According to a recent analysis of San Francisco’s healthcare industry, many positions remain open for medical and health services managers. But not all management jobs require a degree in medicine or related field. Take Dean Stephens for example, whose background in history and public policy provided him the education for success early in his career before elevating to founding Healthline, a leading consumer health care and health information technology company headquartered in San Francisco, where he serves as CEO.
(Photo Courtesy of Dean Stephens)
What is your background and education?
“I grew up in a small town in New England and was fortunate to attend an Ivy League college. I majored in American history at Dartmouth, with graduate work in public policy at the University of Washington. I landed a policy analyst position for the governor, but in no time, got drafted into management consulting at Deloitte. Because much of my consulting time was spent in the health care industry, I joined other entrepreneurs to re-imagine this muddled industry and Healthline was born.”
How has your degree helped you in your current position?
“As a CEO, I believe you need to mesh multiple skills – strategy, operations, finance, domain expertise, people management, political acumen, leadership, voice etc. A liberal arts education where you are required to learn across disciplines of humanities, science and social science, as well as write, speak and work in teams provides the necessary base. My graduate degree in policy also provided me with an analytical framework for decision-making and appreciation for the nuances in what makes policy work.”
What advice can you share with people interested in a career in health care?
“Look at primary care – it needs to change dramatically. Several new Bay Area companies and old guard health care institutions are executing exciting new models and are creating new job positions in analytics and customer service.”
“Health care is a services business, but needs new products. Entwined in all of this is health care big data. Many health care information and services start-ups abound in the Bay Area and tech giants like Apple, Google and Oracle, are becoming big health information companies.”
“Software engineers are in high demand, but jobs abound for those with liberal arts training as well. Content development, project management, customer relations, data analysis, product design – these are key fields attracting talented people from other industries and new college graduates.”
Randy Yagi is a freelance writer covering all things San Francisco. In 2012, he was awarded a Media Fellowship from Stanford University. His work can be found on Examiner.com Examiner.com.