It’s a Friday afternoon in early September, and CHI Memorial’s market president is hard at work.
But Janelle Reilly’s not in a meeting. She’s making a presentation of sorts, helping a family find a soft drink.
“They were waiting on a family member,” says Reilly, who’s in her ninth year at CHI Memorial and seventh as market president. “They needed a Coke and couldn’t find one.
“When you’re in a hospital, whether as a family member or a patient, is very stressful,” she adds. “Anything we can do to make them more comfortable, that’s what we do. We help people.”
Talk about your upbringing and how that may have influenced your career path.
A couple of key things I learned growing up were, first, how to get along with people – I grew up with six brothers and a sister, so it was living in close quarters and learning how to handle conflict and collaborating. I also learned was resilience – my dad’s job took us from Minnesota to Kentucky when I was in first grade, then to Missouri when I was in junior high school. That’s adapting to new environments, learning how to build relationships – things you learn through experience.
What advice would you give to young women aspiring to leadership roles in your industry?
When you’re starting out, people don’t really expect you to know everything. The real world doesn’t work that way. They expect you to be able to work through a problem and know when to ask for help, but just because you have a master’s degree doesn’t mean you know everything. And find a good mentor who gives very good advice, and has your interests at heart.
Is there a mentor you’ve had whose influence has stayed with you?
I worked for a woman CEO for the first 15 to 20 years of my career – Sandra Bruce, at Catholic health-care systems in Boise, Idaho, and Chicago. One of the things that most impressed me was her ability to develop talent. Women are frequently hesitant to step into roles if they don’t feel they have every box checked, but she was the one who’d suggest that you’re ready. She challenged folks to step into challenging roles. She encouraged me to move from operations to strategy.
How do you find the balance between work and your personal life? What are some ways you handle stress or practice self-care?
I don’t want to say I’ve found work/life balance, but I’m constantly striving. I definitely believe becoming a parent helps create a bit more work/life balance – having a spouse and children remind you of what’s most important. And I’m a firm, firm believer in eating healthy, getting exercise and sleeping – and I find sleep is the most important (of those) to me.
In what ways do you believe the business landscape has changed for women since you started your career?
I’ve always been in Catholic health care, which is different from other health-care companies and other industries in that it’s always had a predominant number of women. Most of the nurses are women and, of course, the religious sisters in Catholic health care. In my experience, Catholic health care has always been receptive to women in leadership roles.
Janelle Reilly
* Education: MA, University of Missouri
* Family: Husband, Pat; daughter, Molly; son, Joseph
* Interests: Spending time with family, reading, bicycling
* First Jobs: Fast food; night shift data entry
* Business book recommendation: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
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