Faculty Profile: Lee Ann Liska 

By Christina Swift 

The MHSA program’s newest faculty member Mrs. Lee Ann Liska comes with an impressive resume. She has held executive level positions at four different health systems, including University Hospital and Mercy Health System here at home. Mrs. Liska’s career in healthcare began when she graduated from Cleveland State and started in healthcare communications at Cleveland Clinic. She knew that healthcare was where she wanted to be and quickly moved up within the organization? shifting to a more traditional administrative track. She was able to complete an MBA in addition to her work and graduated from the executive program at Cleveland State. Mrs. Liska moved to Metro Health System in Cleveland where she was the Vice President of Operations for four years before moving to Cleveland Clinic’s Florida system. After her time in Florida, Mrs. Liska was recruited to University Hospital here at home, where she spent six years as COO then CEO for the hospital. She recently joined Mercy Health System as the COO of all of their southwest hospitals last year. 

Obviously Mrs. Liska has seen a lot of different sides of healthcare over the years, so when asked what the most satisfying part of being an executive in health care is she responded “helping to support emerging leaders in an organization, [specifically] driving an organization to improvement [by] helping mangers achieve their goals and mentoring them”. Perhaps it is her love of mentoring that drew her to the Xavier program in the first place. It’s not her first time teaching, as she has served as a guest lecturer and guest speaker at other organizations. Her vast experience has proven to be extremely beneficial for the Xavier students as she is able to bring her real world examples to chapter material, making the coursework more meaningful. She encourages the students to be active in class, ask questions and she utilizes the time to mentor them a little as well. 

In a rare moment of down time, Mrs. Liska enjoys camping with her family in the summer and spending some time in her former place of residence, Florida, during the winter. “A much needed break from the fluorescent lighting of corporate life,” she jokes. We think it’s a well?deserved break as well.