When Dennis Murphy took his mother to the movie “Brooklyn” she said it was like watching her life on screen. Like the movie’s protagonists, his mother and father were Irish immigrants and met in a dancehall, just swap Chicago for Brooklyn. Growing up in a large Irish Catholic family in Chicago was formative for Murphy, 52, president and CEO of IU Health, a 6-billion, Indianapolis-based academic health system with 14 hospitals serving the state of Indiana. A pioneer – he and a cousin are the only ones in the sprawling family to leave Chicago – at age 14 he left the urban environment for a Franciscan seminary in the middle of Wisconsin to study for the priesthood. “It’s how I think about leadership – the idea to serve,” he says of the experience.

After earning an undergraduate degree at Notre Dame and a master’s in healthcare administration from Duke, Murphy spent a decade at Johns Hopkins Hospital in a variety of roles, moving back to Chicago as VP of ambulatory services and financial planning for the University of Chicago Hospitals, and then COO and executive VP at Northwestern Memorial HealthCare. He joined IU Health in 2013 as COO, becoming president in 2015 and CEO in 2016.

A self-described nomad, Murphy is also the apple that didn’t fall too far from the tree: he and his wife, Kristy, with whom he has three children, make the three-hour drive to Chicago often to be with family members who just can’t leave the Old Sod.