Key Takeaways
- Differentiate the modern Chief of Staff from administrative roles by utilizing them as a strategic thought partner who drives initiatives and manages executive alignment, not just a scheduler.
In today’s rapidly shifting healthcare environment, C-suite executives are searching for every lever to drive efficiency, effectiveness, and strategic focus. Yet many healthcare leaders remain unaware of a game-changing role that’s quietly transforming industries from tech to retail—and now, healthcare: the modern Chief of Staff.
On a recent episode of The American Journal of Healthcare Strategy podcast, host Cole Lyons sat down with Maggie Olson, MBA—CEO & Founder at Nova Chief of Staff—to explore why the Chief of Staff role is exploding across sectors, how it differs from traditional executive positions, and what it means for overloaded healthcare leaders trying to do more with less.
Olson, who built her career in tech, retail, and customer experience before founding Nova, offered a perspective that’s both refreshingly candid and deeply practical. “The Chief of Staff role spans across all industries, sectors, sizes… Healthcare is definitely one of them,” Olson explains. In an industry where regulatory pressure, burnout, and complex change are the norm, understanding and implementing this role could be a critical unlock for organizations at every stage.
A Chief of Staff is a strategic right hand to executive leaders, focused on maximizing the leader’s effectiveness, driving initiatives, and enabling top-level strategy—not just administrative support.
Healthcare leaders are well-acquainted with the grind of calendar management, endless meetings, and operational firefighting. But as Olson points out, “Business leaders have long known that they need administrative support… But what’s really exciting is an increase in the awareness of the need for strategic, executional support to assist those leaders.”
In practical terms, a Chief of Staff:
Acts as a strategic thought partner, not just a scheduler.
Manages and drives alignment across leadership teams.
Leads key initiatives and often acts as a proxy for the executive.
Frees up the leader to focus on vision, growth, and high-level strategy.
This is especially relevant in healthcare, where executives are routinely pulled into tactical matters at the expense of mission-critical, long-term work. As Olson puts it, “If you are constantly heads down chasing deliverables and managing projects that just seem like it’s not what you should be spending your critical time on… that’s when you need to identify that you could use Chief of Staff support.”
The Chief of Staff is neither an administrative assistant nor a redundant C-suite position—they occupy a unique, strategic seat focused on executive enablement and cross-functional leadership.
Many organizations, especially in healthcare, confuse these roles, leading to inefficiency and lost opportunities for leverage. Olson clarifies the distinction:
“A Chief of Staff is not an administrative role, although they should be in the loop on everything.”
Executive Assistants (EAs) handle logistics—calendar, travel, expenses. Chiefs of Staff do not.
COOs operate on behalf of the company, with their own teams and scorecards.
Chiefs of Staff serve the leader as a person, driving forward that executive’s projects, initiatives, and priorities.
Olson emphasizes: “The roles do not overlap… all three of you are truly partners between the business leader, the EA, and the Chief of Staff.”
Key differences:
EAs = logistics & admin | Chiefs of Staff = strategy, project management, cross-functional leadership | COOs = company-wide operations, independent objectives.
“The Chief of Staff role can exist at a lot of different leadership levels… As the Chief of Staff is more senior, you’re going to see them feeling a little bit more of that proxy role, a little bit more of that advisor role to the business leader.”
You need a Chief of Staff when an executive is spending too much time (over 30%, according to Olson) on tactical, operational tasks instead of vision, growth, and strategy—even after administrative support is in place.
Olson is direct: “If you are finding that you’ve got a ton of ideas, nowhere for them to land, that you’re being pulled in a ton of different directions… and you already have an admin, I always recommend admin first… then that’s when you need a Chief of Staff.”
Executive is bogged down in projects, not strategy.
Special initiatives languish or get lost.
Leadership team struggles with alignment.
EA is being stretched into strategic projects and burning out.
Organization is growing, but cross-functional complexity increases.
This pattern holds regardless of sector or size. Olson notes, “There are Chiefs of Staff in education, in nonprofit, in high-net-worth, in big business and small business… with an awareness gap. You’ll walk into any of those places and they may have never heard of a Chief of Staff.”
Merging EA and Chief of Staff roles leads to burnout, role confusion, and a failure to maximize either administrative or strategic work.
It’s tempting—especially in resource-constrained environments like hospitals—to “just have the EA handle it.” But Olson is blunt: “When you combine the two, you’re not going to do either well… Admin work is a full-time job.”
Risks of conflating EA and Chief of Staff:
EAs lose capacity for crucial admin tasks.
Strategic projects receive inconsistent attention.
Respect and credibility for both roles suffer.
Neither tactical nor strategic work gets done at the highest level.
Olson shares, “It’s very difficult from a positioning perspective for the EA to have the respect of a Chief of Staff… It’s also very difficult to find the time, physically and mentally, to dedicate to larger strategic problems.”
The Chief of Staff role is defined by function, not title—it may exist as “Special Assistant,” “Director of Operations,” or “Project Manager” depending on your organization.
In healthcare, the “Chief of Staff” title often refers to a senior physician, which can create confusion. Olson explains, “There are over 20 or 30 different titles in use for the role of Chief of Staff and it’s almost less important… It’s really important to understand the work you are doing as Chief of Staff work.”
Board materials preparation.
Executive communication, talking points.
Leading special projects or initiatives.
Cross-functional alignment.
If your organization is “doing the work” but calling it something else, you may already have the function—just without the structure or best practices.
“It’s about identifying who is that business leader’s support person… and what are the things that, kind of behind the scenes, that Chief of Staff-esque role is filling.”
The Chief of Staff is a high-trust role, best built through internal networks or transparent onboarding—requiring deep executive access, clarity of purpose, and ongoing communication with the leadership team.
Olson stresses that “It is such a high-trust role… one of the reasons why Chiefs of Staff are often hired internally or within the network that you already have.” But external hires are common, and successful onboarding follows a few key steps:
Communicate clearly to your team: Explain that the Chief of Staff complements, not replaces, the EA.
Provide deep access: Let them shadow, review calendars, and observe decision-making.
Model partnership: Attend key meetings together before delegating fully.
Elevate the Chief of Staff publicly: Give them visibility and endorse their authority.
Solicit feedback and adjust: Encourage the team to provide input during the transition.
“How you position your new Chief of Staff to your executive team is really critical—it’s not just a one-time announcement, it’s continual change management,” Olson notes.
A Chief of Staff enables executives to operate at a higher level by filtering noise, aligning teams, driving cross-functional initiatives, and ensuring leaders focus on what matters most.
Olson shares her personal experience: “My Chief of Staff was my third full-time hire… I’m great at [executing], but I can’t be there right now. I need to be in the vision and growth space.”
For healthcare executives juggling clinical, academic, and leadership duties, this is not a luxury—it’s a necessity. “I think of having a Chief of Staff as something so important… I can just imagine some of the leaders I’ve spoken with, right now they go and practice emergency medicine, lead the organization from a CEO perspective, and also are a professor… You need a Chief of Staff to be that extra layer.”
Understands executive priorities.
Analyzes and recommends time management changes.
Designs and implements systems to reduce redundancy.
Ensures meetings and projects align with strategic goals.
Acts as a buffer, proxy, and force multiplier.
Olson highlights, “Chiefs of Staff are very good at figuring out what the problem is, learning quickly, being curious, getting something done… in such a huge breadth of categories.”
Nova Chief of Staff offers a comprehensive certification program—over 50-60 hours, self-paced—preparing aspiring Chiefs of Staff with hands-on training, strategic skills, and real-world assignments.
Olson’s company, Nova Chief of Staff, launched its certification to fill the capability gap in this high-impact role. “We’ve got over 500 students across 22 countries enrolled in our course… even happier when I hear it’s so well received in the market.”
Program highlights:
50-60 hours of self-paced online content.
Assignments simulate real Chief of Staff responsibilities.
Designed for both company-funded and self-funded students.
“Probably upwards of 50 or 60 different folks in our course from the healthcare sector… We’d love to have anybody listening send their folks through.”
The program is priced to be accessible—currently $1,450, rising to $1,850 in January 2025—and fits within most tuition reimbursement programs, even at major institutions like Penn and Jefferson.
Olson urges leaders: “Often their next Chief of Staff might be sitting right in front of them… Not all executive assistants are going to make a great Chief of Staff, but you’re going to know the ones who would.”
For U.S. healthcare leaders facing relentless pressure, the Chief of Staff role is more than a trend—it’s a strategic imperative. As Maggie Olson’s experience and Nova’s success make clear, investing in this function pays dividends in clarity, focus, and organizational resilience. Whether you call the position “Chief of Staff,” “Director of Operations,” or something else, what matters is empowering a strategic partner who keeps your eyes on the horizon while handling what’s on your plate.
“It’s been so fun meeting folks in our course from the healthcare sector and hearing about the company structures and problems they’re solving… I hope we see more and more Chiefs of Staff in the coming months,” Olson concludes.
Actionable Insight:
If you’re an executive leader spending more time on operations than strategy—even with great admin support—consider whether a Chief of Staff could unlock your next phase of growth. Identify the untapped talent in your ranks, or look to expert-driven programs like Nova to build this critical capability. Your leadership legacy—and your organization’s future—may depend on it.
<p>hello everyone this is Cole from the American Journal of healthc care strategy joined this evening by a really special guest uh I met through a mutual connection one of our board members uh Maggie Maggie please introduce yourself thank you so much for having me I'm so thrilled to be here uh Maggie Olsen I Am the founder of Nova chief of staff [Music] and before you were the founder you've had quite a few different roles I think kind of most notably as a chief of staff yourself and a lot of people might be asking right you you don't have any healthc care roles in your resume right no no Health Care in my resume Tech retail food and beverage customer experience you know employee experience Healthcare not so much and so a lot of people like would be wondering right why why are we having you on the the podcast because usually we focus on only the health care space people have experience in healthcare but after speaking with you and what your not just your experience is but also what your mission and goal is at Nova I thought it would be something that would be super useful and important for our healthc care leaders out there especially those in the sea Suite who are looking to increase the effectiveness of their position and that's why I really wanted to have you on so I appreciate you coming on and talking to an audience that is a little bit outside of your direct experience area as well yeah absolutely I am so passionate about all things chief of staff and the chief of staff role spans across all Industries sectors sizes um all the things so Healthcare is definitely one of them um and I'm excited to dive in can you just start off by explaining um this will be really useful for me as well because I'm still learning about this explaining what this chief of staff role is absolutely so Business Leaders um and that's just a general term we can you know use that term to describe Founders CEOs uh director level VP level president you know a lot of different people have Chiefs of Staff so um Business Leaders have long known that they need administrative support they should not be managing their own calendars they should not be organizing their own inboxes um doing their own expenses we all know this right but but what's um I'm really excited about is the last several years there's been an increase in the awareness of the um need for strategic executional support to assist those leaders so um imagine that you're a business leader and you're pulled in a million directions you've got lots of ideas all the time and nowhere for them to land nowhere for them to get organized nobody to manage them um that you are constantly heads down chasing deliverables managing projects that just seem like it's not what you should be spending your critical time on um you are a leader you should be focused on Vision future strategy growth but your heads down tactical operational this is when you need to identify that that you could use Chief of Staff support So a chief of staff comes in and supports an executive you know business leader as their um their right hand their strategic thought partner who's excellent at execution who manages their many business initiatives who drives alignment across their leadership team fills gaps where necessary often leading some of those initiatives um and can act as a proxy in a lot of situations and really really exists to maximize the um efficiency and effectiveness of the of the business leader thank you for explaining that and and I'm sure a lot of the executives listening to this are like this sounds great right would be because you know people in healthcare especially were overloaded we're trying to get more efficiency squeeze as much efficiency as possible what I think is important about this is this is not another and maybe you can explain this in more detail this is not another EA this is not another seep position right you're not just dumping money into something completely new this is a very different rule right something that is a lot of organizations are lacking can you just explain the difference between a traditional SE Suite role like you know a COO or a CEO and also the difference between EA maybe you could kind of create a kind of a a a linear graph there for us in our minds yeah super good question super valid um so at the end of the day a chief of staff is not an administrative role although they should be in the loop on everything so um the core functions of admin work of your you know your EA's role are calendar inbox um you know that scheduling component travel Logistics expenses um a chief of staff generally does not hold any of those admin responsibilities those are true admin functions now what gets a little murky is at times you may have an excellent executive assistant who does hold those core admin functions but they're filling some gaps and they're leading a few strategic projects and that's a whole another conversation for when to identify that potentially your EA could make a great Chief of Staff um but they're two completely different roles they should not be combined um they are Partners view all three of you are truly Partners between the business leader the EA and the chief of staff um but the roles do not overlap so um another thing that you know you were mentioning that I should touch on here is the chief of staff role can exist at a lot of different um leadership levels so you could be a manager you could be a director you could be a VP you could potentially be in the SE Suite as a chief of staff but it's a little less important the core functions of the chief of staff role are the same um irrelevant of your kind of the leadership level um as the chief of staff advances as the chief of staff is more senior you're going to see them feeling a little bit more of that proxy role a little bit more of that advisor role to the business leader now when we think about the other seite roles um it's very common to confuse and not quite understand the delineation between Chief Operating Officer and Chief of Staff both roles are operations heavy both roles exist to support the business leader right well there's there's some difference there the Chief Operating Officer exists on behalf of the company so they exist to support company operations they have their own scorecard um they often have their own organization their own problems to solve that are company problems the EA role and the chief of staff role exists to support a person the chief of staff works on behalf of that leader to you know manage all of their initiatives and drive their executive team and um oversee their back office and um truly they should be in the loop on anything and everything that the executive is doing or touching um so unlike CMO you know marketing or coo or Finance those rules exist for the company Chief of Staff exists for the human yep that that is a really incredible way of explaining it you covered the question so well but that does leave us more questions one of those is you said it can exist at all levels that was something that I did not know at all so that's very interesting but then that leaves us with the question when is it beneficial right especially in healthcare where we you know we don't have that much money we need it to be tied to a good Roi how busy does the person have to be or what you know what I mean like how do you know if you need a chief of staff I guess would be the question you know it really comes down to how you're indexing your time what you're spending your time on um if you are and I kind of Drew Drew this like illustration earlier if you realizing that you're spending your time on heads down tactical operational executional items with like I you know to give a percentage like over 30% of your time um often it's a lot more than that because we all get there we all do it as business owners it happens but that that's way too much it should really be the opposite so as a business owner you should be spending your time on those you know leadership growth vision strategy pillars to move your company forward um and if you are finding that you've got a ton of ideas nowhere for them to land um that you're being pulled in a ton of different directions that you're just heads down doing operational executional work um and you already have an admin I always recommend admin first um and that you could potentially use support in leading and managing a lot of those special initiatives then that's when you need a chief of staff so it really is agnostic of you know the size or the number of employees or the sector um there are Chiefs of Staff in education in nonprofit in high- net worth in big business and small business in food and beverage in entertainment and media they're really everywhere um but from a with an a a bit of a um awareness Gap you'll also walk into any of those places and they may have never heard of a chief of staff just depends on the specific business and I found that there are many Health Systems large Health Systems which have a chief of staff have multiple Chiefs of Staff and there are some which they don't have any and it almost seems like they're using their EA to do a lot of extra work right yeah why not I guess is my question why not stretch the EA what are the dangers of doing that oh man you know um the chief of the more repeating projects and work streams of ownership you give a chief of staff the less uh you know well they will do their job job so um a chief of staff should be focused on breadth of focused on solving company problems they should be free enough to be able to jump in for a week somewhere or a couple weeks and lead a project to its end and then move on to the next thing um when you combine the role uh first of all it's very difficult from a positioning perspective for the EA to have the respect of a chief of staff to feel like they are welcome and a part of the important conversations welcome at the table um it's also very difficult to find the time um physically like and mentally to dedicate to larger strategic problems um admin work is a full-time job and when you combine the two you're not going to do either well um so you know one other thing that you mentioned that I want to talk about here is the title of Chief of Staff so there's a Nuance I think in healthc care around sometimes and you you tell me here but sometimes the chief of staff role is reserved for um Medical Professional yeah in in the hospital especially there is some traditional titles regarding chv um or chief of you know house staff Etc that is usually reserved for like a practicing physician yeah yeah so what's what I wanted to just kind of touch on here is that there are over 20 or 30 different titles in use for the role of chief of staff and it's almost less important um it's really important to understand the work you are doing as Chief of Staff work because then you can identify resources and support Frameworks and just best practices for the role um but in settings like you just mentioned um that title might be reserved for a medical professional for example right for a physician um and the chief of staff could the chief of staff of work could be um done by titles like business operations project managers program managers Special Assistant to the you know fill-in the blank there's a lot of different titles um so it's really about identifying who is that business Leader's support person do they have it um do they need it and what are the things that that um kind of behind the scenes that are happening that that Chief of Staff esque role is filling so maybe they're helping put um you know board materials together or they're helping throw a team you know all hands or Meeting those that person behind the scenes that's delivering talking points right to the business leader that person behind the scenes is likely the chief of staff style person even if the title might not be Chief of Staff I think that's an important distinction too to make is that or an important thing to say is that it's it the role right title is a bit flexible right it doesn't have to exactly be that Chief of Staff role and I also think too hopefully it gives people some ideas on how they can structure organizations right for example at um the journal we have an office of the CEO and that covers him and all of his staff that handle their projects right so you can structure things differently in healthcare than maybe the traditional way and maybe that can unlock some more efficiency yeah I I have a question though again and it comes down to this trust right you know I handle things in a very specific way um my EA has learned really well so he he's an incredible EA um he's learned my writing style he has learned you know um when I like to reply to people Etc so he's been doing really well but I would be nervous about bringing on a chief of staff and then trusting them to do some of the things that you're you're describing here how do you build that trust how do you onboard a chief of staff what does that look like it is such a high trust role um and I'm glad you identified that and it's one of the reasons why Chiefs of Staff are often hired internally or within the network that you already have because you've got to trust them you're bringing them in to be shoulder-to-shoulder with you um as much as possible to learn your business to learn you as a person to step in solve problems speak your language um so it's it's a very very high trust role for sure now Chiefs of Staff are often hired from the outside of a company somebody that you may not know so the best ways to really build trust um and in this case you already have an amazing EA so you also have to kind of protect that relationship right and make sure he understands that it's not a territorial move that you're bringing on additional support that's different than the support that he offers that you're all marching in the direction of just overall Improvement um that he is also still critical to your success um those kinds of conversations will set up the new person really really well access is incredibly important um it sounds you know easy but it's not it's hard to give somebody the time they need especially when they're new when you're busy and onboarding already takes so much longer than a normal normal day um so you know access to you sharing more than you think access to your calendar they don't need edit access but they need to be able to see what's happening um they need to be able to see the business as a whole and what you're doing what you're up to so they can um eventually once they're moving and grooving recommend what you're showing up to and what you know what's worth your time and what's not and they need to be able to see everything really clearly um how you position your new Chief of Staff to your executive team is really critical it's not just a one-time announcement it's a continual um change management approach of this is the new person or the new role and these are the things they're going to be doing and this is why they're here and elevating them in front of other people that builds trust between the two of you um you know I could probably go on and on but those are a few things to focus on when you're bringing in someone new in such a critical trust role well let's let's talk about that too because um like for example right you know this the journal is a small organization I'm very like unimportant I feel like in the world right I'm just this kind of you know young kid who's who's part of this organization but when you have any kind of decision making people start filling your inbox I'm sure you've you've seen this with Nova especially Nova's grown and grown so it's probably happening more and more but you begin getting your inbox filled your your calendar fills up with meetings so many meetings and a lot of them are not necessarily the highest priority um but they're still really important and so how do you frame that to the team the executive team leaders in the organization when you want the chief of staff to attend I I would worry that if I were to do that people would maybe take it as a slight like I didn't think the meeting was important so I send my chief of staff right like we don't want to frame it that way but yet there needs to be some prioritization there needs to be some understanding do you have any advice on how leaders can Implement their chief of staff so that it it doesn't seem that way this episode of the strategy of Health was sponsored by modality Global advisers modality Global advisors optimizes Hospital Revenue enhances patient experience and delivers proven results visit modality Global advisors.com to learn more you know part of it will happen naturally over time where your team will realize that things are just much smoother that they get answers from you faster that even you're not there um somebody else is which is a bonus from last month when just nobody was there right like it does happen over time um in a sense because you're clear with your objective that this person's coming on to help all of us um I think that there's there's this um transparency an important First Step where you're not sending a new person off to a meeting on your own right you're both going to everything for a period of time you're assessing what the chief of staff could step into for you based on their skill set based on you know what problems they're best suited to solve um based on what the company needs where should they be spending their time making sure you're communicating that to your leadership team um sometimes it's just the communication that has to happen and the lack of communication is the issue not so much the topic so if you're putting it out there for the world in your on your team to say my chief of staff will be there when I'm not hopefully he or she can answer some questions for you if not they're going to get the answer from me and they're going to come back to you and I'm hoping this moves our business forward more effectively let me know let me get you know give me feedback um just put it out there transparently and have direct conversation um and again like it does make life easier over time just takes a few months for people to realize and then they're like wow things are moving really well no and I can I can already picked your leaders at Jefferson who could probably use whether you know uh another EA or not to tell them exactly what to do or maybe a chief of staff or maybe more Chiefs of Staff across the organization right because some of the leaders work extremely hard um and they you know Miss meetings and they feel bad about it um and so it can be challenging too when you miss a meeting and um you know we just sometimes I think you've probably experienced this yourself you miss a meeting but you necessarily weren't even needed there for your opinion you were just needed there to know that you were hearing what was going on um and I think that can be a real challenge as well I want to ask do you have your Chief of Staff your own chief of staff at Nova I do yeah my chief of staff was my gosh third full-time hire I think W so that's interesting as well that's something else I wanted to discuss right usually we we hire uh you know Chief Financial Officer Chief Operating Officer um and then usually you know like a a chief administrative officer Etc a couple people early on but you you said your fourth hire was a Chief of Staff yes yes so that's how essential you felt it was yes you know I'm a um self-funded uh startup if you will uh education focused company we have a chief of staff certification course I do coaching um Chief of Staff placement Consulting fractional Chief of Staff Consulting um and you know we're growing there's there's growth to be had I haven't had Ambitions for more than about a team of or eight so maybe a couple more people than we have now but not huge I'm not looking to build a you know 50 to 100 person thousand person organization so a role like CFO or a role like um chief operations officer or chief marketing officer hasn't made sense yet I have a marketing agency I use a platform for startups called Collective for my financial and accounting needs um you know I Outsource some of those things fractionally right now it just kind of makes more sense for the business it's not a super complex financial model at this point so you don't need what I don't need a full-time CFO right so what I do need is are people to execute my visions and my ideas um and to pull me out of the weeds to take me out of this expert executor role that I've been in forever I'm great at it but I can't be there right now I need to be in the vision and the growth space I need to continue to think about how we grow and how we partner and how we build um and so for me it was just an obvious kind of no-brainer to bring on a chief of staff and she still knew we're still figuring things out but um yeah it was a it was definitely a solid solid decision just real quick on the expert executor um would you say that you're like a subject matter expert on chief of staff at this point yes yep and I I think one of the things I wonder that's challenging is it's it's hard to be a subject matter expert and a leader at the same time right because you're called on for this generic leadership right you're supposed to lead and vision but then you're also called on for this really precise expert knowledge um and what I think of is like physician leaders right you know we love it when physician leaders still practice in the clinic but that is very mentally consuming right they have to provide this expert practice but then they also are asked to lead people generically and what I say by generically I say you have to lead your EVS staff you have to lead your business staff you can't lead from that expert point of view with all these other staff members is is that where a chief of staff has been valuable for you as well you know I don't know if I could specifically answer that yet I think that I am still I'm still so tied to my chief of staff expertise um my chief of staff education training the course the kind of coming on like the thought leadership perspective of sharing around about the CH Chief of Staff role with you and others um that I feel still very interconnect connected to that Chief of Staff expertise component um and yet leading the company is like ultimately equally as important if not more right but it's about the chief of staff expertise still so it's it's very entangled um what the chief of staff who I hired has been helpful for is um just taking anything and everything and getting things done moving things along she has expertise in um working in startups helping startups scale so kind of leaning on her background there that's been helpful um catching all the you know gaps and random things that come in like oh okay we're g to move this part of our marketing inhouse because now we have the support who's going to do it oh we've got our chief of staff is she a well actually she has a background in um copywriting and editing which has come in very handy for us from a marketing perspective but you know she may not have a specific expertise um in like some area for example example but she'll take that on because Chiefs of Staff are very good at um figuring out what the problem is learning quickly being curious getting something done doing a really strong job um in such a huge breth of categories um so that's been where she's been most helpful we're just in such we're so new we're we've been a company for about a gosh 15 months um so cool yeah we're babies so we're we're still figuring it all out I appreciate your honesty though too right because you could have just said oh yeah she's fixed everything you know come come and buy my course right oh exactly right I mean we're like brand new here figuring it out just like a lot of a lot of Founders are out there I I think you make a good case though physician leaders are expensive because they have to maintain licenses they have to maintain male practice insurance while practicing it's a challenge right um and you know it's different even though you know your traditional SE Suite leader with an NBA is also expensive physician leaders they have more respons responsibilities because they have to a lot of them still practice and so I I think of having a chief of staff as something so important I I can just imagine some of the leaders I've spoken with right now they go and they practice you know emergency medicine in the Ed they lead the organization from a a CEO perspective and they also are a professor at the University and those three things are just hitting them and you can't necessarily have an EA handle even a single EA handle all the emails coming in right you need you know a l in the cases two or three EAS that they have and I think a chief of staff would be perfect to be that extra layer um yeah so a chief of staff in that scenario would um you know deeply understand what the leader has going on field their biggest priorities understand where they want to be spending their time um analyze where they're actually spending their time make some recommendations for what they're doing make sure that they are not asking repeatedly all the time for the things they need that there systems built whether it's you know an Ive meeting or a email thread or project management whatever it is making sure that the information's going to those leaders without them having to ask for it um briefing them where they're going to make sure they step into any engagement prepared and ready for exactly who's going to be there um it's kind of that endtoend approach of um you know the rhythm of business the sessions the events where they're going what they're doing they've got to understand the EA component like they don't have to have been in EA most haven't um I would say although it's growing EA there's a growing number of EAS moving into Chief of Staff work um they just need to understand um what's happening with that Leader's schedule what's going on what's most important who's emailing them what do they need support in and solve those problems and often the chief of staff is not the doer some I mean they can be they're expert executors but sometimes they're solutioning a problem and the doer might be the EA or it might be a bizops person and then the information's flowing through but the chief of staff has identified it and solved the problem for them and they're there to help ensure that it remains successful I love that that's I hope people hear this and and then think right that this would be a perfect solution um and then uh last question here I'll leave just this final one hospitals you know there they want to have people who have experience in health care they also want to provide learning opportunities for their staff um can you just tell us really briefly about Nova how that model works and then how some he you know Health Systems could get involved in you know maybe bringing you on as an opportunity for their employees yeah well thanks for asking that um so Nova Chief of Staff we launched with a certification course for Chiefs of Staff and uh let's see we've been live for a little over a year we've got over 500 students across 22 countries enrolled in our course which just makes me so happy and um even happier when I hear that you know it's so well received in the market which makes me just my heartwarming away from this Chief of Staff certification feeling like they've had the Hands-On practice doing the things Chiefs of Staff do every day 50 60 hours online self-paced content um assignments doing what Chiefs of Staff do like writing briefs and forming strategic recommendations and planning complex offsites and presenting digitally and you know verbally and all the things um so essentially we've got I think probably upwards of 50 or 60 different folks F in our course from the healthcare sector um which is which is fun to see um we'd love to have you know anybody listening send their send their folks through um one thing I tell leaders is often their Chief their next chief of staff might be sitting right in front of them so it's important to think about your executive assistance now they don't not all executive assistants are going to make a great Chief of Staff absolutely not but you're going to know the ones who would they're driven achieving wanting more responsibility looking for what's next next they're eager they're helping you solve problems they they just get it um and uh these are the folks that you should send over to Nova put them through our course set them up for um you know to be able to hit the ground running as a chief of staff and you know we'd love to we'd love to help so Nova chief of staff.com you can always email us to learn a little bit more Hello Nova chief of staff.com and what's the pricing real quick because when you told me the pricing I was surprised at how how reasonable it was um so 50 60 hours of content six modules it's uh 1450 so 1,450 in 2025 January 2025 it's going up to1 1850 y so if anybody's in interested now enroll enroll now you have lifetime access so you can start the course in a few months when you're ready so at either price point just so that those in the Philadelphia area know um you know pen Jefferson um both of those it would be with it would be under the amount of tuition reimbursement that you you get uh probably would want to contact your administrator of course to to make sure it would flow through but um you know it's reasonably price in the corporate world right it's it's about the price of of a little bit cheaper than a Six Sigma you know by about two grand or so cheaper than a Six Sigma so really good price when I heard that you know I was like this this is a good deal I want it I want it approachable for folks paying themselves um because about 30% of our students fund themselves about 70% are company funded um so we're we're still under market price for sure but um yeah we're happy to have we're happy to be able to accept lots of folks in yeah so thank you for sharing thank you for coming on and and I really appreciate I know it's like always uh challenging uh approaching the healthcare field because it's so regulation heavy and has its own kind of social milu going on so I really do appreciate you coming on and sharing it with us yeah it's been so fun chatting and it's also just been so fun meeting the folks in our course from the healthcare sector and hearing about their company structures and their hospitals and the problems they're solving so I'm happy to chat Healthcare anytime and I hope we see more and more Chiefs of Staff in the coming months me too I love that</p>
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