Quick Leonard Kieffer Recruits CFO for Cook County Health
October 25, 2021 – Quick Leonard Kieffer has placed Pamela Cassara as chief financial officer of Cook County Health in Chicago. Adrienne White-Faines, Bill Foley, and Joe Johnston led the nationwide search, which included a large pool of candidates.
Ms. Cassara comes to Cook County Health from Franciscan Alliance, where she served as chief financial officer. In this capacity, she helped standardize and consolidate financial functions for the health system, was part of the team responsible for building a replacement hospital and formed a partnership with a large orthopedic group for a joint venture ambulatory surgery center, and with a neighboring competitor for a micro-hospital joint venture. She also served as the CFO lead for the women’s and children’s service line across all 13 Franciscan hospitals, and on seven affiliate and JV boards to build successful business relationships with community members, physicians, local employers, government leaders and third-party payers.
Previously, Ms. Cassara served as a regional director of finance at Franciscan Alliance; as chief financial officer of MetroSouth Medical Center in Blue Island, IL, and of DeKalb Health in Auburn, IN; and in hospital CFO and controller roles within the Lutheran Health Network in Indiana. She began her career as a CPA. Ms. Cassara holds a bachelor’s degree in business, with an accounting concentration, from Indiana University. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Indiana CPA Society, and the Healthcare Financial Management Association.
As CFO of Cook County Health, Ms. Cassara is the health system’s financial leader, responsible for all financial and accounting oversight. This includes revenue cycle, reimbursement financial reporting, operational reporting and planning for the financial needs of the health system. She works closely with Cook County Health’s leadership team to provide strategic vision and management for the operational and fiscal direction of the health system.
Cook County Health is a comprehensive, integrated system of healthcare throughout Chicago and suburban Cook County that encompasses two hospitals, a growing ambulatory and community health network, a public health department, a correctional healthcare facility, an outpatient infectious disease center, and the county’s largest Medicaid health plan. It provides more than 50 percent of all charity care in the county, serving more than 500,000 unique individuals each year.
Related: Quick Leonard Kieffer to Fill Two Key Roles for Centra Health in Virginia
Founded in 1999, Quick Leonard Kieffer is a retained executive search firm with experience finding leaders for hospitals, health systems, academic medical centers, healthcare associations, life sciences companies, insurance companies and non-profits, among other clients. The firm is based in Chicago and has a track record of placing C-suite and other senior executives with leading, well-recognized healthcare organizations around the country.
Healthcare Recruiters
Ms. White-Faines is an of counsel consultant to Quick Leonard Kieffer, bringing to the firm a background in healthcare strategy, program and operations management, and organizational development. In addition to her consulting and search work for Quick Leonard Kieffer, she currently serves as chief strategy officer for the American College of Physicians, which, with over 161,000 Internal Medicine specialist and sub-specialists, is the largest medical specialist society in the world.
Mr. Foley is an of counsel consultant with Quick Leonard Kieffer who brings more than 40 years of top executive and operational leadership experience in a wide range of healthcare settings across the country, including Catholic and public integrated delivery networks, county hospitals and academic medical centers. His experience working with boards, leading teams for performance improvement, financial turnarounds, restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, system integration, leadership development and strategic planning is a resource to his clients at Quick Leonard Kieffer.
Mr. Johnston joined Quick Leonard Kieffer in 2016. He works alongside the firm’s partners, principals, and associates in conducting a variety of senior-level healthcare searches for community hospitals, medical groups, and large health systems. He has 20 years of experience in executive search. Previously, Mr. Johnston held senior research, knowledge management and recruitment positions at Ray & Berndtson, Korn Ferry and Lantern Partners.
Related: Quick Leonard Kieffer Recruits Chief Nursing Officer for Providence
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
