From building trust with clinicians to advocating for healthcare policy, these five women CFOs are redefining what financial leadership looks like in modern health systems.
Across the healthcare industry, today’s CFOs are expected to do far more than simply safeguard their organization’s margins. They are strategists, culture builders, policy voices, and strategic operational partners. A growing group of women CFOs are helping redefine the role, demonstrating how they balance fiscal discipline with mission, transparency, and systemwide collaboration. Here are five healthcare CFOs making an impact.
Katina Williams: Turning Transparency Into a Leadership Tool
For Katina Williams, trust is not a byproduct of leadership, it’s baked into her deliberate strategy. Williams has emphasized transparency with her teams and across the organization, ensuring finance leaders clearly communicate both financial realities and strategic goals. By pairing financial discipline with a willingness to support innovation, she helps her health system move forward responsibly without stifling new ideas. Her approach underscores that credibility with staff and leaders alike begins with open communication and consistent financial clarity.
Katina Williams, The Winning Edge
Julie Soekoro: Bridging Finance and Operations
Julie Soekoro has built her leadership philosophy around one key principle: finance cannot operate in isolation. She has focused on strengthening relationships between finance teams and clinical and operational leaders, creating alignment around key shared organizational goals. By translating financial performance into operational insights, and vice versa, Soekoro helps her team leaders make decisions that support both patient care and financial sustainability. Her work highlights the increasingly collaborative nature of the modern CFO role.
Julie Soekoro, The Winning Edge
Amy Crouch: Aligning Capital With Mission
As a seasoned finance leader stepping into a new role, Amy Crouch has brought a clear focus on balancing scale, access, and mission. Her approach emphasizes ensuring capital strategy directly supports the organization’s long-term care delivery goals. Crouch also highlights workforce strategy as a core financial issue, recognizing that staffing stability and engagement are deeply connected to margin performance. For CFOs navigating today’s tight labor and capital markets, her philosophy demonstrates how financial stewardship can reinforce (not compete with) the organizational mission.
Amy Crouch, Workforce Strategy
April Audain: A CFO Voice in Policy Conversations
April Audain represents a growing class of CFOs stepping into the policy arena. As reimbursement pressures and potential Medicaid cuts threaten hospital safety nets, Audain has been vocal about the financial realities facing health systems, especially safety net hospitals like her organization Denver Health. She views advocacy as a responsibility of the CFO role, not just the government affairs team, ensuring policymakers understand how funding decisions ripple through hospital operations and patient access. Her leadership strategy reflects a broader shift: CFOs increasingly must represent their organizations not just in boardrooms, but in public policy discussions.
Stephanie Schnittiger: Leading With Clarity Over Comfort
Stephanie Schnittiger is a CFO who champions a leadership style centered on clarity, even when conversations are difficult. As healthcare systems navigate financial pressures and strategic transformation, she believes CFOs must be willing to present hard truths and push for transparent decision-making. Schnittiger also highlights the importance of CFO engagement in healthcare policy, reinforcing that financial leaders play a crucial role in shaping the broader healthcare landscape.
Stephanie Schnittiger, The Exec
Stephanie Schnittiger, HL Shorts
A New Model of Finance Leadership
Together, these leaders illustrate how the CFO role continues to evolve. Financial discipline remains essential, but today’s top CFOs are also relationship builders, mission advocates, and strategic communicators. For CFOs across the industry, their work shows that effectively breaking barriers in the CFO seat often starts with redefining what the role can be.
Marie DeFreitas is the CFO editor for HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Strong relationships with clinicians, operators, and staff are becoming a core CFO competency.
Today’s CFOs are ensuring capital strategy, workforce planning, and growth decisions support long-term care delivery.
As reimbursement pressures grow, CFOs are serving as advocates for their organizations and communities.