Up & Comers awards recognize 12 rising healthcare stars

Modern Healthcare's editors were inundated with entries for the Up & Comers class of 2014. We received more than 150 nominations from a wide variety of healthcare provider, insurer and supplier organizations.

Predicting from among that group who will emerge as healthcare's household names over the next few years was no easy task. If you read through the resumes of healthcare's top leaders today, many started running small hospitals in semirural states. Others worked their way from consulting groups to staff jobs to top leadership posts. Our nominees were similarly diverse.

And so are this year's winners—the ones whose backgrounds, current jobs and future prospects stood out from the pack. They ranged from the chief operating officer at a sprawling rural hospital system in South Dakota, who returned home after spending two years at one of the nation's most prestigious law firms in Washington, to the daughter of Nigerian immigrants who parlayed stellar academic training at Berkeley, Pepperdine and Harvard into the chief-of-staff role at one of the nation's largest healthcare systems.

There are three physicians and one nurse among the honorees, testimony to the heightened emphasis that provider and insurance organizations are putting on hands-on healthcare experience when they look for their next generation of leaders. And in a common story for many in our nomination pool, the first encounter for three members of this year's class began either as a patient or patient advocate—experiences that shaped their career aspirations.

Our deepest thanks go out to all who nominated colleagues for this honor. Your perspicacity never ceases to amaze. One of this year's winners—shortly after his name was submitted for the honor—found himself sitting across from the president as he sought guidance on the rapidly evolving Ebola crisis.

That's why I can say with some certainty that you will be hearing much more about the members of Modern Healthcare's Up & Comers Class of 2014. They join a prestigious fraternity of 27 previous Up & Comer classes, whose ranks include Dr. Don Berwick, Dr. Brent James, Nancy Schlichting, Rulon Stacey, Gov. Bobby Jindal and Glenn Hackbarth.

Not bad company. Now let's watch them grow.

Follow Merrill Goozner on Twitter: @MHgoozner