The role of sponsorship in developing diverse leadership talent

Author's Biography

Diane L. Dixon is a leadership and organisation development consultant/adviser, educator and author. She is the author of Diversity on the Executive Path published by the Health Administration Press. In addition, Ms Dixon has contributed chapters on healthcare leadership to three books and has written numerous practitioner papers, including a previous leadership column for Caring for the Ages. Ms Dixon has more than 30+ years of experience in the field of leadership and organisation development working with organisations of various sizes and complexity. She has worked with non-profit boards in different stages of strategic planning and has served on several non-profit boards. Prior to becoming a consultant, Ms Dixon was director of human resource development for Union Memorial Hospital and Franklin Square Hospital Center, now part of MedStar Health and previously worked in training and development positions for two global corporations, McCormick & Company and Warner-Lambert, Parke-Davis Group (now Pfizer). Ms Dixon is an adjunct lecturer in health policy and management at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. Previously, she was an adjunct instructor at Johns Hopkins University in the former’s Business of Medicine programme and the Carey Business School. Ms Dixon holds a doctorate in education from the Executive Leadership in Human and Organizational Learning programme at George Washington University; a master of education (in administration) from Loyola University Maryland; and a bachelor of arts (in sociology) from Howard University.

Brett D. Lee Brett Lee serves as the inaugural president of Texas Health Hospital Frisco (a unique joint venture between Texas Health Resources and UT Southwestern), being named to that role in 2019. Mr Lee served as vice-president of operations and clinical services at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas, where he worked closely with UT Southwestern to help plan the opening of a new hospital campus in Plano. He has also served as the president of a joint venture between Tenet Healthcare and Baylor Scott & White Health that operated five hospitals in North Texas. Mr Lee holds a bachelor of science degree in physical therapy from the University of Oklahoma, a master of health science degree in health finance and management from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, a master of science in leadership development degree from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business and a doctorate in allied health/ physical therapy from the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions. Mr Lee is the lead author of Growing Leaders in Healthcare: Lessons from the Corporate World, published by the Health Administration Press, and the subsequent American College of Healthcare Executives self-study course — Creating a Leadership Development Program in your Healthcare Organization. He wrote three additional books, Managing Clinically: What Can Medicine Teach Us about Leadership; Voices from Riley: A Collection of Prayers from a Top Children’s Hospital; and his newest book, The Healthcare Leader’s Guide to Actions, Awareness, and Perception (which received the James A. Hamilton Award as the 2017 ‘Book of the Year’ by the ACHE). Mr Lee was given the Robert S. Hudgens Memorial Award as the national young healthcare executive of the year by the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) and was recognised as a ‘Rising Star’ of the healthcare industry by Becker’s Hospital Review.