Pooja Kumar

Then in 2019, you became the first female chief executive of Partners Healthcare, the state's largest private employer.

And you were named one of the top 25 women leaders in healthcare.

You are a trailblazer indeed.

In 2019, you were quoted as saying, it's important to create a future state where no one will say here is the first woman in any role.

How would you describe the progress we've made in this area over the past few years?

What still needs to happen to make this a reality?

That's very helpful.

And I think well said about the particular issues that have been there for a long while in our society and in the way that we work.

You said in an interview with Barnard College that the best legacy is to develop the next generation of leaders and help people find what it is they want to dedicate their life to.

How do you practice this belief in your day-to-day work?

What advice do you have for physicians seeking leadership positions?

Yeah, it's a real provocation, I think, to many leaders today where we have been bound to more traditional metrics and or asks that we're making in looking for leaders.

And often, I think that reflects, unfortunately, the makeup of the leadership teams that you see around boardrooms and management rooms today.

I'm sure you, like I, have been in a number of boardrooms and management team meetings when you look around and you see a lot of homogeneity that doesn't actually reflect the patient population that these institutions serve.

How would you ask other leaders in your position to think about that?

And what advice would you have for them?

Yeah, I think engaging people, calling people out, frankly, in the way that you've talked about, right, about their own biases or assumptions, and bringing to bear diverse viewpoints explicitly into the room, to your point, can make innovation better.

It can also make standard processes better.

There's a whole host of things that can come out of these types of moves.

I'd love for you to reflect about your personal transition from practicing physician to a leader influencing health for a population.