Photo: Colleen Ingerto / Times Union

Joan Regan Hayner, Chief Executive Officer at CapitalCare Medical Group, at her office in Albany, N.Y. on Tuesday, November 29, 2016. (Colleen Ingerto / Times Union)

Joan Regan Hayner, Chief Executive Officer at CapitalCare Medical Group, at her office in Albany, N.Y. on Tuesday, November 29, 2016. (Colleen Ingerto / Times Union)

Joan Regan Hayner, Chief Executive Officer at CapitalCare Medical Group, at her office in Albany, N.Y. on Tuesday, November 29, 2016. (Colleen Ingerto / Times Union)

Joan Regan Hayner, Chief Executive Officer at CapitalCare Medical Group, at her office in Albany, N.Y. on Tuesday, November 29, 2016. (Colleen Ingerto / Times Union)

January/February 2017 edition of Women@Work magazine.

January/February 2017 edition of Women@Work magazine.

Women in health care: Meet Joan Regan Hayner

After many years in public accounting, Joan Regan Hayner realized she hadn't found her passion. Then it found her. An accounting client who was a physician became involved with founding CapitalCare Medical Group. They were looking for a financial person, and he urged her to consider because he said, she had all the necessary skills. She was hired as controller at CapitalCare in 1997. She was quickly promoted to chief financial officer, then to chief administrative officer in 2000. On Jan. 1, 2004, Hayner was named chief executive officer.

Q: You've said that losing a brother to AIDS gave you a desire to bring quality health care to those who need it. After leaving the financial world, was there a point in which you said to yourself, 'This is where I'm supposed to be.'?

A: You have a tendency when you're young to drive toward something that you think you can be good at. I went into accounting because I was good at math. ... While I was working as a CPA, I did lose a brother to AIDS in the early 1990s, and I started second-guessing my own career and purpose ... but didn't really know what to do. It didn't happen immediately, but in 1997, I got a call because this CapitalCare Medical Group was forming, and they needed a financial person.

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I wasn't really progressing in my career because I wasn't really thrilled with it, and I thought, 'You know what? I'm going to do something different.'

Harkening back when my brother went through what he went through, I saw some really positive aspects of health care and some really negative aspects. And I took a leap, and found I love it. I had a really rare opportunity professionally in that I was kind of given a blank slate and told create processes, create systems, put together at that time, the financial aspects of the organization.

It just all kind of clicked for me. I loved it all, and I loved learning.

Q: It sounds like you had to be open and aware that something big was presenting itself to you.

A: What happened to me was you just always have to have your eye open to possibilities. When I was in my last position in accounting, I just happened to get a client who was a doctor and he was my client for many years. And we just kind of hit it off, and I got kind of a kick out of all the entrepreneurial things he did on top of his position. He was one of the founding physicians in CapitalCare, and he saw something in me ... I was like, 'I do your taxes, and I do your tax planning, and I don't do that stuff.' And he saw that in me. I did business planning for him in these small entrepreneurial endeavors he had, and he said, 'You've helped me in your businesses, and I think you would do really well in this.'

What I tell people now, and young women in particular, is always be open to the possibility that you don't think is out there and put yourself in a position where you can be seen. Seek out a mentor. Reach out to people who you respect and admire and ask them for advice, take them out to coffee.

Try things you think you maybe wouldn't normally do to get exposure in other areas if you need help in trying to drive toward that passion.

There are certain skills that women excel in more than men that make it more easy to adapt to other situations. We excel in our emotional intelligence and in our ability to be creative. We're nurturers, and we want everybody to do well. Those natural tendencies that women have can really help them progress from one field to another field even more easily than men do.

Q: If more women move into top roles, do you think it would impact the health care industry?

A: We cannot achieve better outcomes and reducing costs without being creative. We cannot have an attitude of doing the same old thing. Women don't so much have a my-way-or-the-highway kind of approach to their thinking, and how they approach leadership. So I think our best chance of achieving what we want to achieve in this industry and really for the country, is to really see more women contributing and leading.

The women in nursing and who have been in the trenches in health care, they need to be informing the policymakers.

I got so frustrated with regulations and decisions that were being made without taking into account the operational aspect of the decision, so I just started calling legislators, and I started inviting them to come in. If you're considering legislation, come into my office and take a look at what the impact is going to be. And then I got invited to sit on this committee. And I think policymakers need to hear from people in the trenches about the impact their decisions are going to have.

Q: What advice do you have for women who work in health care and are looking to advance their careers?

A: Don't be afraid to speak up. That's a big one. If you have a good idea or you think you have a good idea, if you don't want to speak up in a big group, go to your mentor or go find somebody who you can bounce an idea off of. Look for mentor and be a mentor.

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Women in health care: Meet Joan Regan Hayner - Albany Times Union