Behind the Hires: Kalen Stanton

Kalen Stanton is a senior client partner for Physicians Workforce Solutions at Korn Ferry.  

Job description: I advise health system leaders through their challenges at the intersection of organizational design, leadership alignment, succession planning, and change leadership. It’s often shoulder-to-shoulder or on-campus, so I’m on the road a lot. On the Korn Ferry side, I go deep with our teams on innovation and advancing how we do what we do, unifying and integrating solutions, or hosting leadership dialogues and strategy sessions.  

Typical project: Unifying a large academic, pediatric or community health system—in structure, process, culture and leadership. It’s the hardest thing to do in this industry, particularly the change element, and also what gets me the most excited: acquisitions, co-management, joint ventures, affiliations and the like.  

Current industry soapbox: We're leaving our future C-suite leaders without a playbook. We’re seeing the largest wave of CEO and C-suite retirements we’ve ever seen, and some are admirably trying to get their playbook on record, but most are thinking about succession planning as simply handing over the steering wheel. We don't take that intentional roadmap seriously enough.

How he joined Korn Ferry: I received a voicemail describing the role. I called back to see if it was from a real human, because it was so spot-on that I thought it might have been AI.  

Why he came: The biggest healthcare challenges cannot be solved by bringing only part of the solution to the table. This is a place with depth and breadth, from search to advisory to interim leadership, to digital enablement and recruitment process outsourcing. We know more leaders and more about those leaders and their organizations than any other firm in the world.

Hobbies: They only get about five minutes these days—music, camping, hunting, exploring. When I'm not in the boardroom, I'm either with my wife and kids or in the woods, if I can help it. My three kids are at an age where it’s all imagination and adventure.

On competitive wildlife art: I used to compete as a kid! They have these things called duck stamp competitions, where you compete to have your painting on a state wildlife stamp. And in Charleston, South Carolina, they have an annual wildlife event called the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition. I did a lot of graphite or pencil, and I'm trying to get more into acrylic paint—although my oldest daughter is getting there faster.

‍Travel strategy: Besides getting out with the family, I take colleagues and friends to places like East Africa, to see how healthcare is delivered, learn from that (even more than sharing what we know) and bring it back here. Like AIC Kijabe Hospital in Kenya, a 360-bed facility with regional ambulatory clinics, where they provide everything from everyday trauma care to rare-disease treatment across multiple countries. They’re just a great example of a health system that is very innovative, mission-led, and doing amazing things. It’s a big part of what I do and why I do it.  

What he’s learned from living with a nurse practitioner: My wife has helped me connect the dots between what executive leaders see and what clinicians work with day to day. The clinicians have actual relationships with these patients and their families, and are the best ones to inform decisions around things like patient scheduling and creating the best patient-family experience. Leadership tends to think it needs to create processes that are consistent—and staff want that too. But we don’t bring clinicians in often enough to help design the way care is delivered.  

Contrarian perspective: They say culture eats strategy for breakfast—but culture without strategy starves. You can’t design culture without a strategy. I see so much focus on getting culture right as an end in itself. Those efforts fail, or fade. For example, physicians are some of the smartest people on the planet, but we don’t democratize the strategy and put it in their hands. Why not? When we do, we create shared understanding and commitment. Open dialogue. Teamwork. That creates a culture that drives meaning and performance together. The importance of integrating strategy and culture can't be overstated.  

How We Can Help

Want to learn more about Korn Ferry's Healthcare practice? Check out our Healthcare consulting services.

‍