Leadership Rounds: Year in Review

Leadership Rounds: Year in Review

In this special season recap, Dr. Reena Pande reflects on the defining lessons and leadership insights from the first year of Leadership Rounds, featuring conversations with some of healthcare’s most influential clinician leaders, operators, and policymakers. From Neel Shah of Maven to Microsoft’s Mary Presti, these candid discussions about the future of care delivery helped lay the foundation for an exciting new season to come that will kick off with a series of episodes focused on the rapidly evolving world of healthcare AI.

Mary Presti: From the Bedside to Big Tech - Scaling AI That Enables Better Care

Mary Presti (Microsoft) joins Dr. Reena Pande to explore how AI is moving from pilot to enterprise-scale in healthcare and why workflow, trust, and clinician adoption will determine what succeeds. As a senior healthcare technology executive at Microsoft and former bedside nurse, Mary brings unique experience spanning clinical care, consulting, pharma, and health tech, and offers a grounded perspective on how AI is evolving from early experimentation to enterprise-scale deployment. Together, Mary and Reena explore where AI is delivering real value today and why the biggest opportunities are not in diagnostics or drug discovery, but in reducing friction across everyday clinical workflows, leading Mary to share why she believes the future of AI in healthcare depends less on technology itself and more on trust, governance, and change management. Topics & Takeaways * Why 2026 will mark the shift from AI pilots to enterprise-scale deployment * The concept of “surround care” and where AI is delivering immediate ROI * How ambient AI and copilots are reducing documentation burden * Why clinicians must play a central role in AI design and deployment * The emergence of new roles like clinician, prompt engineers, and AI governance leaders * Why trust, adoption, and workflow design (not technology) are the true bottlenecks * How AI can restore human connection in care delivery 🔔 Subscribe to Leadership Rounds for more candid conversations with the leaders redefining healthcare. More on Mary: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryvarghese More from Reena:  - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reenapande/⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/reenapande/]   - Substack: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://reenapande.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://reenapande.substack.com/]     📍 Learn more at https://www.oxeon.comOxeon.com [http://oxeon.com] #leadershiprounds #prescribingleadership #conversationswithclinicians #clinicians #leaders #leadership #leadershipdevelopment #healthcare #healthcareexecutive #clinicianexecutive #entrepreneurship #health #innovation #healthcareinnovation #clinicianleadership #digitalhealth

Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH: Leading at Scale Through Complexity and Crisis

Mandy Cohen and Oxeon’s Dr. Reena Pande unpack crisis leadership, trust-building, and why change management (not technology) will determine healthcare’s future. In this episode of Leadership Rounds, Dr. Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH—physician, operator, and former CDC Director—dives into exploring what it takes to lead through complexity and build systems that improve health at scale. Mandy traces her path from early exposure to healthcare’s “broken parts” through her mother’s work in emergency rooms to shaping policy and execution across major institutions. She shares a pivotal patient story that reshaped how she thinks about whole-person health and why leaders must build infrastructure that prevents critical needs from being invisible inside even the most advanced systems. Together, Reena and Mandy unpack: * Why trust isn’t a vibe, it’s an operational discipline you can measure * How to navigate bureaucracy and still execute at speed * What crisis teaches leaders about teams, decision-making, and accountability * Why AI won’t be healthcare’s limiter, but change management and trust might be * How clinician leaders can help set guardrails so innovation earns (and keeps) public confidence If you’re building, leading, or investing in healthcare transformation, this conversation offers a clear-eyed playbook for mission, margin, and measurable public trust. 🔔 Subscribe to Leadership Rounds for more candid conversations with the leaders redefining healthcare. More on Mandy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mandy-cohen-03aa343/ More from Reena:  - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reenapande/⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/reenapande/]   - Substack: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://reenapande.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://reenapande.substack.com/]     📍 Learn more at https://www.oxeon.comOxeon.com [http://oxeon.com] #leadershiprounds #prescribingleadership #conversationswithclinicians #clinicians #leaders #leadership #leadershipdevelopment #healthcare #healthcareexecutive #clinicianexecutive #entrepreneurship #health #innovation #healthcareinnovation #clinicianleadership #digitalhealth

Laura Medford-Davis, MD: Closing the Leadership Gap from Clinician to CEO

In this episode of Leadership Rounds, Oxeon’s Dr. Reena Pande sits down with Laura Medford-Davis, MD, MS, a practicing emergency physician and Partner at McKinsey & Company, to unpack one of healthcare’s most urgent leadership challenges: the disconnect between physician leadership ambition and CEO representation. Laura shares her path from clinical training to health services research, federal policy work, and ultimately McKinsey, where she leads clinician-focused work [https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare/our-insights/physician-perspectives-on-scaling-impact-from-the-ceo-seat] and co-leads clinical operations. Together, Reena and Laura explore why clinicians are often perceived as “not ready” for top leadership, how that perception becomes self-reinforcing, and what both individuals and institutions can do to build a stronger clinician-to-CEO pipeline. More on Laura: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-norden/https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-medford-davis/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-medford-davis/] More from Reena: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reenapande/⁠⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/reenapande/]    #leadershiprounds #prescribingleadership #conversationswithclinicians #clinicians #leaders #leadership #leadershipdevelopment #healthcare #healthcareexecutive #clinicianexecutive #entrepreneurship #health #innovation #healthcareinnovation #clinicianleadership #digitalhealth

Sheila Gujrathi, MD: On The Mirror Effect and the Inner Work of Leadership

Leadership isn’t always about becoming more confident. It’s about becoming more self-aware. In this episode of Leadership Rounds, physician executive Dr. Reena Pande sits down with Sheila Gujrathi, MD (multi-time biotech CEO, board leader, and best-selling author) for a candid conversation about leadership beyond credentials. Drawing from her book The Mirror Effect, Sheila shares her journey from academic medicine to McKinsey, Genentech, and the C-suite, unpacking why fear, insecurity, perfectionism, and shame often intensify (not disappear) as leaders rise. Together, they explore how to recognize toxic work environments, negotiate with integrity, and show up fully and authentically, especially when the stakes are high. A must-listen for clinician executives, founders, biotech leaders, and anyone rethinking what real power looks like. You’ll learn: * Why technical excellence stops being enough in leadership roles * How to recognize toxic work environments (and leave or work to improve them them sooner) * What executive presence really means (without losing authenticity) * How to negotiate compensation, authority, and influence without apology * Why self-awareness is the foundation of real power 🔔 Subscribe to Leadership Rounds for more candid conversations with the leaders redefining healthcare.