Sometimes, regardless of training and experience, a rare person appears with “chief executive” written in her heart. Penny Wheeler, MD, fits the description. She swapped her physician’s lab coat for a suit seemingly overnight when she was appointed president and CEO of Minneapolis-based Allina Health, a $3.8-billion, 13-hospital integrated health system serving Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Well, she was chief clinical officer in between. “I went from full-time practice to chief clinical officer, from coping with a complex hysterectomy to not knowing how to run my email program. There was no ladder,” she recalls.

Prior to being chief clinical officer, she served patients at Women’s Health Consultants in Minneapolis as a board-certified obstetrician/gynecologist and was president of Abbott Northwestern Hospital’s medical staff, chaired the Allina Health Quality Committee and served on the Allina Health Board of Directors. In addition to her current role, Dr. Wheeler chaired the Minnesota Community Measurement board, a regional health quality collaborative, and is on the board of Portico Healthnet, an organization dedicated to helping uninsured Minnesotans receive affordable health coverage and care. She has been recognized as an outstanding healthcare executive for her work forming internal and external care collaboratives with an impact on community health.

Dr. Wheeler has an undergraduate degree with honors from the University of Minnesota and a medical degree from the University of Minnesota Medical School. Oh, yes, she’s also an avid in-line skater and bicyclist.