The Backstory

Live from Healthcare Sessions 2026 in Nashville, host Anne Hancock Toomey talks with J.R. Green, founder and board chair of Psychiatric Medical Care (PMC), the nation’s largest behavioral healthcare management company with 400+ hospital locations across 35 states. Greene traces his path from consumer brand leadership at Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, and Revlon into healthcare, guided by his psychiatrist father. He talks about the challenging conversation with his father that led to switching from consumer goods to healthcare and founding PMC - turning around a small company that was under significant pressure and growing it from six employees in two locations to thousands. Of course, there's plenty of conversation about leadership lessons learned along the way...but also about Greene's one-of-a-kind background as the Big Orange Tux Guy (IYKYK) and a children's book author. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Live from Healthcare Sessions 2026 in Nashville, Anne Hancock Toomey interviews Jenn Adams, CEO of August Bioservices, about her 30+ year career in sterile injectable manufacturing and the path that led her from Baxter into entrepreneurship. Adams explains how a long-standing investor partnership helped launch August Bioservices in 2020 with a mission to bridge the gap between demand for critical sterile injectable medicines and manufacturing capacity. She describes rebuilding and expanding the Nashville site, recruiting top-tier technical talent during the pandemic, and qualifying high-speed equipment for prefilled syringes and vials. All of this operation work, she is quick to point out, is driven by people far more than assets - and she closes with the reminder to “not be afraid” and to pursue meaningful work. Also, the first Backstory F1 pit crew reference. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Backstory Sessions — a new short-form series recorded live at Healthcare Sessions 2026 in Nashville, and also on YouTube. Host Anne Hancock Toomey sits down with David Dill, chairman and CEO of Lifepoint Health, to discuss his path from growing up with a basketball-coach father and teacher mother to earning an accounting degree at Murray State and moving to Nashville in 1991. Dill explains how work at Deloitte and a dialysis startup pulled him into healthcare in 1996, leading to nearly two decades at Lifepoint and eight years as CEO. He reflects on how the CEO role demands stewardship of culture and values across 55,000 team members in 34 states, including intentional communication - for example, revamping internal comms through daily videos during COVID. Dill shares why “always do the right thing, even when no one is watching” guides difficult decisions, outlines strategic bets on diversification and asset-based operating structure, and offers advice on passion, mentorship, coachability, and learning through failure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's a bonus! In this special edition episode , Anne Hancock Toomey interviews Warner Thomas, president and CEO of Sutter Health. They start with a note about the first podcast Anne ever hosted - a 2020 conversation with Thomas that reminds us all of how much has changed even as the principles of authentic leadership haven't. From there, Thomas traces his path from a disciplined, outdoorsy childhood in Vermont to pumping gas, plowing snow, and later studying accounting and computer information systems. Like many guests, Thomas hadn't planned on a healthcare career. He instead started with an eye towards investment banking, training at Ernst & Young before making the leap and heading to. Southern New Hampshire Medical Center. There, an early mentor shaped his leadership perspective and professional experience. Later on, Thomas spent 24 years at Ochsner Health, rising to CEO leading major growth and innovation and learning to center strategy on patients and purpose through initiatives like “Power of One,” while prioritizing people during Katrina and COVID. Joining Sutter four years ago, he became the system's first outsider CEO in 40 years. He began his tenure with a deep and thoughtful talent assessment, then built a rapid growth strategy including ambulatory expansion. Throughout it all, Thomas has emphasized communication, trust and the key leadership traits of being humble, hungry, smart and curious. 2:18 Life in California 3:53 Vermont Roots 6:13 First Jobs 10:24 Mentors and Leadership Style 14:29 Learning Mindset and Strategy 17:19 Ochsner Growth Lessons 21:20 Purpose and Culture 25:22 Joining Sutter 31:56 Leadership Traits 34:15 Lightning Round Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the final episode of Season 2, Anne Hancock Toomey interviews Cynthia Brandt, PhD. Brandt is CEO of the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health and a deeply respected leader in the world of philanthropy. Brandt reflects on growing up in the Midwest in a minister’s family, early lessons in authenticity from a difficult camping experience and the teacher who led the excursion, and how receiving scholarships didn’t just make higher education for her but also sparked her belief that philanthropy can change lives. Before joining the foundation that helps power Stanford Children’s Health, Brandt built her career through a series of impressive roles. After work in banking and nonprofit roles, she pursued sociology in graduate school, worked at Stanford, moved to a profoundly meaningful role at Mills College, and later led a record-breaking Smithsonian campaign that exceeded its $1.5B goal by educating the public through grassroots storytelling. She discusses her CEO learning curve through the pandemic, a stewardship mistake that reshaped her approach, leadership traits like culture, humility, and clarity, and her focus on joy and purpose at work. 1:40 Midwest Roots 4:22 A Lesson from Camping 06:44 Scholarships Changed Everything 10:52 Finding Sociology 12:18 Stanford And Mills 16:57 The Smithsonian and Storytelling At Scale 22:38 From the Smithsonian To Children’s Health 26:10 First Time CEO Lessons…and Mistakes 31:46 Traits Of Great Leaders 34:52 Lightning Round Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices