By Tracey Drury – Reporter, Buffalo Business First
Jul 5, 2022
Gary Crosby says his love of numbers and finances will be put to good use as board chair of Kaleida Health.
There’s the dozen years he spent in banking with First Niagara Financial Group, where he was CEO until the acquisition by KeyBank in 2016 and five years on KeyBank’s board of directors.
Before that, Crosby spent eight years at the Buffalo City School District as executive vice president and chief administrative and operating officer, helping to stabilize the budget and overseeing the $1.1 billion Joint Schools Construction Project.
And that was after a career in technology as CFO and founding shareholder of ClientLogic Corp. and private-sector experience as a venture capital partner and CFO with Seed Capital Partners.
His newest role at Kaleida will be to guide the $2 billion health system through ongoing staffing issues and to overcome last year’s $100 million deficit. Can it be done in a year? Maybe, but it’s going to mean following a thoughtful, strategic plan versus massive cuts.
“Things are so volatile,” he said. “We will definitely turn it around, but you can’t cut your way to success.”
Crosby recognizes there are plenty of challenges to the system, starting with maintaining quality health care amid serious staffing shortages and shrinking operating margins.
“I used to think banking was challenging, but it was pretty easy compared to what hospitals have to deal with,” he said.
Recruiting and retaining talent are key to deliver the highest quality health care. But also challenging is meeting expectations of patients, reaching vulnerable populations and the reality that more care is taking place outside hospital sites in off-campus, outpatient sites.
“Most hospitals have this huge brick and mortar to house patients. And as you move more and more to the outpatient setting, you’ve got to have smaller health-care centers for ambulatory patients,” he said. “That’s a big strategic change. We have to deliver what the customer or patient wants, not what we think they want.”
Connections are important to Crosby, who likes to point out his connection to Kaleida goes back 68 years to his birth at the former Millard Fillmore Gates Hospital. His grandchildren were also born in Kaleida hospitals.
Born and raised in Buffalo, Crosby has spent his entire career here, starting as a CPA with KPMG Peat Marwick after graduating from Canisius College.
Crosby maintains a connection to banking as president of the First Niagara Foundation, the legacy philanthropic arm of the bank; and also serves on the boards of the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo and AAA of Western and Central New York.
Crosby recognizes there are parallels with his experience in banking and other careers, all of which rely on maximizing the customer experience.
“My hot button always has been in business the customer experience, and you can transfer that to the patient experience,” he said. “That’s what I’ve tried to do in my previous lives, deliver a better experience to customers.”
Gary Crosby:
Day job: President, First Niagara Foundation
Community: Board chairman, Kaleida Health
Self-description: Dedicated
What keeps you up at night: I used to say nothing but cyber risk comes close. It can be devastating, especially in the health-care business.
Who is your mentor: Two executives, both of whom have passed: Tom Baker, former Pricewaterhouse managing partner and president at John R. Oishei Foundation; and Robert “Bob” Kresse, Margaret L. Wendt Foundation trustee.