AT: You spent about eight years as a physical therapist before transitioning into administrative roles and, ultimately, compliance. What led you to compliance?
MS: The first step towards compliance was a role overseeing quality assurance and professional development for a geriatric-focused rehabilitation company. I loved that role! I had a great team, and we worked on myriad initiatives to foster growth for our clinicians and promote evidence-based practices for patient care. As you might imagine, since we worked with primarily Medicare beneficiaries, we were subject to relentless scrutiny, and as we grew, it became clear that we needed to implement a formal compliance program. As the quality assurance leader, I got “voluntold” to head up the compliance program, and the rest, as they say, is history! I firmly believe that compliance, ethics, and quality are all threads of the same fabric and that they protect and support patients and employees, as well as the value and mission of the organization.
AT: Clearly, you fell in love with the profession. You have been a part of it for, by my count, 13 years now. What has kept you committed to compliance?
MS: The quality and patient-care tie-ins that I mentioned in my compliance origin story have always been a big motivator for me. I also find the relationship-building aspect of compliance very rewarding. In my career, I have worked in many lean and agile organizations, where I’ve had the opportunity to get a 360-degree view of operations and contribute to strategy and execution of business objectives. I am always looking for ways to demonstrate compliance as a strategic advantage, with opportunities for value creation. Many CEOs take some convincing on that front, and I love a good challenge.
AT: After leading compliance programs in clinical settings for many years, you took an interesting turn and moved to Waud Capital Partners. It would be good, I think, if you explained a bit about the firm.
MS: Waud Capital Partners (WCP) is a middle market private equity (PE) firm based in Chicago that just celebrated its 30th anniversary. About half of our portfolio of companies are healthcare organizations, and the other half are business software and technology companies—some of which are healthcare adjacent or related. The firm reached out to me because of my physical therapy (PT) background when it invested in an outpatient PT company. At that point, I had moved out of that sector, working for quite some time in the home infusion industry, including for a PE-backed company and a large publicly traded company. What started as a very specific reach out from WCP turned into many conversations with the human capital and investment teams and resulted in the creation of a new role in the firm as a strategic compliance resource for the entire healthcare portfolio.
