MEMBER SPOTLIGHT – DEANNA BANKS

Deanna Banks is a trusted talent advisor with more than 25 years of experience as a human capital consultant and thought leader on diversity. Deanna joined Furst Group in 1998 as a Vice President and now, as a Principal, has an ownership interest in the firm. A native Washingtonian, Deanna is proud to have founded the firm’s first east coast office. Her practice is comprised of many of the industry’s leading hospital systems, academic medical centers, trade associations, and health insurance and managed government programs (Medicare and Medicaid).  Deanna is skilled at partnering and consulting with boards of directors and Chief Executive Officers on executive recruitment and retention, governance, succession planning, leadership development and team building.

Her acuity in talent mapping and leadership development makes her a valuable asset to her clients beyond executive search, where she is experienced in identifying Chief Executive Officers, Chief Human Resources Officers, Clinical Division Heads, Chief Finance Officers and other senior executives. She works with many of the hospitals and health systems that achieve high rankings from U.S. News & World Report, as well as other industry lists.

Deanna has been a proud member of NAHSE for more than 23 years. She joined NAHSE while working at AHIP as Director of the Minority Management Development Program to expand her network of potential placement sites for the graduate fellows once they completed the 10-month development program. What she found at NAHSE was an invaluable network of diverse leaders, like none other, that have become her colleagues, clients, candidates and lifelong friends.

She continues her mission of leading cultural diversity initiatives by educating leaders and organizations to successfully attract, promote and retain ethnically diverse executives. Deanna continues to serve on the boards of several non-profit organizations. In 2018, Deanna was appointed to The Patient Access Network (PAN) Foundation board. PAN is a 501 (c)(3) organization dedicated to helping federally and commercially insured people living with life-threatening, chronic and rare diseases with the out-of-pocket costs for their prescribed medications. PAN provides the underinsured access to the healthcare treatments they need to best manage their conditions and focus on improving their quality of life. Since PAN’s founding in 2004, PAN has provided nearly 1 million underinsured patients with over $3 billion in financial assistance, through close to 70 disease-specific programs. PAN’s mission of aiding the underinsured population with the ever-increasing cost of prescribed medications and advocacy work to reduce out- of-pocket costs inspired Deanna to join PAN.

Deanna is a proud working mother who frequently shares that the sacrifices she and her husband, Aaron, have made to raise their daughters is given back daily in blessings. Her eldest, Jordan, is 22 and a graduate student at Wake Forest University and Sydney is an 18-year-old senior in high school heading to the University of North Carolina in the Fall. They are “my greatest accomplishment”.