President and CEO of Northwell Health Michael Dowling addressed a crowd of students and young professionals at TheTimesCenter in New York City on Tuesday, Sept. 17. Dowling discussed the issues he sees in today’s health care industry and where he thinks the industry is headed in the future, and offered advice to the packed audience.

Dowling began by relaying how his experience as an Irish immigrant coming from a family of “modest means” motivated him to work hard and strive for professional success. He said he grew up “milking cows” and worked several odd jobs in various industries including steel, construction and plumbing before he landed a job in the health care industry and worked his way up to becoming a CEO. 

Dowling then spoke about what he believes are problems with the health care industry today, such as increased government regulations and the fact that care providers do not receive compensation for performing services covered by insurance companies. Dowling also said that while many politicians may be critical of the health care industry, he believes there has never been a better time to be in health care and he has an “optimistic” view of the industry’s future.

Due to innovations in medicine and technology, “lots of great things are happening – people are living longer than ever before,” Dowling said.

This event was organized by the Frank G. Zarb School of Business and was part of the annual Zarb Leadership Series, which, every year, invites a high-level executive to talk about their position, how they achieved their success and offer advice to those in the audience – many of whom are Hofstra business students preparing to launch their careers.

This event attracted many students looking to go into the healthcare field as well – likely because, as Dowling mentioned in his speech, Northwell Health is the largest health care provider and private employer in New York state. The audience also included Hofstra alumni, professors, Northwell employees and professionals in the fields of business and health care who may not have have any connection with Hofstra or Northwell, but admired Dowling’s accomplishments and wanted to hear his perspectives on health care and running a company.

Adnan Adib, a freshman marketing major interested in the music industry, said that although he is not majoring in the business or health care fields, he still felt that much of the advice Dowling gave in his speech could apply to him. “[Dowling] said, ‘You need to create new ideas – new, innovative ideas to really succeed in any business’ – whether that’s the music industry or health care,” Adib said. 

Randy Niego, a freshman finance major, said he came to the event because he thought it would be interesting to hear a speech from the CEO of such a well-known company.

 “Sometimes you just see [CEOs] of those random companies and – you know it’s a big company, you know he has money, but it doesn’t really relate to you,” Niego said.

Niego also commented on a common theme of Dowling’s speech: never giving up, even when faced with adversity.

“[Dowling] didn’t really doubt himself – even though the percentages by business analysts showed that he didn’t have a great chance of starting up this business and making it, he … kept going with it and didn’t really listen,” Niego said.  “[Dowling] said, ‘You have to find something that no one is doing and start at it yourself and that’s how you become the most successful’ – I think that’s really good advice.”

The event started off with a cocktail reception prior to Dowling’s speech, where people mingled and students had the opportunity to network with business and healthcare professionals.

Janet Lenaghan, the dean of the Zarb School and Herman Berliner, the provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs, were both at the event and gave brief introductions before Dowling’s speech.

Lenaghan said that inviting Dowling to be the speaker for this year’s Leadership Series event made sense since Hofstra is so closely affiliated with Northwell. As a professor of management and entrepreneurship, she also said that his views on how to be a leader could be useful to any professors in the audience.

“Of course, being the incredible leader that he is, having him give some insights about leadership was also critically important for us as [we are] educating future leaders.”