discussions, I had to leave the room.
7:08
I had no idea what they were talking about anyway, but I had
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to go. And my job was to take offers
7:14
and proposals and financially analyze them for correctness,
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not technically, but soundly in the financials, what they were
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delivering, what it would cost, the timeline to really, you
7:26
know, analyze proposals. And I thought it's like doing
7:29
business cases in grad school, but then in real life.
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And the engineers I worked with, when I would ask questions
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thought I was like a genius because they're like, how do you
7:38
think of that? And I'm like, it's kind of easy,
7:42
right? So the environment I was in
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enabled me to be, I don't want to call it a thought leader by
7:49
any means, but the one who knew in the room.
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And I gained a lot of great camaraderie, interest,
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excitement, teaching others what was going on, and also
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confidence because my husband often says, and I'm not trying
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to judge hard of seeing people, but in the land of the blind,
8:09
the one eyed is king. And that's what I was to start.
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So I felt very comfortable in it.
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Did it for six months, Anthony. And then I moved back to the
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Netherlands because I had fallen in love with who is now my
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husband. And I went over there to start a
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life with him. And so then.
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I started my finance career all right.
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Let's I've been on the edge of my seat.
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When do we get to finance? Are you there yet?
8:32
We're there, all right, We're there.
8:35
And so where were you? What was the role where you
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started in finance then? Was this in the Netherlands It?
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Was in the Netherlands at a company that made fork trucks
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heister. It was AUS company that
8:46
appreciated my English, American language skills and an MBA in
8:51
finance. So you get a job as a financial
8:53
analyst and that's how I started in manufacturing with spare
8:56
parts as a financial analyst. And I loved it because again,
9:01
that's where you got to see all the connections, how it worked,
9:04
what you purchased, what you sold, how it fit together, the
9:07
productivity, the warehouse, how much inventory you had.
9:09
Like it all was bringing what you learned to life.
9:13
And honestly, finance is not that hard.
9:16
You just have to be super curious.
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You you talk about connecting dots like I talk about making a
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puzzle and just knowing where the components are.
9:25
You get to speak to everyone, talk to everyone, learn, advise,
9:29
change. It just became amazing for me.
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It was just such the right role that more like a financial
9:39
planning and analysis leader that I learned accounting with
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and through and credit collection and all those other
9:45
roles because it touched what I did and I loved it.
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OK, so now you've really you've really figured out that you've
9:53
understood what your passion is, what you're really good at,
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where all these pieces sort of come together in a very
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functional way for you. And as I look here at your, what
10:01
was the name of that company in in the Netherlands?
10:03
Hyster. It was AUS fork truck company
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hyster. OK.
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And so now I'm looking at your LinkedIn profile.
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I mean, you had stops at Hyster is a big company, but you had
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stops at a lot of other several other big companies along the
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way. Alcoa Randstad, as as you sort
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of look forward to some of these opportunities after you left
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Heister, which one of those was kind of the most formidable for
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you? In the long term, it was Alcoa
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and I can say that because I learned lean there and a lean
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way of thinking, a lean way of leading, a lean way of, of
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working. That is exactly what finance is.
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Lean process flows and the handoffs and where they touch
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and why they matter and where the value comes from and where
10:50
there's waste. That logic and that methodology
10:55
is for my brain exactly. Finance.
10:59
You just put a couple numbers on top of it and then you have the
11:02
whole trajectory of your entire company.
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So Alcoa for me was a, they were a lean shop.
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They were erped incredibly well, vanilla with some changes.
11:15
All of those kind of life lessons that you learn along the
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way came to fruition for me in those years I spent there.
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And it's a funny thing because it's over 100 year old
11:25
manufacturing company. You wouldn't expect it, but the
11:28
way that they operated was really inspiring.
11:31
I learned Sarbanes-Oxley there. I it was that time of life,
11:35
right that that happened and. Real, real quickly touch on what
11:40
Sarbanes-Oxley is for listeners. Yeah, of course.
11:42
So back in the day, it still exists.
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It's about your internal controls.
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So basically what Sarbanes-Oxley required was not only for
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auditors to say your numbers are OK, but that the processes that
11:54
you use to develop them are in control.
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And when you think about a lean way of working with all of the
12:00
process descriptions, the formulations of them, finding
12:04
the control points in there. So what really matters to make
12:06
sure you have segregation of duties.
12:09
People who pay invoices can't change bank account numbers, for
12:12
example, the way maintenance operates for safety.
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That all kind of accumulated together where things like
12:22
controls in Sarbanes, Oxy or internal audits, things like
12:25
accounting all came together in this business process that
12:30
financial planning and analysis puts on top to report, tell
12:34
stories, guide, direct, grow. And for me that all happened at
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that company where right time in my life with experiences I have
12:43
had, but certainly the way that they worked was priceless for
12:46
me. I want to get to Medical
12:49
Solutions, but you also spent 2 what was this eleven years being
12:54
CFO North America for Randstad, huge company.
12:57
Yeah. What was behind the decision to
13:00
to leave there and come join Medical Solutions?
13:02
Yeah, that's, that's always a tough one.
13:03
So I spent a lot of years at Ronstadt.
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When I joined, I had an argument with our the CEO who hired me
13:08
whether I would stay for two or three years because I thought I
13:11
could get the job done in two and she thought it might take 3.
13:13
And I'm like, well, let's take the job and see.
13:17
Ten years later, I'm still doing it.
13:20
It was such a dynamic company. It was acquisitions.
13:24
Your portfolio changed all the time.
13:26
Your title was the same, but you had an acquisition.
13:28
Then it went somewhere else. You got a different country, you
13:30
got global, you did transformation.
13:32
It was just such a great paced, moving, exciting company.
13:36
That was my first experience in service.
13:40
So you know, you don't have a product to go look at on the
13:42
shop floor. You know, how do you maneuver
13:45
your way through that? And after all the time there and
13:49
the impacts that we made and hopefully that I also had there,
13:54
I accelerated my advanced, I don't want to say age, but
13:59
experience and thought, is this really what I want to do forever
14:04
the rest of my working career? And I thought, you know, maybe
14:09
it's just time. There was nothing wrong.
14:14
You're just ready for a new challenge.
14:15
Yeah, and it and nothing was you never finish your job.
14:18
Like I've never left a job because I was done.
14:21
But the challenges were smaller. The environment you were in was
14:25
very familiar. And it just didn't, you know,
14:28
make my heartbeat fast. And so when I decided to leave
14:33
Ronstadt, I then went and interviewed for a teaching role.
14:35
I thought, how cool would it be to teach international business
14:39
finance, be around young or earlier, you know, generation
14:44
people that you can learn from, give back what you could.
14:48
I was speaking to a university when the sponsors, the private
14:52
equity firm for Medical Solutions, called.
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And within 10 minutes on the phone, my heart's beating
14:58
faster. And I'm like, Oh my God, this is
14:59
amazing. And so I took the opportunity,
15:03
or the chances anyone would call it, and chose to continue the
15:08
rest of my career here at Medical Solutions.
15:12
So when I first looked at Medical Solutions, I have to be
15:17
honest, I think I made the mistake of putting this company
15:22
into a category as a as a staffing company, of course.
15:26
But as I dug deeper, I realized that this description kind of
15:29
sells you short because you offer a whole lot more.
15:33
We do. Can you paint more of a picture
15:35
of what Medical Solutions does? Yes.
15:38
So Medical Solutions does provide clinicians to hospital
15:42
systems and healthcare systems. So there is nothing wrong with
15:47
the staffing component of what we generate revenue upon, but
15:50
the company itself is truly positioned in a consultative way
15:55
to hospital systems, healthcare systems to make them successful.
16:01
And a lot of that success comes through the quality of the
16:04
clinician, the cost and price of the clinician, but also the
16:10
understanding of how it all works, how it fits together, how
16:13
best to use your talent pools on how to gain the best outcome you
16:19
can, not just for your hospital system and your clinicians, but
16:22
for your patients. And so Medical Solutions is able
16:25
to provide that consulting and those offerings, not only
16:29
clinician or nurse staffing, not only travelers, but on an array
16:33
of positions, including allied, including temp, including
16:38
leadership, including virtual direct hire.
16:42
So if you're looking for somebody, we can also find you a
16:45
permanent employee. We can do that with domestic
16:48
clinicians, with international clinicians.
16:50
It's a whole portfolio of support that can enable the
16:56
success of those hospital systems and we do it.
16:59
What makes Medical Solutions special and what excited me
17:02
about it is the relationships Medical Solutions is known in
17:06
the industry for the partnership with the clients, with the
17:10
clinicians, bringing them forward and not only placing A
17:15
clinician and moving on. So much bigger than staffing.
17:20
And you know, the bottom line. When I worked at Ronstadt, I
17:23
couldn't, you know, just be more proud of giving people jobs and
17:28
the way jobs change people lives.
17:30
And here at Medical Solutions, we do that, but we also help
17:33
save lives. And that is, you know, better
17:36
than honestly making aluminum wheels or extrusion for Windows.
17:42
As exciting as that is and lovely to see your product, when
17:44
you drive by something it's it's really, really incredible.
17:48
Not only you helping to empower the people who you've helped
17:52
find employment for, but you're finding them employment in
17:55
medical environments where there's a shortage, right?
17:58
And yeah, there's the opportunity to help people, to
18:01
heal people, to save lives every day.
18:05
Mic drop, yes. So what's the biggest project
18:09
you've undertaken in the time that you've been at Medical
18:12
Solutions so far? There's a lot of them.
18:16
Listen, you never you never do a project on your own.
18:18
So I'm going to give credit where credit's due, but we had a
18:22
portfolio before my time that included an international
18:25
footprint. We medical Solutions acquired
18:29
company called Worldwide and they have a headquarters in
18:32
Manila in the Philippines. And coming in externally and
18:36
seeing that and thinking, wow, we should really take advantage
18:40
of our global footprint and put the jobs where they best belong
18:43
and where they could work and where the best support and
18:47
service could come from. So we undertook an experiment
18:50
with what kind of roles can we perform out of Manila, not only
18:54
the revenue generating side with international, you know,
18:57
permanent clinicians, but on more of a BPO shared service.
19:02
We call them remote teammates. So just remote teammates that
19:05
happened to sit in Manila instead of Omaha or what?
19:08
More administrative kind of roles then.
19:10
Or it could be anything, could be recruiting, sourcing,
19:13
payroll, billing, any work that can be done remote anywhere in
19:19
the world. And pre COVID, that probably
19:24
would have been a huge description and details.
19:27
Post COVID, we have 50% of our workforce that's not near an
19:31
office. So if you're sitting in Florida
19:34
or Ohio or Omaha or Manila, what's the difference?
19:38
So that initiative and experiment turned into more of
19:43
AI want to call it mandate, but more of a strategy on what work
19:47
to put where across the company, how to do our work.
19:50
On top of that, we put in lean. Again, I take no, I take some
19:55
credit, but we have a lean leader who is off the charts and
19:59
just deploying that understanding of process flow,
20:02
connection, that end to end way of working and people can be
20:06
anywhere so long as they are working together.
20:10
It's still ongoing, but I'm super proud of the success that
20:13
the company has had and the change that the leaders and our
20:17
teammates had to go through to make it work.
20:19
Where do you see that heading? What?
20:21
What do you think that can become?
20:22
Yeah, it's a great question. You know, I see it as
20:24
potentially even supporting our clients.
20:26
So if our clients again we are here to help them be successful
20:30
and honestly manage their their costs as part of their financial
20:33
success. So maybe next year we can expand
20:36
that to support client needs or third party needs or you know as
20:42
we grow additional teammates there.
20:44
So I don't think we're done, but we certainly are on our way.
20:50
I've seen that you've participated in discussions
20:52
before, Denise, on the reimagination of finance
20:56
functions. What does that mean to reimagine
21:00
finance functions? Finance has been around a long
21:02
time. Like what?
21:03
What kind of new things are there?
21:05
Yes. So I used to get a little bit
21:08
frustrated as people would say, like reimagine the CFO role.
21:11
They ought to be thought partners and operators.
21:15
And I'm like, yeah, you can't really be ACFO if you're not.
21:18
So I don't mean that right back 1015 years ago, that was the
21:21
thing. CF OS are no longer bookkeeping
21:24
in the corner and flying out reports there, you know,
21:27
understanding business. I think the reimagined CFO rule
21:30
today for me is really like that growth leader, strategic leader.
21:35
We don't sell in my world. We don't recruit.
21:37
I recognize the amazing work that the people who do that do,
21:43
but enabling that to happen strategically assessing,
21:47
understanding all the puzzle pieces that we talked about.
21:50
I can imagine a scenario where companies blend the CFO role
21:55
with the COO chief operating officer role, chief's strategic
21:59
officer role and it becomes, you know, could one person do all
22:04
that? Time will tell with AI and you
22:06
know, other techniques to support, but that role is so
22:11
Gray on the boundaries right now that I can imagine that that
22:14
comes together and the knowledge of how it all connects to the
22:18
numbers will always be critical. You know, we're we we're all
22:23
playing a business game, right? You need to score at the end and
22:26
that happens to be your financials.
22:27
And so how what you do touches and connects.
22:30
I think the CFO reimagined will be the leader of that type of
22:37
environment more than perhaps a CEO or chief strategic officer
22:42
could be. Where do you see currently that
22:44
delineation between a CFO and a COO?
22:47
Because I've seen a lot of not a lot.
22:49
I've seen several other companies where one of those
22:52
roles departs for whatever reason and the other one ends up
22:57
sort of consumes consuming it. Are they that closely related in
23:03
your mind? It depends on the definition of
23:05
the COO. So very often Coos will be
23:10
project leaders, lean leaders. And then I think if you're a
23:15
good CFO and you understand that you can blend into the CFO role,
23:20
it's difficult for the COO to take over the CFO role because
23:23
of that financial accounting control piece.
23:25
So there's a little bit of a table stakes that the CFO takes.
23:30
But in other companies, you'll see more and more often you see
23:32
CFO slash COO in many people's titles because that blend is
23:36
very difficult in today's modern way of working to distinguish.
23:42
Any examples you can think of of where you sort of kind of were
23:47
able to merge these two roles and your role there at medical
23:50
solutions, sort of the traditional finance with more of
23:53
like an operator or strategy hat on?
23:55
Yeah. So we don't have a COO in
23:59
medical solutions as titled. I would argue in our industry a
24:04
Chief Operating officer would be the expert at recruiting, the
24:08
expert at credentialing, you know the things in the front
24:11
that make the clinician viable for work.
24:14
We find them, we place them, you talk with the with the client.
24:19
So that kind of front of house, many CF OS in our industry who
24:24
have slashed titles with Co OS, they're talking about the
24:27
operating side behind it. So in our world, it's called VMS
24:32
reconciliations, but it's reconciling hours between what
24:35
the hospital says the clinician worked and what we say.
24:38
It's paying clinicians and employees, it's billing, it's
24:42
credit and collections. It's really the financial
24:44
operations that matter so much in this type of industry that
24:48
you'll see dual titles because of that piece.
24:52
And in Medical Solutions, our Chief Accounting Officer leads
24:56
the people who lead that operations.
24:58
OK, gotcha. So I kind of want to come back
25:00
to the the softball thing because I've found and you're,
25:04
you're extra excited now my favorite topic.
25:07
I found that people who have a strong sports background that
25:12
there is, without exception, some big lessons that they take
25:17
from that experience that they're able to bring into their
25:20
professional life. Yeah, yeah, You know, I didn't
25:25
realize that until I started working, how related it is.
25:29
So it, it is about, you know, back in the day they had a big
25:34
commercial about the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.
25:37
That's real. That's real.
25:38
So you know how to win. You have this innate, I'll say,
25:42
need to win. You fail, you dust yourself off,
25:48
you get back up. You might cry.
25:49
You might, you know, take 5 minutes to stomp around or maybe
25:54
say a swear word or two, but you get back up that.
25:58
I don't know if you do that 'cause you were playing as an
26:01
athlete or if you were an athlete, 'cause you can do that.
26:04
I don't know where the chicken and the egg start, but it is so
26:07
applicable to business. The team is the number one
26:12
thing. It's the team.
26:14
When you play on a team sport and you know, I pitched, I could
26:18
not pitch without my catcher telling me what to throw.
26:21
My first baseman is has more outs than probably anyone on the
26:24
team. I can't catch a fly ball as well
26:27
as those outfielders and my shortstop can't catch a fly ball
26:30
and they can't like. So everyone has a role to play.
26:33
They're experts in your role and together you are bigger than the
26:37
parts. That's business.
26:39
That is business. Everybody has a role to play.
26:42
You have to let them play their role.
26:43
You can encourage them. You can share your observations,
26:48
you know, Hey, next time put your glove down.
26:51
You know, I tell shortstop how to play short.
26:53
That would be crazy. But little tips and tricks you
26:55
can give to each other. But you count on your teammates
26:58
to be the best that they are at the position that they play
27:01
better than anyone else and you cannot win without them.
27:04
And you can only be bigger together.
27:08
That for me is the biggest relationship to business.
27:12
I wake up every morning, maybe not 18 years old, 20 years old,
27:16
in my head thinking how am I going to throw that rise ball
27:19
better? And you wake up every day
27:21
thinking, how can I be a better CFO, better leader?
27:24
What did I do yesterday that I could have communicated better?
27:27
That constant improvement and desire to be the best you can be
27:33
for your team is so applicable. I right on though I'm extra
27:40
curious, what's your fastball? So we have all agreed back in
27:45
the day never to share how fast we throw.
27:48
Why is that? Is that like an like a like a
27:51
sport? Yes, because it it was like this
27:54
girls can't throw that hard kind of thing.
27:56
So we kept it a mystery. OK, but as soon as you, this is
28:00
another great thing about playing.
28:01
Stop being a pitcher. As soon as you can throw a
28:03
fastball, you're not allowed to throw it anymore because it's
28:06
just a straight pitch and any great batter.
28:09
The first thing I realized when I was at UConn is I'm pitching
28:11
against every number for a batter I ever met.
28:14
Because only #4 batters go on to Division One and now they're
28:17
batting 9th and you're like, that used to be a number 4
28:20
batter. You can't throw a straight pitch
28:22
because they'll hit it. So as soon as you master your
28:24
fastball, you got to throw a cut off a curve, a rise ball,
28:27
something off speed, because they can hit fastballs.
28:32
And that's a huge lesson in business too, right?
28:34
Once you master something, everyone can hit it.
28:39
And so you've got to have other pitches.
28:41
You got to have other tools in your tool belt.
28:43
You do, and you. Have to So what was your best
28:44
secondary pitch? That's funny you asked that.
28:46
So I had a reunion about a month ago and the team asked, one of
28:51
the new coach asked the team what was my best pitch and I
28:54
would swore they would have said it's a thing called a cut off.
28:57
It's like a drop curve. They said a rise ball and
29:01
Anthony, that was another life lesson to me because my rise
29:03
ball was so difficult to throw and I never truly mastered it.
29:07
And it was always the thing that it could have been a little bit
29:11
better. And to hear your teammates from
29:13
a very long time ago reminisce upon the fact that what you
29:17
thought was your your struggle was actually your strength.
29:21
I was like, wow, another lesson to apply to business.
29:25
And what is that? Maybe we're not always sort of
29:27
the best judge of our skills, or we're we're our own worst critic
29:31
at times. We are always our own worst
29:33
critic. And if you have a team full of
29:37
critics, you got to lift each other up.
29:38
You got to share what they're good at, celebrate their
29:41
superpowers. Nobody's good at everything.
29:44
And, you know, retrospectively, you wonder if I thought someone
29:48
thought my rise ball was pretty good when I had had more
29:50
confidence in it. I don't know.
29:52
Probably, yeah, I think. So too but.
29:55
There's a lot to be said for confidence in kind of getting
29:57
that little momentum going forward in a positive.
30:00
Courage to try it harder, faster.
30:02
So that's all part of the application I have every day
30:05
here. Now, you mentioned something
30:07
interesting about there's sort of being an agreement not to
30:09
share the speed of your fastball 'cause there's this whole like
30:12
girls can't throw fast kind of a thing and and the professional
30:16
level you're known for champion women in healthcare leadership.
30:21
Why? And maybe can you share a
30:23
personal example of overcoming a significant hurdle in your
30:28
career? Yeah, I can.
30:29
So this gets so my whole, I'm just gonna say my whole life,
30:34
and this isn't a sob story, but as long as I can remember, I was
30:37
always like different, right? So in high school I played
30:40
sports, but I was in the band and I was kind of smart.
30:45
I was a National Honor Society and I So you were not the jock,
30:50
the nerd or the band kid. You were kind of oh, so you
30:55
never really like fit. And then you go to play in
30:59
college and you're now a female Division One athlete.
31:03
That's very intimidating to a lot of people, a lot of men you
31:07
would like to date that you you know, I remember one boyfriend
31:11
said to me, OK, you're lovely and whatever, but he goes and I
31:15
bet you could kick my butt at softball.
31:17
And I said, yeah, I bet I could. Ended the relationship, right?
31:21
I'm like, do I have to hide what I am?
31:23
So that whole not really being comfortable with who you are,
31:27
being proud of what you do, but not really fitting in.
31:31
I Fast forward into my career. So you're a female in finance.
31:35
That's odd. You're a female in
31:37
manufacturing. It's kind of odd.
31:39
And you're a female in finance, in manufacturing, which makes
31:42
you kind of really odd. And I just wanted to be known
31:49
for the work I did. I didn't want to be the female.
31:51
I didn't want to be the not female.
31:53
I just wanted to be. You're not a woman CFO, you're a
31:56
CFO. Just a CFO, right?
31:58
I still get that you don't look like a CFO.
32:00
And depending on the tone I go, is that cuz I'm a girl or
32:03
because, right. So that's always been the case.
32:07
And then when I was at again, Alcoa, I was asked to join the
32:11
Alcoa Women's Network. It was 20, three years ago when
32:16
these were first forming, some very senior amazing women got
32:21
together and said we need to have this affinity network.
32:24
They're now EI GS and BR GS. And I said no.
32:30
And that's shocking to a lot of people who know me today.
32:33
But I just didn't want to be the female.
32:36
I just wanted to be fine at finance, good at my job, making
32:42
a difference. And it didn't matter to me what
32:46
my gender was. And at the time I had what they
32:52
call today, an unlikely ally at the time was my CEO.
32:56
He was male, South America. He's from Brazil.
32:59
So not somebody you would imagine would 25 years ago be
33:04
the promoter of me. But he called me into his office
33:07
and he said, why did you say no? And I told him, it's hard enough
33:10
being a female. I don't need to draw attention
33:13
to it. I don't.
33:14
And he gave it to me. He said to me, Denise, people
33:20
are watching you. Like it or not, you're a role
33:22
model. Like it or not, you can put your
33:23
head in the sand or you can help these people.
33:26
You can be. And I was just like, what?
33:28
The burden, the burden of recognizing that people were
33:33
watching you and I, it was immense.
33:38
It was immense. So I decided to fine, I'll do
33:43
it. I don't know what I have to
33:44
offer 'cause I'm don't fit in anywhere, right?
33:48
And then it just Anthony sprang from there.
33:51
I had a little girl, she was born and I thought, man, that
33:53
girl is not going to go through what I went through.
33:56
And every chance I get to speak, preach, tell people.
34:00
I had a meeting on Monday with one of my vice presidents.
34:02
It's OK to feel that way. It's normal.
34:05
When you make this transition in your career, it happens.
34:08
You just need someone to when. You say it's OK to feel that
34:12
way. What do you mean it's OK to
34:14
feel? So when you go from being an
34:16
excellent doer and a rewarded. Watched and and considered a
34:20
role model. And you're a role model and
34:22
people watch you and you're winning awards, and now you're
34:24
leading people who do that. It's very difficult to be that
34:28
leader in the beginning 'cause you're the one who used to be
34:31
recognized and now you are ensuring your team is
34:35
recognized. And if you're not used to that,
34:37
that's the transition she's going through.
34:40
You have to just talk about it and understand it and understand
34:44
it's normal and you can make choices in your life to go back
34:47
and be the doer. You don't have to be the leader.
34:48
You don't have to grow a career. You can be happy where you are.
34:52
Anthony, I could spend the whole hour talking about this.
34:53
So every day, whether they're college students, friends of my
35:00
daughter, athletes at UConn, vice presidents and medical
35:06
solution outside the world, anybody that I can help to share
35:11
an experience, a message, a journey, a learning to make
35:14
their path faster, smoother, easier, hands down, I will do
35:19
it. Hands down.
35:20
Wow. Because it's not.
35:22
It's not easy. So it was really that
35:25
conversation with your CEO many years ago, the gentleman from
35:30
Brazil and the birth of your daughter that was sort of like
35:33
these wake up moment sort of awaken this giant with within
35:38
huge. How did you, how did you sort of
35:41
come to terms with 'cause I could sort of see it in your
35:45
eyes when you're talking about the weight of that realization
35:48
that I'm on stage now. How did you get comfortable with
35:53
that? I don't know that you ever are.
35:59
When I played sports, and I'll just use you kind of as an
36:02
example, we were told the ethics, the, the, the
36:06
representation you make of that university, if you get caught
36:10
doing something wrong, it's another way to keep us out of
36:12
trouble, right? I know that the headline's not
36:15
going to say Denise did this. It's going to say a UConn
36:19
softball player. And I get chills when I say that
36:22
because it's the same thing right now.
36:23
It's like the CFO of Medical Solutions, the North America CFO
36:27
of Ron's, like that headline is what I want to not ever see.
36:35
And so I gladly, it gets tiring, but I gladly carry the burden of
36:41
aiming to never be that headline and ensuring anybody I can touch
36:47
and help be great and prevent anything like that for them.
36:52
Whatever the headline is, it doesn't have to be, you know,
36:54
you're arrested. It could be, I don't know, you
36:57
forgot your kid at school or you know, whatever makes you upset
37:00
that that's prevented. Say more about DEI and how that
37:06
fits in with Medical Solutions mission and how you sort of
37:10
measure the effects of that. Yes.
37:12
So I think medical solutions is ADEIB company like so how does
37:18
it fit into it's all the clinicians that we place.
37:21
DEIB is beyond back in the day, it was gender when I first
37:24
started, right? It was the women's network or
37:26
not. And then it started to expand
37:28
into, you know, Black excellence or Asian communities, LGBTQ like
37:34
into different areas. But diversity is also once
37:38
that's conquered, experience, culture, where you lived, how
37:45
you were raised. There's just so many components
37:47
to it. And in medical solutions, with
37:49
the number of people we touch, the 10s of thousands of people
37:54
we touch, that diversity is innate in it.
37:57
So as a company, it's just part of who we are and how we bring
38:02
ourselves forward into everything we do.
38:05
It's about trust and safety and ability to bring your whole self
38:11
to work, whatever your work is. It sounds like this is one of
38:15
those things. It's more of the right thing to
38:17
do so you do it, rather than a we have a measurable outcome
38:21
from it. I'd be right in that.
38:23
You are about that. You know, I've been in companies
38:25
where we started programs and we measured.
38:28
We take to heart as every company does, our employee
38:32
engagement surveys and there's a lot of questions about DEIB on
38:36
those. And so those scores matter.
38:39
All the scores matter, but that's where we get the true
38:42
voice of our teammates. In my experience, the biggest
38:46
thing you can do to evidence DEIB like in numbers would be,
38:51
you know, diverse slates. And I I would never say hiring
38:56
because you hired the best candidate, but to have a diverse
38:58
slate really triggers eye opening experiences of what
39:03
diversity could bring. And generally then a very
39:06
diverse workforce. We don't count those or measure
39:09
those. I think a lot of programs are
39:12
beyond that these days, hopefully.
39:14
And it's about that, that feeling, that comfort, that
39:18
safety that people have in our company.
39:21
That's great, doing the right thing because it's the right
39:24
thing to do. Exactly.
39:25
You can't not it's it's you can't not.
39:27
That's to represent. That's to represent.
39:30
Medical Solutions has gone through some really significant
39:33
growth and I understand that a lot of that growth has taken
39:38
place by way of acquisitions that allow you guys to broaden
39:42
your reach. What are the biggest things that
39:44
you're looking for when assessing a possible
39:47
acquisition? Such a great question.
39:50
At Medical Solutions, we look at two things.
39:52
We look at what we call close to core, so grow volume of what we
39:56
do and what we do well, the consultative travel nursing,
40:03
direct hire nursing clinician kind of support.
40:08
And we look at what we'll call adjacency.
40:10
So we're developing virtual on our own, but we'd look at tech
40:14
support, we would look at other types of.
40:18
Of needs of our clients like maybe locums, that's doctors and
40:21
other areas that could expand our portfolio to satisfy our
40:26
clients even more in their portfolio of managing their
40:30
whole talent system. The value of.
40:33
So that's the kind of what do you look at?
40:35
The value of that of course is why you would do an acquisition.
40:38
So what's the growth, the opportunity, the synergies on
40:42
the client side. So where can we cross sell and
40:44
where can we grow together on the cost side?
40:47
So do you need 2 CF OS for example?
40:50
And how do you eliminate a cost base?
40:53
What opportunities do you have with best practice sharing, tech
40:56
sharing? So you look at all of that to
41:00
determine what option that you will take.
41:04
The healthcare market at the moment where we have medical
41:06
surgeons has grown incredibly and the whole COVID experience
41:10
for healthcare was completely different than what I
41:12
experienced in general staffing, which was a huge decline.
41:16
The industry is difficult at the moment.
41:18
The clinicians are on shortage. The hospital systems are looking
41:22
to use their internal resource pools first, which we're helping
41:26
with technology to help them do, again, consultatively, not just
41:30
trying to sell a staffing product.
41:36
And it's it's a tricky environment at the moment to
41:38
determine the speed of growth, where you place your bets and
41:43
how much is your bet. What?
41:46
What's making it so challenging? The combination of all of that
41:49
at once. So often in a market you'll have
41:55
scarcity on supply, scarcity on demand.
41:58
You might have an economic condition, you might have
41:59
uncertainty in some administrative ruling.
42:03
You might have changes happening in your client environment
42:06
today. In healthcare, all of that's
42:08
happening at once. Yeah, it's just a a tornado of
42:12
things to try to consider at the same time.
42:13
Yet you know it's going to grow, right?
42:17
People are living longer, people need healthcare.
42:20
It's not a limited demand. So that timing is difficult at
42:27
the moment. So, you know, obviously as a
42:29
CFO1 of the things that you're looking at in the numbers you're
42:33
looking for cost saving opportunities, can we cross sell
42:35
to clients like you said, you know, can we learn from your
42:37
tech stack or just other sort of best practices?
42:41
Those are some of the things that you're taking into account
42:43
in your role. Are you considering it all
42:47
culture fit? Is that something that you can
42:49
even measure or kind of wrap your head around?
42:53
Always, always there's a, I'll go back to my early days of the
42:58
HR degree and the finance degree.
42:59
So that's the financial CFO answer.
43:02
The real success of an acquisition is your ability to
43:06
deploy the acquisition plan, meaning the integration and the
43:10
integrations are most successful when light cultures, it's not
43:14
about they have to be the same, but like culture.
43:16
So if you're both, if one is a partying doesn't care about
43:22
process kind of lucky in their results and the other one is,
43:26
you know, process folk isn't oriented, that blend becomes
43:29
very challenging when you've got people who believe in only the
43:33
financial results and it doesn't matter how we get there and how
43:36
the people feel safe or not, that blend is very difficult.
43:39
So we also consider in any kind of discussion the best match for
43:46
success of deploying that business case because without it
43:49
you all you did was spend money. Is that something that's easy
43:53
for you to ascertain during that sort of dating process or do you
43:56
feel like it feels like if I'm in a position and I want to be
44:00
acquired, I'm going to kind of put on my best face that I think
44:03
is going to appeal to you, right?
44:05
Yes, so and in these days I would expect that, but in the
44:08
older days when you know, the money was around and the market
44:11
was growing and it was all glory, many acquired targets
44:15
like the targets would say, I don't want to be acquired by you
44:17
because OK, so it's a two way dating.
44:21
It's not only one way. That's part of the magic and the
44:27
success of the acquisition is to is on both sides.
44:32
So you're not going to end up going in on a big giant lie.
44:35
What you end up, what I call is deal fever.
44:38
People get deal fever and they think, oh, we can overcome that.
44:40
Oh, it's not going to be that bad.
44:42
Oh, so it's more of convincing yourself that it's possible
44:46
instead of truly looking at what the possibilities are?
44:50
And so how would you describe the culture, their medical
44:52
solutions? Yeah.
44:53
So Medical Solutions, we're in a bit of a transformation of our
44:56
culture. So when you are growing and
44:58
you're kind of printing money and you're doing acquisitions,
45:01
it's very different than when you're facing the market that
45:03
we're in right now. And so in the last 18 months or
45:06
so, it's been more oriented toward those processes, the
45:11
very, I won't say detailed, but intentional way of working,
45:17
ensuring that everything we touch and do matters.
45:20
And that shift toward, you know, people call it more performance
45:25
based. I think medical solutions was
45:26
always performance based, but it's more fun of mind on how you
45:30
impact not only your teammates, your clinicians and your
45:35
clients, but the scorecard at the end of the day.
45:37
And so that's a little bit of a of a difference, but culturally
45:41
it's a very open, transparent. Again, we're putting in lean.
45:47
So the person doing the job knows the job the best.
45:49
You have a voice. Ensuring that people feel
45:53
incredibly safe and comfortable sharing their voice every time
45:56
that they can or should will continue to be all right.
46:00
I love that. What's a personal or
46:03
professional challenge, Denise, that you've had to overcome in
46:07
your life? What was that?
46:09
How'd you learn from it? How'd you get through it?
46:11
Yeah, You know, there's the one that sticks with me for so long.
46:15
I've got to go back to the I got injured my junior year.
46:19
And when you are, it's not about playing a sport, but when you
46:22
have something in your life that is your life.
46:25
If it's a a person, a job, a school, a friend, a team, a
46:30
sport and it's ripped away from you in an instant cause of an
46:34
injury, dare I even compare that to a death or anything that's
46:39
even way more tragic. You, you don't know what to do.
46:45
And I got hurt and was like, wow, what do I do now?
46:50
I've played softball since I was 16.
46:51
I played it every day for hours. How do you how do you react to
46:58
that? And retrospectively, I don't
47:03
think there was ever a moment where I thought, I'm decided,
47:05
this is what I'm going to do. But you just again, dust off,
47:09
pick up the pieces, pivot, find your way through.
47:14
Sometimes, You know, I wanted to play softball my whole life.
47:16
After I got hurt, I thought I should probably make sure I get
47:19
good grades too, because if I do want a job, they're probably
47:23
going to notice. So you just pivot a little bit
47:27
along the way and end up with all the lessons learned and the
47:33
choices you made. And honestly, what you learn is
47:35
if you don't like where you are, you have to make different
47:37
choices. It sounds super privileged.
47:39
A lot of people don't have multiple choice, but to try to
47:43
create your own options. What's the biggest lesson at
47:48
work too? If you don't like the job you're
47:50
in, the boss you have, the company you're in, change it.
47:53
If you can't change it and you tried and no one's listening and
47:56
they tell you no, change where you work.
48:00
It sounds so easy to do. It's not.
48:02
Any crisis in your life like that is not easy, but it's
48:07
turning in a pivot point for where you had to in the future.
48:11
You know, I'm really glad that we get a chance to talk about
48:14
this 'cause I think it highlights something that
48:17
doesn't get a lot of attention and people who haven't gone
48:21
through it under appreciate the significance of it.
48:24
You know, your identity, a huge portion of it was wrapped up in
48:28
softball for some people. And you know, this is also true
48:33
for you, for true for me. Identity is also wrapped up in
48:36
career or, or, or whatever it is.
48:39
And when that part of your identity suddenly disappears,
48:44
it's very destabilizing. Yes.
48:46
It's very confusing about how do I fit into this world?
48:50
What am I supposed to do with myself?
48:52
Yes. How am I supposed to contribute?
48:54
Where where do I where do I go today?
48:57
You know, some, some things as simple as that, Yes.
49:00
And then, you know, it's, it's like, it's like you've been
49:03
dropped in from outer space and you need to figure things out
49:06
all over again. Yes.
49:08
And there's not a like a network of support for that because
49:11
everybody's positions different. How you manage and deal with
49:15
that is different. What you talk about, what you
49:17
look like while you're going through it, if you're dealing
49:19
with heartache, pain or physical pain, it's, it's incredible.
49:23
And when you're through that and out on the other side and
49:27
content with where your journey has been at that moment, I have
49:32
a lot of people say to me, aren't you lucky you got hurt?
49:36
Because I got hurt. I got an MBA.
49:38
Then I went to the Netherlands and met my husband and now I
49:41
have amazing children, right? And that injury definitely was a
49:46
catalyst of change. But I stand by it's also the
49:51
choices you create, the energy you have to adjust, the drive
49:57
you have to pivot, everybody in support around you trying to
50:00
help you find your way. I'm not sure we're all lucky
50:05
when those moments happen, but when you end up on the other
50:09
side of it, you're stronger for sure.
50:13
It's so hard in the moment when you're kind of wallowing in
50:17
what, you know, just happened in this loss of identity, this loss
50:20
of self. But I don't know.
50:24
I'd be curious to hear your thought.
50:25
The, you know, the advice I would give to people is if you
50:28
can be curious in that moment and, and pretend that you're
50:32
looking in the rearview mirror a year, five years, 10 years from
50:35
now, at this moment, what is it that you want to be grateful
50:38
for? What is it that this moment
50:41
could have been an inflection point, a fulcrum for you sort
50:48
of, you know, finding leverage to get into a new situation?
50:51
How do you think about? It I think you should have been
50:53
around when I got hurt. So I was much more short term
50:56
focused. I wanted to play again.
50:58
I knew that people said you'll never play again and I'm like,
51:00
I'm going to play again. So stubbornness, perhaps
51:03
naivete, I don't know. Those can be great at times,
51:10
those can be those can be a powerful combination that.
51:12
They're I wanted to play again, I wanted to get a degree with
51:16
good grades. I didn't want to get an
51:19
undergraduate degree in five years, so could I please go get
51:22
an MBA? So there were things more short
51:25
term for me that I thought, OK, this happened.
51:28
Now you've got to figure out the next two or three years of how
51:32
that could be to make what happened not the end of
51:38
everything. And then you grew from that.
51:41
And then when I look back, I think, man, if I had thought
51:43
about 5 to 10 years at that time, I don't even know what
51:47
would have happened. So great advice.
51:49
Yeah. Denise, how would you
51:51
characterize your superpower? Gosh, I would say I genuinely
51:59
enjoy people. As funny as that sounds to be a
52:03
superpower. Like, I'm intrigued by how
52:04
people think, why they work, how they work, why they think things
52:09
are a problem, how they come up. Like I'm fully intrigued by
52:12
people. And when people recognize it's
52:17
genuine and you do care or are truly interested, I think that
52:24
turns into, yeah, the possibilities that you never
52:29
imagined because you have transparency, openness, trust,
52:34
respect. Pick a word that can launch into
52:37
something, again, bigger than yourselves.
52:41
And I truly find people so incredibly interesting.
52:47
This is, you know, generally more of like an HR kind of a
52:50
question, but curious to get your thoughts on it, especially
52:54
given what you just said there. You know, you guys big, big
52:58
company, lots of employees. Yeah.
53:03
Recruiting is a big part of what you guys do.
53:07
Retaining the good folks also a big part of your success.
53:12
What are some things that in your career you've seen, tried
53:15
and found success with when it comes to the recruiting and the
53:19
retention of good team members? Yeah.
53:22
So I'm going to say it straight up.
53:24
It is tell the truth. So when you are in an interview,
53:28
when I'm in an interview, you've got to tell the good, the bad,
53:32
the ugly. When you think about how do I
53:34
describe our company to you as a candidate, a lot of people's
53:37
head goes toward the marketing story or the reality, right?
53:42
There should be no difference. You might have a marketing story
53:46
for where you're headed and what the joy will bring and hug, but
53:49
in the moment and who you are, I say full transparency.
53:53
My aim is in interviews to never enable anyone who joins us to
53:57
come back and say, you didn't warn me.
54:00
And I mean the warn of the good and the bad.
54:01
So warn you that we are a diverse company.
54:04
We will embrace DEIB. We will talk about it.
54:06
We will have tough conversations about it in an interview.
54:09
Everyone's like, yeah. And when they come, they're
54:12
like, oh, I didn't know you meant we're going to talk about
54:13
that. So in the good of it and in the
54:16
bad of it, you know, we work hard at Medical solutions.
54:19
We're going through change. We're aiming to put the right
54:22
jobs in the right spot across the globe.
54:23
We want to be the best partners we can to our our clients and to
54:28
our clinicians. And that takes enormous passion
54:32
and hard work and change that during an interview.
54:36
Everyone's like, yeah, but you have to really describe what
54:41
it's like because if I interview with somebody who says this,
54:46
this interview with, they said, Denise, we just deployed an ERP,
54:48
we have a growth plan that's working.
54:51
We did a reduction in force. So we're all set to launch.
54:55
And I'm like, why do you need me then?
54:57
Because that just sounds really boring.
55:00
And then they said, well, ERP is not really working well and
55:03
maybe the growth plan isn't succeeding in growth.
55:06
And I'm like, oh, OK, so you have to get the match at the
55:09
start. It may take a minute.
55:12
It's sometimes difficult. There are people out there that
55:14
love your company, whether you are changing and chaotic or
55:18
smooth and greased and routine. There's people who love that.
55:23
And once you find them, they they stay 'cause you give them
55:27
what they love, what they thrive in.
55:32
That's I love this answer and it's not a traditional one that
55:35
I get, you know, tell the truth, like let them know what they're
55:38
coming into the good, the bad, the indifferent 'cause you.
55:43
And it makes a lot of sense once you say it out loud, because you
55:46
want somebody coming into an environment that they're going
55:49
to be comfortable with. Yes, that they want.
55:51
You want them to be a good fit for what it is that you guys
55:55
have already established in terms of culture.
55:57
Yes. And where we're headed like you
55:59
always have the beautiful marketing story in the in the
56:02
vision every company does. But you, there's very many
56:05
different people out there and if you get somebody who likes
56:08
routine, smooth process doing the same thing every day and
56:12
that's not your environment, you have no, you have no luck with
56:16
that. What are you most excited about
56:20
for the future of Medical Solutions?
56:21
Where is this going? I'm super excited about, I'm
56:25
going to call it growth from the finance side, but that true
56:30
partnership in healthcare to provide what the patients, the
56:37
users of the healthcare systems need to live.
56:41
There are the intricacies of what they do and how clinicians
56:46
work, how healthcare's systems manage in a business in a non
56:51
for profit. The complexity of what's
56:52
happening in the administration with, you know, Medicare,
56:55
Medicaid, what's going to happen.
56:57
It's a it's an environment which every human needs eventually in
57:01
their life somehow, some way that's so incredibly complex.
57:06
If we Medical Solutions can make that difference in there with
57:09
the partnership and helping hospital systems and healthcare
57:13
systems to be smoother, quality workforce, lower cost so that
57:20
they can continue to invest in the right equipment and perhaps
57:23
more clinicians to help more people.
57:26
If we can be a part of that while growing our company, I
57:30
think that would be thrilling and that is our aim.
57:35
That is our aim. From your experience, Denise
57:38
Share with the audience may be a helpful resource, a podcast, a
57:43
book, of course, something that has been helpful in your
57:47
personal or professional trajectory.
57:49
This is like the. Worst question ever.
57:52
Inspired stories podcast. Listen to them.
57:55
True. Listen to my teammate Patty
57:57
Artley. She was amazing.
57:58
I do genuinely mean that I don't have a favorite book.
58:01
That's why I get to the read, listen, learn a nugget from
58:08
everything that you touch. I don't have one book that I you
58:13
know, back in the day you read don't move my cheese or who
58:15
moved my cheese and you read nice girls don't get the corner
58:18
office. I learned don't bake and bring
58:19
baked goods to work from that book because only like moms bake
58:23
and they'll see like so there's Nuggets from everything you
58:27
read, but there's not one that I thought this is the one.
58:32
Most recently, I served on a panel and as a gift they gave me
58:36
Dare to Lead Brené Brown because they felt that I was that type
58:44
of leader. It was intriguing to read a book
58:46
about how people perceive you because you can learn from that
58:50
too. What did you learn about
58:52
yourself reading that book? That people perceive me in a
58:55
completely different way than I perceive myself, which is
58:59
critically important to know. And I don't say incredibly
59:02
different. You know, when, when you
59:03
organize, I could never organize myself into 5 or 6 points of
59:07
leadership of exactly how I lead.
59:09
I have to talk and tell stories and, and reading the book, I'm
59:12
like, I can see why people say that what you don't like about
59:16
it, you can change what you do like you can embrace.
59:19
I just tell people, listen to truly, your podcast is amazing.
59:23
Listen to all podcasts. You can read the business books,
59:26
read the old ones 'cause they're they're still valid, and take
59:31
the Nuggets from them. Because I don't think unless you
59:34
write your own book, there's probably not a lot you can take
59:38
to make yourself who you want to be from one book.
59:42
Fair enough. How about daily practices that
59:45
are helpful to you? Something to get your day
59:48
started or keep you on track. Yeah, so there's there's two
59:51
things I do in the start of the day.
59:52
I'm like this is what I'm going to do today.
59:54
And then I never do it like every, you know, person who
59:57
works, but it's about improvement to me.
1:00:00
So I promise you, I wake up every morning thinking how am I
1:00:03
going to throw a better eyes ball?
1:00:04
Seriously. So how am I going to do this
1:00:05
meeting better that what could I do different have to do this
1:00:09
today. So it's like that prep for the
1:00:10
day to make the business better, my teammates better clinicians
1:00:18
and clients more successful. What are you going to do today?
1:00:21
And at the end of the day, we have some really as as CF you do
1:00:25
so many things you have. At the end of the day, you
1:00:28
think, here's the 10 things I didn't do, the five things I
1:00:30
meant to do, the two things I really should have done.
1:00:35
But I sit there and I always say to myself, with everything you
1:00:38
had going on and all the choices you had to make and everything
1:00:41
that happened during the day, could you have done it better?
1:00:45
And very often the answer is yes, but it's one thing or the
1:00:51
thing. So that's what you take away for
1:00:53
the next time, the next day to continue that improvement.
1:00:56
But if you constantly have a list of 50 things that somebody
1:00:59
asked you to do, no is a complete sentence by the way,
1:01:03
and you say no to the 20 and you have to organize the rest.
1:01:06
You're just never going to be satisfied, motivated, and you'll
1:01:10
be exhausted. So you really need to find your
1:01:13
one thing that you're going to change as a result of your day
1:01:17
that you start your day with and then the next day, then the one
1:01:19
thing. Do you think that mental process
1:01:21
is more challenging as a woman and a mother also balancing a
1:01:26
very demanding career I'm. Going to say of course, but I
1:01:30
don't know what it's like to be a man and a dad, right?
1:01:32
So I'm not judging that it's harder.
1:01:34
But you grow up in your career always wanting to be somewhere
1:01:39
else. So when you're at work and
1:01:41
you're doing the best you can there, you think I'm missing
1:01:43
this with my kids. And when you're with your kids,
1:01:45
you're like, oh, if I could just do that one e-mail.
1:01:47
So you're always want needing to be somewhere else.
1:01:52
Many women ask me, do you get used to it?
1:01:54
Many answer yes. My answer is I don't They ask,
1:01:59
sorry, does it get easier? My answer is no, but you do get
1:02:02
used to it. So I, I do think it's difficult
1:02:07
for anybody in a dynamic role with outside interest, be it
1:02:12
families, parents, children, it's, it's a work life blend.
1:02:21
I don't think there's a work life balance when you're in a
1:02:24
certain role. I'll agree with that.
1:02:26
As a dad, a husband, a guy, yeah, similar challenges.
1:02:33
It's, it's hard because when you're in one place, yeah, your
1:02:36
brain is sort of working in the other place.
1:02:39
Unfortunately, I've got a very patient and loving wife who
1:02:43
recognizes that and gently kind of pulls me back to where I
1:02:48
should be at the moments I need to be there.
1:02:50
But yeah, it's a challenge and. Anthony, I think if you're in a
1:02:54
family relationship like my husband is OK, I'm being
1:02:58
recorded. He is amazing, but hopefully he
1:03:00
will never listen to this. Joking aside, he's amazing.
1:03:04
And without that, neither of us could be successful, right?
1:03:09
And without us stepping back when we need to, neither can
1:03:14
they. So that partnership is doesn't
1:03:17
mean equal. It just means partnership and
1:03:21
who needs what and which day is is critical.
1:03:25
Yeah, Denise, I've just got one more question for you.
1:03:27
But before I ask it, I want to do 2 things.
1:03:29
I'm going to invite all the listeners to go ahead and hit
1:03:32
the follow button on your favorite podcast app.
1:03:33
We've had a great conversation here today with Denise
1:03:36
Denningmeyer from Medical Solutions.
1:03:38
I want you to continue to get more great content like this,
1:03:41
Denise. I also want to let people know
1:03:42
the best way either to get in touch with you or to continue to
1:03:45
follow your story. What would that?
1:03:47
Yeah. I love that.
1:03:47
Thank you. On LinkedIn, that's the easiest
1:03:49
way to do it. I'm probably the only Denise
1:03:51
Detzenmeyer in all of LinkedIn. I never checked, certainly the
1:03:54
only one at Medical Solutions. So if you just link me in, tell
1:03:58
me that you listen to the podcast, I will link you back
1:04:00
and we can take it from there. That's awesome.
1:04:02
Very gracious of you. So last question for you, Denise
1:04:06
had a nice conversation here. I hope we stay in touch year
1:04:08
from now, we reconnect and you're celebrating something,
1:04:12
really excited about that. What is that thing?
1:04:15
Oh, my kids got their master's degrees.
1:04:18
It has nothing to do with work. How many kids are getting their
1:04:21
master? 'S so I have two children.
1:04:23
They are two years apart. I have one who did College in
1:04:28
three years, one who did an extra semester, Chris of a study
1:04:30
abroad. They're both headed to the
1:04:32
Netherlands for master's degrees in August.
1:04:35
Super proud of them. One will finish in a year one's
1:04:38
A2 year program. And if they thrive, they survive
1:04:43
even there. Never mind thrive.
1:04:45
I will be celebrating. That's amazing, such a selfless
1:04:49
answer and go right to your kids.
1:04:51
Yeah. Oh, for sure.
1:04:52
Denise Denningmeyer for Medical Solutions.
1:04:54
I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time
1:04:57
and your story with us today. I really appreciate.
1:04:58
It thanks for making it so great, Anthony.
1:05:00
I appreciate you too. That's a wrap on another episode
1:05:03
of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us
1:05:05
today.