LEADERS

ONLINE

Women Leaders

304 Nowakowski.tif

Susan R. Nowakowski

A Multi-Brand Strategy

Editors’ Note

Susan Nowakowski joined AMN Healthcare Services in 1990. Before assuming her current responsibilities, she served in several senior management positions, including Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and Senior Vice President of Business Development. In addition to her duties at AMN, she is on the boards of directors of the University of California, San Diego Sulpizio Family Cardiovascular Center, the San Diego State University College of Business Administration, and Beckman Coulter, Inc. She served on the board of Playtex Products, Inc. from 2001 to 2007, until its sale to Energizer Holdings, Inc. Prior to joining AMN Healthcare Services, Nowakowski held various finance positions at a subsidiary of Eli Lilly & Co. and at BioVest Partners, a venture capital firm. She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and accounting and a master’s degree in business administration.

Company Brief

AMN Healthcare Services, Inc. (www.amnhealthcare.com), is the largest provider of healthcare professionals in America. The company offers a wide array of travel nurse staffing services, temporary physician staffing, and permanent placement services for physicians and other clinicians at acute care hospitals and health care facilities. Headquartered in San Diego, AMN Healthcare has offices throughout the United States and overseas, including in the United Kingdom, India, Australia, and Singapore. The company operates a portfolio of 11 recruitment brands, each recognized for its own unique market strengths.

Why is AMN considered the industry leader?

Our clients appreciate that we can give them instant access to the most extensive network of quality clinicians in the nation. But what sets us apart most is that we are picky. AMN works with only the best and most qualified professionals. We set high standards for evaluating candidates to ensure they are consistently the best qualified.

Clients think of AMN as more than just a supplier; they consider us their partner in the recruitment of clinicians nationwide. Hospitals look to us for advice in recruiting and retaining both temporary and permanent staff. We also participate in a number of research and public policy initiatives, including the National Council on Nurse and Physician Supply, which we co-founded. It’s the only organization in the nation that brings together academics, industry leaders, and policy makers to study the nurse and physician shortages, develop solutions, and make recommendations for alleviating the bottlenecks that fuel the shortages.

What is unique about the company’s go-to-market brand strategy?

AMN Healthcare is the brand best known to hospitals and the health care community, but when it comes to recruiting nurses, physicians, and allied professionals, we use different brands to appeal to different groups. For example, a nurse generally doesn’t want to sign up with a physician recruitment company, and vice versa. In our nursing business, which is our largest, we use six different brands to appeal to different demographics because the country’s more than two million nurses have different reasons for taking contract assignments. Some might want to build their résumés by working at prestigious hospitals; others may be at later stages in their careers and looking for some flexibility in their lives. Sometimes, it’s just a case of helping to reinvigorate someone’s passion for her or his profession.

So we use our brands to appeal to different kinds of professionals in many different situations. At a time when the shortage of both nurses and doctors – all health care professionals – is growing, that is a win-win outcome.

What motivated you to develop your diversified service strategy four years ago?

The strategy was driven by our commitment to match the changing needs of our clients with the evolving dynamics of the health care industry. We listened as our clients discussed the growing need for temporary and permanent physician recruitment. When hospitals hire physicians, they bring more patients through their doors, which means they require more nurses. The two go hand-in-glove. We believe that by offering both physicians and nurses, we can help our clients better solve their labor challenges. This makes AMN a more important partner for them.

This two-fold strategy also benefits our shareholders by delivering a diversified revenue stream that is more predictable and less sensitive to changes in the economy. We want to drive growth for our shareholders while becoming a healthier, stronger company.

Do you expect growth to continue in each of your business segments in the year ahead?

We see growth opportunities across all of our business segments. Most notably, as the baby-boom generation ages, there will be a critical shortage of health care professionals. We foresee increasing shortages of nurses, physicians, clinicians, and pharmacists. In nursing alone, it is expected that the current shortfall – about 1 in 10 positions is open – will double by the year 2020.

Advances in technology and consumers’ desire for better health care drive demand in specialty fields, like radiology and surgery. The shortages of professionals are tremendous in these areas. There aren’t enough radiologists, for example, to keep up with rapid growth in diagnostic medicine. We expect that helping to meet such specialty demands will be our strongest growth segment over the next few years.

In your industry, does a company have to be a certain size and scale to compete on the national stage?

We often say we have the resources and efficiencies of a billion-dollar company, but the entrepreneurial spirit of a start-up. In our industry, it is certainly beneficial to be larger. For example, you need to have a large pool of quality professionals not only to supply your clients with their needs, but also to do it in a timely manner. So having the largest contingent of qualified candidates definitely gives us an edge. By the same token, we can offer our clinicians the broadest, most attractive choice of assignments in the industry.

What truly sets us apart, however, is quite simply that our standards are higher. AMN has built its competitive edge on quality.