From Wyoming Dairy Farm to Healthcare CEO (ft Rob Allen)

Welcome to Digital Voices, where healthcare and life science leaders explore the real work behind transformation. This podcast is about people, leadership, and the conversations that move healthcare forward. Now your host, Ed Marx.

Ed Marx here. Welcome to another edition of Digital Voices. I am the luckiest person, I think, in the world because every week I get to hang out with Super, super amazing leaders and people. And today this episode is no different with Rob Allen, President and CEO of Intermountain Health. Rob, welcome to Digital Voices.

Thank you. It's a pleasure to join you today.

And we are recording in fall, late fall of 2025, and you've just been announced, uh, again, one of the 100 most influential healthcare leaders by Modern Healthcare. So congratulations.

Well, thank you.

Yeah, I think that really speaks to a lot of your leadership and we're going to hear more about that. And so the most important question though, Rob, that we have are what are the songs on your playlist? What kind of music does the CEO of Paramount like to listen to?

These are always such amazing questions to be asked along the way, Ed. So, you know, I think I have a mix of things on my playlist and they run from country western. I grew up in Wyoming, so, you know, you might have Nobody to Blame by Chris Stapleton. is on there. The Beatles, Come Together. Billy Joel, You May Be Right. Those are on my playlist.

What else?

Ray Charles, Hit the Road, Jack. So, you know, just kind of a mix of things along the way, some for exercise, some for fun, and just things I enjoy listening to from time to time.

Yeah, no, I love it. What about life message or mantra? Are there sort of words that guide you in how you operate or live?

You know, I grew up on a dairy farm in western Wyoming and in rural Wyoming. You run into a lot of challenges on a farm anywhere, not just rural Wyoming, but you're a long ways from anywhere in rural Wyoming when those things happen. And there was a mantra that I grew up with, and it was, what must be done can be done.

Hmm.

And I love that mantra. What it means to me as I was growing up is when something happens or you need to do something, don't waste any energy trying to decide whether you can actually do it. If it has to be done, there is a way. Your job and all your energy should go to figuring out how to get done what needs to be done. And that's served me well throughout my life. I, I love that concept and that positive attitude about, hey, if it's gotta be done, we can figure out a way. Let's get it done.

I love that. Hey, we are gonna talk a little bit about Intermountain and leadership, but before we get there, who are you? Tell us a little bit about your story. You already gave us a little bit of insight. Got a little bit of an accent. So yeah, tell us more.

Well, you know, as I mentioned, I grew up in Western Wyoming on a farm. Uh, my mother was a nurse. And I watched her growing up and that's how I ultimately got into healthcare was, uh, when I went to college and they encouraged me to go off to college as most parents did with children in my generation. Yeah. I still think it's the same today for, for others. But, uh, that was kind of your ticket onto a better life, which was the American dream, right? To have your kids have, uh, a better circumstance than you've had. And, and my mother had a, a, um, associate's degree in nursing and I was the first in my family to actually get a bachelor's degree.

Wow.

So when I went to college, I didn't really know what to expect in the college experience. And, you know, I, I laugh now, but I'm not always the smartest, you know, kid on the block. And it took me till my junior year in college to figure out they don't hand out the jobs with your diplomas. You actually have to go get a job. And that's when I, I started thinking, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do with this, this degree that I'm in? And I was in business at the time, and it was my mother's example of watching her in this small rural hospital. We lived 6 miles from the hospital. And if the ambulance ever went by, she, wherever we were, she'd go to the house to call to see if they needed help because this hospital was staffed by 2 nurses 24 hours a day. The doctor lived 30 miles from the hospital.

Wow.

On his cattle ranch. And, and so I, that example just kept coming to mind of how do you do something in your community that's good for those around you? And healthcare became interesting and for lots of reasons. You don't, don't want me to be your doctor or your nurse, but my business training and things I can do to facilitate and support those caregivers is what then inspired me. to get into healthcare. And so that's been my journey and I've moved all around the country. We've lived, my wife and I, um, have 3 children, now 7 grandchildren, and we've lived in Colorado, Wyoming, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Utah.

Wow.

In my career journey. And, uh, we've just had great experiences everywhere we've gone, met wonderful people, and continued to learn about the importance of making positive impact where you are and, uh, facilitating others' success leads to your own success.

Yeah, no, I love that. So 29 years now at Intermountain. Why have you chosen to stay so long?

Well, I actually have had 2 stints at Intermountain. So I chose Intermountain just in my journey to get into hospital administration. I wanted to do that, and I was hired as the CFO of a small rural hospital in Wyoming when I was 25. And I didn't have a master's degree. I had a bachelor's degree. I knew I needed a master's, so I went to school at night. Actually traveled long distance 2 nights a week and got my master's degree. And I was named the CEO of that hospital when I turned 28.

Wow.

Um, or shortly after I turned 28. So a lot of on-the-job training, and that hospital was owned by Intermountain Health. And Intermountain sold that hospital in 1999. I had been there with Intermountain for 11 years in total at that time. And, uh, I chose to stay with the new owners who offered me a job to stay and help my team through that transition. And that company took me to New Jersey, and then another company took me up to Massachusetts. And then I rejoined Intermountain in 2007 and I came back and, and, you know, I'm a little ashamed to say I didn't really appreciate Intermountain Health my first go around. When I got to the East Coast and everyone who I talked to, when they found out I'd worked for Intermountain, wanted to talk to me more about Intermountain, then I started to appreciate the difference Intermountain had in the way we do our quality improvement work, which was kind of the mantra for many decades. The way that we manage as a nonprofit to be financially sound and yet return as much value back to the community isn't always the norm in other scenarios. And, uh, there are other good systems who do that, of course, but I came to appreciate the strength of Intermountain. And so when I had the chance to rejoin the system in '07, I jumped at it. And, uh, that brought me back, uh, here to the West, uh, to Utah. And, and I've had a number of jobs, hospital leadership, region leadership, uh, central service leadership.

Yeah.

The chief operating officer to Mark Harrison during his, uh, tenure as CEO. And then when Mark, uh, transitioned, the board hired me as CEO 3 years ago.

Yeah, no, that's awesome. I love that story. So I have to ask, 'cause we're Digital Voices, as a CEO, how do you view the role of digital in healthcare and at Intermountain specifically?

You know, I, I love where we're going. When I think about where we are in healthcare and all the change we need to make healthcare more accessible, to make it more a partner in your journey, to make it more affordable, I think digital, the tools, technologies that are now at our fingertips, Allow us to think about and, and aggressively pursue things we didn't even dream about 3, 4, or 5 years ago. We just didn't understand the full capability of it. And, and the tool's ability to enhance the experience for the patient, of course, I think is remarkable. And we have gotta aggressively go down that path, but its ability to actually simplify the workflow for our doctors, our nurses, and others is also critically important. Our ability to manage burnout for folks to bring the joy back to medicine. for our caregivers and remind all of us why we got into healthcare and work more easily through all the administrative minutiae and get to the core of why we're here. I just am excited with what's in front of us with digital. And of course there's risks. You know, people ask about, are you concerned about the risks? Are you worried about, you know, AI and it going rogue and all of those things? We need to be cautious. We need to be guarded, but we also need to be wise.

Yes.

And these tools today, in a number of scenarios actually provide more accurate information than the human side does. And so even though there's risks with it, we got to find the space where it enhances our abilities and it enables us to do what we need to be doing in the future to take care of our communities better. And I think there's a balance there to be found, but we are all in. We're aggressively moving on the back office side, you know, no holds barred. We really want to move with that aggressively. On the clinical side, we're going to be guarded. But we are looking, um, day in and day out at how we can enhance both the patient side and the, the caregiver side of this experience.

Yeah. And I have to give a shout out to your CIO, good friend of mine, who's a very progressive leader there, uh, helping guide the way.

So, oh, he is. And he's remarkable. Ryan is, is fantastic. And we're so blessed to have him on our team.

I love him. I've known him for many, many years and he's helped me along my own journey. So as CEO, what are you most proud of? Uh, yeah, and you still have a long tenure ahead, but looking back from this point, what are you most proud of?

I, I, I would say 2 things. First and foremost, I am most proud of our caregivers. It is remarkable. We have 68,000 people who come every day looking for how to do good, and I'm just so proud of what they do, what they contribute, what they commit to this cause. Our mission is helping people live the healthiest lives possible, and they are all in.

Yeah.

They're committed to taking care of our patients and each other, and that is so needed today in the world that we live in on so many fronts. And then I am so proud of the history of Intermountain and how it was built. And I was given a gift when I was named CEO. I was given an organization to lead that was financially sound, that was driven by quality and mission above all else, and that is focused on caring for people every day. And, uh, being able to start at that point has, has been a blessing for me. And so I'm very proud of those leaders who went before me and all of the caregivers at Intermountain who built that legacy upon which now I'm blessed with my leadership team to carry forward and build on top of. And, uh, those are just 2 wonderful things that I'm, I'm really proud of at Intermountain.

Yeah. Well, in the show notes, we'll put some information, uh, for Intermountain for those who are not as familiar, but I think, I think the whole world's familiar with what all you've done and, and really led the way in many, many respects in different areas. So let's pivot a little bit to, uh, leadership. Was there a moment where vulnerability became your greatest strength? Mm.

Such a good question for leaders. This is such a remarkable point. And you think back to the journey I talked about.

Yeah.

Becoming a CFO at 25 and a hospital CEO at 28, I knew nothing. Right. I mean, here I am, you know, wet behind the ears, just really trying to figure out how do you lead effectively? Fortunately, it was a small operation, which meant that the pace was slow enough. I could kind of learn my way through things step by step. And it was a great learning experience. But in that process, being vulnerable was the last thing I wanted to be. I was already so vulnerable. I, you needed to stand up and people needed to see you as a leader. And that was a good thing, but in the process of it, I had a false narrative that I built on for too many years. And that was the leader needs to be invincible. You know, that's your job. Be the person everybody can look to and follow. And vulnerability was something that I avoided. And it wasn't until actually years later when I had a 360 done, and then on that 360, it pulled out and someone made this comment. And I just remember it struck me like, you know, a ton of bricks when I read it in my summary. It was, Rob is very personable, but not personal.

Hmm.

And that was a turning point for me to step back and think about my leadership and to think about— and by the way, you think about work-life balance at the same time, which I've never mastered, which I'm horrible at. And I wrestled with it a lot through my journey. And all of that came to a point underneath this evaluation process where I recognized, you know what I've not brought? to work fully as me.

Hmm.

Wow. And as a leader, people need to actually see you being human as well. And in that process too, in the human side of it, you can start to actually have some level of integration between work life, you know, work life and, and, uh, home life balance. And, and balance goes out the window and you just start talking about how does it all come together and how to see people. And I found in that, in those moments after that, when I started to try things differently, that it was a much more powerful position to lead from when people see the whole human side of you, not just the leadership side, and they see your vulnerabilities because in that process they come to understand it's okay for them to have vulnerabilities. Somebody asked me, I was speaking to a group of several hundred students here recently, an honors scholars type program of folks who'd gathered and they invited me and I was talking about leadership and somebody said, you know, have you ever had and how do you deal with imposter syndrome? And I said, you know, we didn't know what to call it back then, but yeah, absolutely. I had imposter syndrome at the time. And what I would tell you is this, when we hire you into that role where you don't think you belong, we already know that.

Yeah.

We already know you don't have certain skills. We already know you have to grow into that role. Don't get caught up in this thought in your head that you've gotta pretend to be something you're not. You will grow into that. Your preparation will come through the journey. And people are there to support you in that. And so you are supposed to be there, not because you already can do the job, but because we believe you'll grow into it and you can become that job and become that leader. And being human in that process and recognizing it is a good thing, even in those early stages, to be able to say, I don't know everything, I don't have all the answers.

Yeah.

Let's work this out together, is a powerful leadership trait that I think I wish I would've had more of when I was younger. And I encourage young leaders now, you know, aspiring high-rising folks to be able to say, Be you, bring you to work, bring all the good you have. We're gonna pound out some of those rough edges and smooth 'em off for you along the way. And it's gonna be good, but we want those rough edges. We want that to be part of this experience for you and for us.

Yeah. I, I love that. Where do you go or what do you do when you feel your creativity is drained? Right? Because you're talking about work-life balance. There's times when we're like out of energy or outta that creative spark. What, what do you do?

Well, there's a couple of things that I do. First, you've gotta find space, especially at a CEO level. You've gotta find space to just think, to just explore your own thought, to be able to creatively explore different things, research different things. And, uh, in the hectic schedule, that's not usually there during the daytime. When it's there for me, I'm a farm boy. I got up early in the morning. I still today wake up between 4 and 4:30. Like it or not, I'm up at 4 to 4:30. So first space for me is I often spend a couple of hours in the morning, early morning hours alone in my home office. Where I can have that thought process. And so I think you've gotta find space just to create the opportunity to think, and then you've gotta actually have spaces that free you. So I took up dirt biking again recently. I, when I was a boy, I had a dirt bike and I had a friend who called me and said, hey Rob, you wanna go with me a few years ago? And I said, oh, I'd love to go. And I said, I don't have a bike. And he said, oh, don't worry, I, we got an extra bike. I got all the gear. And then I said, I haven't been on a bike in 25 years. There was just this silence on the phone, right? I was waiting for the, well, maybe this isn't the right thing for you right now, Rob. We'll do something easier at a different time. And after a moment he said, why don't you come with us anyway? Come with us anyway. And so I went and I joined these guys on a Friday afternoon and we spent about 4 hours out in the desert in Southern Utah. And then we spent Saturday as well. But after 4 hours Friday, he stopped and looked at me. I'd been CEO for about a year. And he said, Rob, in the last 4 hours, have you thought about work once? And I paused and I thought, since the moment Mike Levitt, Governor Levitt, our board chair, showed up on my doorstep of my house just before Thanksgiving a few years ago and invited me to be the CEO, I don't think I've had 4 hours of awake time when I wasn't thinking about work. And suddenly I had this freedom in the desert on a dirt bike. And you gotta pay attention, right? You, I mean, if you're not paying attention every second on a dirt bike, you're in trouble. And I found space. That was a release.

Yeah.

A quiet space. And what I found after I dirt bike is not only this period of time when I'm not thinking of work at all, my mind is much more clear. And so I think you gotta find quiet space, and I think you gotta find space that totally free you.

Yes.

From the pressures of work. And, and I hope you find, I certainly found after those moments, my mind is so active and excited and so many new thoughts come. It's just really productive for me to, to take time and do those types of things.

You know, reflecting back, do you define success differently than earlier in your career? So like today, when you think about success versus, you know, when you were that 20-something-year-old CEO?

You know, I do, I do define it much different. And I will share it in this context. I'm a father. I have 3 children. I now have 7 grandchildren from those 3 kids. And we take great joy in our children. And so I think of the analogy of being a father and your children when they're young to when they grow older. And now I'll go back and flip to the work piece. And then I'll draw the analogy for you. But early in my career, success is about what I did. As you grow in accountability, breadth of accountability, success becomes about what you lead and facilitate and enable others to do. And I think of that as a parent. When your child's really young, success with a child is what you do.

Right.

You know, feed them, change them, all those little things when they're a baby. As they grow and you guide them, and as they grow up, Success becomes about what they've learned to do. You know, not what I did. It's what I enabled for them in some process along the way. And I find that both in personal and I find that in work. Success today for me is about what we facilitate and enable others to accomplish and achieve. That is good.

Yeah, I love that. Very well said. What is one thing that your parents maybe forced you to do when you were on the farm and you kind of, you maybe rolled your eyes a little bit and now as you look back, you're like so glad that they instilled that There are so many lessons from the farm.

I could go on all day about those types of things. And one thing that comes to mind for me is really on the farm. I told the mantra earlier, you know, what must be done can be done. But on a dairy farm, you milk cows 7 days a week, 365 days a year. You don't get a day off.

Right.

So, I mean, we, we never traveled as a family for multiple days. People talk about vacations they take. If my parents went somewhere, they might take one of the kids. So the rest of us stayed home and ran the farm while they went. And so you kind of split up as you went. So your time together was on the farm and everything was around making sure that you took care of the cows so that you made a living. So you had what you had, what you needed. And I remember as a boy, one of the lessons was you don't eat until the cows are fed. So, I mean, you go do your chores and you make sure the cows are fed first. That's our livelihood. You take care of that. And through my life, it's been interesting. And then sometimes maybe to an extreme, there's probably times I should have taking care of me a little more first. But I do think there is value in making sure you pause and take care of the things around you that need to be done and make sure that's done before you are focused so much on yourself. And that was a great lesson that has served me well in my marriage, you know, with my family, with my kids, in my job along the way. And I've had to learn the cadence about what does that really mean and where do I need to make sure I fed the cows before I can eat my meal, so to speak, in the things that I do. But that's been a good lesson that was driven into me. And as a kid, no, I hated it. You know, I was hungry. I wanted to go eat. So that was Well, get your job done, then you can eat.

And I love, I love that, Rob. Rob, you're an amazing, uh, human. You're an amazing leader. I, like I said, I've known a lot about you, uh, through the years and, uh, this time together just re— really reinforces that. We talked a lot of, a lot of things. We talked everything from the style of music that, that you enjoy and, uh, what must be done, can be done, needs to be done as sort of that mantra. And then we talked about just your upbringing and then some of the th— parts of your early career. We talked a lot about your role.

Yeah.

at Intermountain as a CEO and a lot of the things that you're focused on and specifically with digital. And I loved your point of view that we have to move forward. We need to be cautious, but we need to make movement forward. And so I love that. And we talked a lot about leadership on both on the personal side and professional side. What did I miss? Or is there anything you want to double down on? I'll give you the last word.

Well, thank you. I would say, In leadership, one thing I have become acutely focused on is the importance of relationships as we go forward. And, you know, as leaders, we have to get things done. We have to move our organization. It has to produce things. In healthcare, it's value to those we serve, of course, that we're focused on. But I would say to, to all those out there who might listen and think about their leadership journeys, relationships matter.

Yeah.

And it's that journey together that really brings fulfillment. You can go out and do all kinds of things on your own, but I will promise you that when you do it together with other good people, It is much more valuable to you and you get much more done together for those you're trying to impact. Relationships matter. Make sure you foster them. Every effort put into that, I believe, is worth it and it will enrich your journey.

Rob Allen, thank you for being a guest on Digital Voices.

Thank you. Pleasure to be with you today.

Thank you for listening to Digital Voices. We hope today's conversation sparked ideas Reflection and connection. Subscribe on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify Podcasts so you don't miss an episode.