Mairilise Pothin Owen is setting a clear and mission-driven financial agenda just weeks into her new role as senior vice president and CFO of three Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based hospitals in Florida.
Ms. Pothin Owen oversees financial operations at AdventHealth DeLand (Fla.), Orange City, Fla.-based AdventHealth Fish Memorial and Tavares, Fla.-based AdventHealth Waterman
Becker’s connected with Ms. Pothin Owen to discuss the top priorities in her new job and how she aims to balance cost stewardship with compassionate innovation at the three hospitals to extend AdventHealth’s mission.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: Can you share three financial priorities for 2025 in your new role? How do you plan to achieve these goals?
Mairilise Pothin Owen: Three priorities guide my focus this year: strengthening operational efficiencies, ensuring the sustainability of our workforce and creating financial capacity for strategic growth.
Workforce sustainability is at the heart of our financial strategy. AdventHealth employs more than 100,000 people across the country. Here in the East Florida Division, we are proud to support over 11,000 team members — 4,500 of whom are in the region I serve. Every financial decision we make affects real people: the caregivers who power our mission and serve our communities with extraordinary dedication.
We are also focused on improving operational efficiency. This means refining processes, working smarter, and reducing unnecessary costs, all without ever compromising care. Doing this well allows us to invest in growth by expanding services, enhancing access and delivering a more connected, patient-centered experience.
Ultimately, in a faith-based, nonprofit system like ours, every decision must support long-term sustainability. That includes making care more accessible and seamless for those we serve, so our community continues to experience whole-person care for generations to come.
Q: Given the growing demand in healthcare, how will you leverage financial stewardship to support innovation and expand access to care across the three hospitals under your leadership?
MO: Strengthening our financial resilience is essential to fueling innovation. The more disciplined we are today, the more flexibility we will have to grow, adapt and meet rising demand tomorrow.
By optimizing our cost structures, we can reinvest savings into high-impact initiatives, such as expanding our footprint with new access points, advancing clinical technologies and developing digital tools that improve patient navigation and coordination of care.
Financial stewardship is about saying “yes” to the right things, like investments that improve outcomes, enhance experience, increase access and stay true to our mission to extend the healing ministry of Christ.
Q: What is the best piece of financial leadership advice that you’ve received? How will you carry that into your new role?
MO: The best advice I’ve received is: Align every financial decision with our mission.
Every financial decision is an opportunity to advance our mission to extend the healing ministry of Christ. That means leading with compassion, acting with integrity and stewarding our resources with a deep sense of purpose.
My goal is to help build a financial strategy that enables growth, drives innovation, and supports people — both patients and team members alike — who count on us every day. That’s how we bring our mission to life in every neighborhood we serve.
