About this episode

Kelly Nierstedt shares her unconventional journey from Wall Street to becoming a hospital president without an MBA.

Kelly Nierstedt never planned to lead a hospital. She is a first-generation college graduate who worked on Wall Street out of high school, went to nursing school as a second career, and wanted nothing more than to be the best labor and delivery nurse she could be. Then the taps on the shoulder started. Take on this project. Take on this unit. Take on another. Today, Kelly is the president of Orlando Health Orlando Regional Medical Center, one of the largest and most complex hospitals in Florida and home to the region's Level 1 Trauma Center — and senior vice president of the Orlando Region. She got there without an MBA, without a finance background, and without ever checking all the boxes first. In this episode of Inspiring Women, Laurie McGraw sits down with Kelly to trace the path from the bedside at Hackensack University Medical Center, to leading OSF Healthcare Children's Hospital of Illinois in Peoria — where she built a care-closer-to-home model so families no longer had to drive four hours to Chicago — to becoming the inaugural president of Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies, one of the busiest delivery hospitals in the nation. Then came the second…

People in this episode

Host: Laurie McGraw

Guest: Kelly Nierstedt

Topics covered

• career transition
• healthcare leadership
• nursing
• women in business
• hospital management
• personal growth

Keywords

• nursing career
• hospital leadership
• women in healthcare
• career development
• Orlando Health
• labor and delivery
• healthcare complexity

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Orlando Health Orlando Regional Medical Center, Hackensack University Medical Center, OSF Healthcare Children's Hospital of Illinois, Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies

Places: Florida, Chicago, Peoria

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