By Meg Walker, Vitals contributor
Erin Neal, chief administrative officer for Sutter Pacific Medical Foundation North, part of the Sutter Health network in Santa Rosa, has been selected as one of the North Bay Business Journal’s 2021 Women in Business Awards.
Recipients of the annual awards are chosen by the NBBJ based on outstanding leadership, innovation, vision and community involvement.
Neal, who was profiled in a special June 28, 2021 edition of the NBBJ, is a native of the North Bay and has been in healthcare for 30 years. She joined Sutter Pacific Medical Foundation as an operations leader in 2009, and she then became an area operations executive for SPMF North in 2016. Neal stepped into the role of chief administrative officer in January 2021.
In recent years, Neal has led several major strategy and operation efforts around the COVID-19 response; emergency management related to wildfires, evacuations and floods; patient growth in primary and specialty care; frontline leadership development; primary care redesign; clinical accreditation; and facility use optimization.
In addition to healthcare, Neal has been successful in another area she is passionate about: art. She has a master’s degree in Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute, and she has taught visual arts and mentored young artists who have risen to international recognition.
During an interview with NBBJ, Neal offered insight about working for Sutter Health and what she is most proud of.
In the recent NBBJ story, she said: “Having lived in the North Bay my whole life, I feel profoundly lucky to be in such a close-knit community and working in an organization that both supports the local needs of each community and extends across communities to enhance health and well-being for all.”
She continued: “I am most proud of my team at Sutter. They are always there, and completely focused on doing what’s right for our patients. My job is to get barriers out of their way so they can do their work. I work for them.”
