Kimberly Cripe

Kimberly Cripe

President & CEO


Children's Hospital of Orange County (CHOC)

Orange, CA USA


Stay open-minded and learn from every experience because it’ll make you a better person and a stronger employee. There are lots of disappointments throughout life but the attitude you bring to it is so important.

Milestones

My road in life has taken me all over.
I was fortunate to grow up in a family where both of my parents were college graduates and education was emphasized.
I loved science and, in college, I was leaning towards going into medicine.
In undergrad, I changed my major 5 or 6 times and ended up with a degree in mass communications.
I got married at the end of my junior year, moved to Florida, and graduated from the University of South Florida.
After graduation, I couldn’t decide between business school or medical school, so I worked for a university community hospital.
I decided to attend graduate school where I earned my master's degree in public administration. I then got a job at a hospital and worked for the for-profit side of healthcare.
In that corporate job, I was always traveling, and by then I had started a family, so I wanted to move into a mission-driven organization.
I got hired at CHOC to help them open their new hospital and I’ve been here since 1991.
Keep following my journey

Career

President & CEO

I have the broad-based responsibility for our entire pediatric healthcare enterprise.

Career Roadmap

Roadmap
My work combines:
My work combines:
Non-Profit Organizations
Medicine
Upholding a Cause and Belief

Day to Day

We’re a very large healthcare enterprise, so while I am in the hospital a lot, my job is largely external. I work with the board of directors on governance to make sure there's a leadership structure that can maintain all of our operations. I create a vision for the organization and the strategic plan. I make sure we’re compliant with all local, state and federal laws. I spend a lot of time on leadership development by hiring and developing a very high-quality management team.

Advice for Getting Started

Here's the first step for everyone

Hard work and the time you put into studying, learning, finding out about other people and their perspectives - it all comes back to you. Sometimes you have to be patient, but our lives really are an aggregation of all of our life experiences. So every minute of every day is an opportunity to learn. Pick yourself back up - there are lots of disappointments through life but the attitude you bring to it are so important. The victim mentality is a very difficult space to live in.

Recommended Education

My career is related to what I studied. I'd recommend the path I took:

Hurdles

The Noise I Shed

From Society in General:

"You are a young woman and a single mother, how are you going to succeed?"

Challenges I Overcame

Work/Life Balance