Carallel CEO, Shara Cohen, Included on Fierce Healthcare's 2024 List of Women of Influence in Healthcare

Boston, MA, Dec. 5, 2024 /Fierce Healthcare/ -- Fierce Healthcare is proud to present our 2024 Women of Influence honorees—10 women doing groundbreaking, industry-leading and innovative work throughout healthcare.

Each of the 10 women profiled this year is playing a critical role in driving the industry forward to improve the quality of healthcare services while making medical care more accessible, equitable and patient-driven. They also represent the breadth of healthcare, holding positions at providers, payers and tech innovators both large and small.

These 10 women are on the front lines of healthcare's transformation while still facing ongoing barriers to advance to positions of power. Women today make up 29% of C-suite positions, compared with just 17% in 2015, according to 2024 edition of McKinsey & Company’s “Women in the Workplace” report. Within healthcare, women make up 76% of entry-level roles, 70% of manager positions and 62% of senior manager positions, which sounds promising. However, female representation steadily decreases at every subsequent rung of the job ladder, dropping to just a 35% share of C-suite positions. That's up from a year ago when women held 32% of C-suite positions, according to McKinsey's 2023 report.

While healthcare is doing better than many industries are, there is still much room for improvement.

McKinsey also finds that men still significantly outnumber women at the manager level. This "broken rung" remains a major barrier to women's advancement, especially for women of color, who represent only 7% of current C-suite positions—just a four-percentage-point increase since 2017.

However, these barriers aren't holding back the leaders we're honoring in our 2024 Women of Influence feature. These leaders are running major health systems, growing innovative health tech companies, investing in promising startups, driving AI efforts at big tech firms and and using tech to put power into patients' hands. They represent what it means to be "fierce."

Many of these women also embrace equity and inclusivity as a core part of their work. As Kristin Bertell, chief philanthropy officer at City of Hope, said about representing different voices and perspectives: "Take note of who isn’t at the table and bring those leaders in to ensure you have different voices represented when building a strategy or solving a problem."

Jena Hausmann, president and CEO of Children’s Hospital Colorado, also called out the exceptional people she has worked with that contributed to her successful career: "Leadership evolves overtime, teams evolve over time, but at the heart of delivering on the precious mission of human health in the complex industry of healthcare takes a level of teamwork that should be acknowledged when reflecting on any major accomplishment.”

Learn more about our inspiring 2024 honorees below.

Shara Cohen advocates for 53 million family caregivers to provide support and guidance

Shara Cohen, president and CEO, Carallel

Education: Bachelor of Arts in history from the University of California, Berkeley; J.D.from Fordham University School of Law

About her: Cohen is a fierce advocate for some of the most overlooked yet influential people in healthcare: family caregivers. Despite the size of the U.S. caregiver population (roughly 53 million Americans serve as caregivers to a loved one) and their impact on health outcomes, most caregivers are overwhelmed and do not have the resources they need to thrive. Caregivers are at greater risk for multiple chronic conditions, and 40% to 70% of them have symptoms of depression. In addition to raising awareness about the challenges caregivers face, she has highlighted the disproportionate caregiving burden shouldered by women, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ and rural communities.

As the CEO of Carallel—the leading provider of human-led, tech-enabled support, guidance and assistance for family caregivers—Cohen is helping healthcare organizations and benefit providers identify, engage and empower caregivers so they can confidently manage caregiving responsibilities. In 2024 alone, she led the rollout of an enhanced digital experience for caregivers, launched a new program designed to meet the unique needs of dementia caregivers and expanded Carallel’s reach to more health plans and providers across the country.

She has spoken about the critical role caregivers play in healthy aging on the national stage at conferences like HLTH, discussed the issue on podcasts like "HITea with Grace" and Managed Healthcare Executive’s "Tuning Into the C-Suite" and written about it for industry publications like Fierce Healthcare and Becker’s Hospital Review.

First job: “Early on, I was a candy striper in a hospital and delivered Meals on Wheels, which really opened my eyes to how vulnerable a lot of people are and the support they need. And in my first job out of college, I worked for the Oakland A’s promotions department. Most importantly, I got to fill in as Stomper, the mascot—which was very toasty and a ton of fun.”

Proudest accomplishment: “A younger version of myself finished the Marathon des Sable—seven days, 150 miles—in the Sahara Desert. Halfway through the first day, I was pretty sure I couldn’t finish. But it taught me to just focus on one foot in front of the other. (It also taught me a lot about how not to treat blisters.) That lesson in perseverance helps me every day in work, in healthcare and in parenting.”

Problem she’s most passionate about trying to solve: “I am an outspoken advocate for humanizing healthcare. Ironically, people are often the most overlooked in care delivery, and I have spent most of my career bringing solutions to life that improve the experience and effectiveness of care.”

“Today, my message is that caregiving is a health condition. Research shows caregivers are at greater risk for multiple chronic conditions, depression and financial insecurity. That vulnerability creates a two-sided impact because it also affects those in their care. Caregivers need to be recognized for the value they provide to the healthcare ecosystem and supported in what they do.”

Book, podcast or other media she recommends: "The 'Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus' podcast is brilliant. It celebrates and humanizes amazing women. It shines a light on the precious value of experience. And it reminds me to call my mother.”

Advice she would give her younger self: “I was given advice (from another Fierce woman) that I’ll steal here … you’re going to make a lot of decisions. You won’t always be right. Just try to make a few more good decisions than bad ones. It’s a good reminder that you don’t have to be perfect; you just have to be purposeful and keep moving forward.” 

What she’d do with her career if it wasn’t this: “I’d love to be an architect. To be able to build something beautiful, functional, lasting and tangible would be amazing. I admire many architects for their technical knowledge, attention to detail, curiosity and dreamy creativity.” 

Advice she'd give to healthcare leaders looking to make a real impact on health equity: “For the innovators, it’s a ‘two-parter.’ The first part is the same advice … keep putting one foot in front of the other. The healthcare industry is slow. It hesitates to make change. But, keep at it because it matters. The second part is to first focus on the people who ‘get it’ and don’t waste time with people who don’t want to innovate. It seems obvious, but you can waste a lot of time trying to convince people who are never going to be first movers. So, focus on finding your early adopters/believers. They are the ones that will help you get started and measure value. Their impact data will help you when it’s time to go back to convince the followers.”