When Catherine Jacobson, now president and CEO of Wauwatosa-based Froedtert Health, graduated from a small liberal arts college in Peoria, Illinois, with a degree in accounting, she never imagined she might one day lead one of the largest health care systems in Wisconsin.
Passionate about finance, the Bradley University graduate aspired to one day land a job as a comptroller or chief accountant. That was her brass ring.
Jacobson is the 2023 BizTimes Media Woman Executive of the Year. Her accomplishments include helping to triple the size of the Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin health network, reaching an agreement to merge Froedtert with Neenah-based health system ThedaCare, and being the first woman to serve as chair of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.
Looking back at her decades-long career in health care, Jacobson says it took a bit of providence, and more than a few nudges from mentors to show her that she had the knowledge and skills to pursue bigger roles.
Landing a job at a big accounting firm after graduation helped broaden her perspective, Jacobson said, exposing her to a lot of the “whys” behind the financials.
When Jacobson did end up working directly for a client early in her career, it happened to be a health insurance company. She was running a claims department and then running an enrollment department, giving her insight into operations and a chance to learn the business.
“One of my mentors along the way taught me that your role in finance isn’t just to report retrospective numbers, and then tell people they are doing a bad job if they are blowing their budget. Your job is to use your knowledge to make the business better,” Jacobson said. “When you are CFO, you can’t just be a green eye-shade accountant.”
It was that perspective, and an eagerness to learn that Jacobson says gradually helped her gain the knowledge and experience to pursue jobs outside of accounting. In 1996, after serving in key financial leadership roles at Rush Prudential Health Plans, she began working for Rush University Medical Center itself, where she eventually became the senior vice president of strategic planning and finance, chief financial officer and treasurer. In 2010, she joined Froedtert as executive vice president of finance and strategy, chief financial officer and chief strategy officer. In 2012, she become CEO.
Despite the success she has had in those leadership roles, Jacobson says she never had a fire in her belly to be a CEO, until somebody told her that she could.
“When I was at Rush, my boss at the time was the CEO, and the board, like every good board, was telling him to start looking at his team to see if he had any internal successors. They started to identify people (who could take over for him) and I was one of those people,” she said. “He started to talk to me about it, and it was like a switch flipped in my mind. I was close enough to the role to think, ‘Wow, I think I would know how to do the job and do it in a different way. And then, eventually, I had the opportunity to take on a role like that outside of Rush. So, somebody had to tell me – I think you would be good at this, and then my mind just kicked into gear 100%.”
Jacobson credits those moments – the ones when someone noticed she was mastering one skill and ready to move onto the next one – for giving her the confidence to take on bigger roles.
“I am very fortunate. There are very pivotal moments in my career, where somebody tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘You should do this,’ where I didn’t think I could do it. And somebody said, ‘Of course you can do it,’” Jacobson, 60, said. “I can think about five or six different times in my career where (that happened).’”
Although having good mentors is crucial to any career, Jacobson agreed that it was perhaps even more important for a woman to receive such encouragement.
“I think it is still an important thing to do with women. I have been at this for over 35 years, and it was certainly important in the late 1980s to have someone do that for me,” she said. “I wouldn’t say that all my female leaders need that nudge – some of them are very good at advocating for themselves – but I think, by and large, a lot of female leaders who have the experience for a bigger role won’t push for it unless they feel overprepared to do it.”
That’s why Jacobson has tried to mentor the people she has worked with over the years and push them to take that next step. It’s something she hopes to continue doing as she prepares to hand over Froedtert’s operations baton to someone else following the ThedaCare merger.
“Just with my background, I kind of notice when someone is mastering things and ready for that next level,” Jacobson said.
Jacobson plans to retire six months after the two institutions have officially combined. ThedaCare president and CEO Dr. Imran Andrabi will become the organization’s president and CEO.
