When Ernie Sadau was a teenager lying in a Fort Worth hospital bed he wrote a note on the dietary-tray response card that he’d like to talk to the hospital administrator about his job. Days later the administrator treated him to lunch and a long discussion on the importance for a leader to spend time with people. The experience so galvanized Sadau’s desire for a career in healthcare that today, at 52, he is president and CEO of CHRISTUS Health, an Irving, Texas-based, Catholic health system with more than 40 hospitals in six states and Mexico and assets of more than $4.8 billion. A native Texan raised on a ranch north of Dallas, Sadau earned his undergraduate degree at the University of North Texas in Denton and an MHA at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos. He started off as a chief accountant at Metroplex Hospital in Killeen, Texas and then moved to Florida where he was a CFO at a 150-bed hospital and then CEO of its new satellite facility. He moved back to Killeen as hospital CEO. He then spent more than two decades at Adventist Health System. He was also president and CEO of Adventist Health System/Midwest in Hinsdale, Ill. Sadau came to CHRISTUS in 2006 as COO and took the top job in 2011. Married for 28 years, he and wife Roxanne have two adult sons, Zachary and Blake. He enjoys travel, golf and reading—and always makes time to talk to young people about their careers.