Our Leadership

Damond W. Boatwright, MHA, MHS, FACHE began his service with Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS) as president and chief executive officer in June 2021. Damond joined HSHS after serving as regional president of SSM Health in Wisconsin a role he served in since 2014. SSM Wisconsin includes seven hospitals and four affiliates, 85+ physician clinics, a pharmacy benefit company, 10 nursing homes and an insurance company.  

Some of Damond’s accomplishments at SSM include achieving growth in several key service lines; successfully integrating one of the largest independent multispecialty groups in Wisconsin; maintaining top decile patient satisfaction and quality scores; and developing and chairing SSM Wisconsin’s first advisory council on inclusion, diversity and equity.

Prior to SSM, Damond served in various leadership roles at Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) from 2001 to 2013. His career at HCA took him to hospitals in Virginia, Florida, Missouri and Kansas, serving in executive leadership roles with increasing responsibilities. 

Damond is originally from Charleston, South Carolina. Though he once aspired to become a physician, he earned his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration at The Citadel in Charleston in 1994. Damond worked full-time at HCA while completing his Master of Health Administration and Health Sciences (MHA, MHS) at Medical University of South Carolina. After finishing graduate school, Damond worked as an administrative fellow for Duke University Health System in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Damond has served as a board member at the Catholic Health Association and is the immediate past chair of the Wisconsin Hospital Association (WHA). He received Modern Healthcare’s Up and Comer Award in 2009, and in 2010, he was featured in Becker’s Hospital Review’s Hospital and Health System Leaders to Know. In 2020, Damond was named as a WHA Distinguished Leader. He was also recently honored as In Business magazine’s 2021 Executive of the Year in Madison, Wisconsin.

Kathy joined HSHS in January 2023.  As senior vice president and chief operating officer, Kathy oversees multiple leadership roles for our Wisconsin hospitals, Illinois hospitals and HSHS Physician Enterprise.  She came to HSHS from Tenet Healthcare where she served as the group COO over the Detroit market, as well as the president and CEO of the DMC Children's Hospital in Detroit. 

Kathy has more than three decades of experience in healthcare. She started her nursing career at St. Louis Children’s Hospital (BJC) and has worked in recent years as the COO and CNO at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in St. Louis. Kathy served as the COO at Sunrise Children’s Hospital (HCA) in Las Vegas from 2016-2018; she was the incident commander and administrator on call during the largest mass casualty shooting in US history that occurred in 2017 on the Las Vegas Strip. Kathy’s work history also includes leadership roles in emergency and patient care services.

Kathy received her Master of Science in Nursing from Barnes Jewish College and her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Missouri Baptist College.

Dr. Lewis joined HSHS as senior vice president and chief physician executive in August 2023. In this role, Dr. Lewis oversees physician aligned strategies centered on quality improvement, patient safety, patient throughput and clinical optimization. 

As a proven leader with a track record of success spanning two decades, Dr. Lewis brought an ideal mix of health care leadership experience and passion for the HSHS mission and the legacy established by the Hospital Sisters.

Dr. Lewis previously served as the Regional President and CEO of SSM Health Medical Group as well as the Regional Chief Clinical Officer of SSM Health – Oklahoma, based in Oklahoma City, Okla. Before fully focusing on his journey as a health care executive, he practiced pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine for 15 years. 

Dr. Lewis is a graduate of Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Okla, and the University of Texas Health Sciences Center San Antonio for Medical School. He completed his Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine-Tulsa and Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine fellowship at the University of Kentucky.

Michael Scialdone joined the system’s executive leadership team as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer in January 2024.

He has over three decades of health care finance and operational leadership experience along with a faith-based mindset that supports our Mission. In this role, he oversees the system financial services. 

Prior to joining HSHS, Mike was Executive Vice President and CFO at Health-First, Inc., in Brevard, Florida. He has also served in CFO roles as well as in Chief Executive Leadership roles at large health care entities, including Memorial Hospital-University of Colorado Health and Penrose-St. Francis Health Services, both located in Colorado Springs, Colo., and at Osceola Regional Medical Center, Northwest Medical Center and Pembroke Pines Hospital in Florida.

Mike is a graduate of Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama and received his Master of Business Administration in health administration from the University of Colorado in Denver. 

Thomas Ahr has served as Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at HSHS since May 2023. In this role, he directs all HR strategies and functions, focusing on enhancing workforce engagement and organizational effectiveness.

Thomas has nearly 30 years of human resource and talent management experience and has served throughout the Midwest in various healthcare human resource roles with both BJC and SSM Health. Serving as System Vice President of HR and Talent Management with SSM, he achieved an 8% increase in employee engagement and an 11% reduction in turnover. He developed leader programs and implemented key safety and culture initiatives. Thomas also led major restructures and managed HR for a 14,000-employee workforce, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Thomas started his career in consulting before transitioning full-time into healthcare.

He is also an adjunct faculty member at Webster University and holds a Doctorate in Management from Webster University, along with several HR and healthcare certifications.

Amy Bulpitt, JD, MBA accepted an invitation to serve as senior vice president and chief legal officer for HSHS, and began her service in November 2016. She previously served as vice president, legal affairs for the HSHS Central Illinois Division. Amy joined the HSHS family in 2010 after working at Hughes and Tenney, L.L.C. where she specialized in health care law. She graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University with a bachelor’s degree in history. She went on to earn her Juris Doctorate and Health Law Certificate from the Health Law Program at St. Louis University School of Law and her Executive MBA from the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Rachelle began at HSHS in February 2022.  She came to HSHS after spending the last nine years at SSM Health.  Most recently, she served as the regional VP of mission integration, where she was responsible for mission integration, formation, spiritual care, community health, ethics, philanthropy and church relations across SSM Wisconsin.  SSM Wisconsin includes 14,000+ associates, 90 clinics, seven hospitals, a health plan, and homecare and hospice services.  Beyond her regional responsibilities, Rachelle also served as an ethicist across all four states in which SSM operates.  Rachelle began at SSM as an ethicist in 2012 and has had progressive increases in responsibility. Additionally, Rachelle has previously led SSM Health’s annual pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi. 

Rachelle holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Health Care Ethics from Saint Louis University, a Master of Theological Studies Degree from Vanderbilt University, a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Theology and Religious Studies from Saint Norbert College and is a certified healthcare ethics consultant.  She also serves as a faculty member at the Albert Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics at Saint Louis University. 

Peter Kung, MBA, MS, FACHE accepted to serve HSHS as senior vice president and chief strategy officer in October 2020. In this role, Peter leads the development and implementation of HSHS’s strategic plan and identifies and executes strategic and growth initiatives to enhance long-term sustainability of the ministry.

Peter came to HSHS after serving as the VP and chief innovation officer at SCL Health (now Intermountain) in Denver, Colorado. His position entailed developing innovation and virtual health services across the entire care continuum, creating consumer-oriented solutions to improve access and experience, and forming new avenues for system growth. Prior to SCL Health, Peter worked at UCLA Health and Health Sciences in Los Angeles for 14 years.

He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Irvine; a master’s degree from Claremont Graduate University; an MBA from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA; and is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.

Christine (Chris) Woolsey began serving as senior vice president and chief marketing and communications officer for HSHS in July 2023 and leads brand strategy, marketing, communications, media relations and digital experience for the system.

Chris spent more than a decade leading system marketing, communications and digital experience for SCL Health (now Intermountain Health).  She was instrumental in building the system’s first shared service marketing and communications function and led the development of a unified branding and marketing strategy for 14 hospitals in four states. Chris also managed crisis communications, state advocacy and transformed the system’s online presence to increase consumer engagement and improve digital experience. Chris received her Bachelor of Science in Journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and spent the first half of her career as a health care and business journalist in Chicago.