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Browns’ partners benefit
SUMMA HEALTH SYSTEM:
THE 100-DAY BLUEPRINT
Fans often disagree with team, but the constant chatter is good for biz
New CEO Dr. Thomas Malone is not afraid to scale the mountain of changes facing him
By KEVIN KLEPS kkleps@crain.com
By Timothy Magaw
A
s Summa’s chief operating officer, Dr. Thomas Malone’s fingerprints were all over some of the major changes that rocked the Akron-based health system last year, which included shuttering the emergency department at St. Thomas Hospital, axing inpatient services at its Wadsworth-Rittman hospital and cutting a handful of administrative posts. They were big — and tough to swallow — changes, no doubt, but with Malone now fully in charge as the health system’s president and CEO, don’t expect things to slow down anytime soon. Summa has steep challenges ahead, especially as the powerful Cleveland Clinic encroaches on its turf through a partial ownership of Akron General Health System, and Malone has an aggressive plan to retool the health system in short order. “I look at myself as a visionary,” Malone said. “I think my strengths are in strategic visioning and planning and putting the right pieces in place to get where we continued on page 9
SCOTT POLLACK
With University of Findlay president Katherine Fell at his left, Cleveland Browns president Alec Scheiner gave advice to a handful of students who sat in a second-floor meeting room at the team’s Berea headquarters on March 17. Near the end of the casual announcement that the Browns and the university were teaming up on an internship and ideas exchange program, Scheiner mentioned a significant result the team can offer that has nothing to do with wins, draft picks or more vibrant shades of orange. “One thing we do really well is we get a lot of attention,” Scheiner told the students and Fell. “And so when we partner up with the right partners, we can take that attention and kind of expose our great partners in a way that they wouldn’t have been exposed without us. You see that all the time with us, and that’s just a benefit that comes with this.” The attention, Scheiner said, isn’t the team’s “main priority,” but it has proven to be a rare constant during yet another tumultuous offseason. It’s that notice that is attractive to the Browns’ many corporate partners, whose bottom lines, unlike the emotions of the rabid fan base, don’t suffer every time a controversy strikes or Jimmy Haslam is portrayed as meddling. “I don’t think it matters very much,” Dix & Eaton president and chief operating officer Chas Withers said, when asked if the Browns’ national perception impacted its local partners. “In this market, they offer a completely unique channel to reach a key audience — notably the 19 to 50 male audience. They haven’t done anything criminal or untoward that would provide sponsors some sort of ethical dilemma. “The perception,” Withers continued, “that they’re not doing their job particularly well doesn’t matter to
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ALSO INSIDE: Entire contents © 2015 by Crain Communications Inc. Vol. 36, No. 13
Small biz initiative making impact — P. 4 Balance’s big ideas are paying off — P. 5 SPECIAL SECTION: Finance — Pages 13-19