Leading as a Team: Building Strong Medicaid Senior Leadership

Leading a Medicaid agency requires more than one strong leader — it requires a leadership team that can navigate complexity, connect decisions across program and functional areas, and maintain momentum amid competing demands. This episode of the Medicaid Leadership Exchange podcast explores how senior leadership teams can strengthen their collective capacity to address challenges together. The discussion highlights how effective teams establish shared ownership, resolve challenges without relying on one person to drive decisions, and build the trust needed to raise concerns early and work through difficult issues together.

The conversation features perspectives from:

• Bill Hanna, former Wisconsin Medicaid Director, Practice Director, ATI Advisory
• Sally Kozak, Pennsylvania Medicaid Director
• Emily Zalkovsky, former Texas Medicaid Director

The episode is hosted by Mark Larson, senior vice president, Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS), and former Vermont Medicaid director, and Kate McEvoy, executive director, National Association of Medicaid Directors (NAMD), and former Connecticut Medicaid director. The Medicaid Leadership Exchange podcast, an initiative of CHCS’ National Medicaid Leadership Center, explores priority topics for Medicaid leaders. It is jointly developed by NAMD and CHCS and made possible by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.