Kristine Martin Anderson
, PrincipalWhy did you choose Booz Allen?
Over the past few years, the center of gravity for healthcare strategy has moved from Chicago to Washington, DC. I have a strong interest in using health information technology (IT) to improve quality and reduce costs. I wanted to work in a place where I would have an opportunity to impact the national direction of healthcare, so I left my former company to come to Booz Allen, where I could work with a wide variety of public and private healthcare clients.
I chose Booz Allen because it has great people and a very wide set of clients, allowing me the ability to see issues from multiple dimensions. There also is a very strong entrepreneurial spirit here, and I felt I would fit well into this environment, given my entrepreneurial background.
Why have you chosen to stay at Booz Allen?
My experience at Booz Allen has been better than I ever imagined it could be. The people, the quality of the work we do, and the culture have all exceeded my expectations.
What type of work do you do at Booz Allen?
I take a holistic approach to my specialty areas in healthcare and offer that perspective to our clients. My work focuses on health IT (primarily electronic health records, personal health records, and data sharing), payment reform, and quality. My team and I run projects in these areas for a wide variety of federal agencies dealing with healthcare, as well as various non-profit organizations. Our projects all have common themes—quality, safety and electronic
health information.
What excites you about your work?
I particularly enjoy envisioning the future and then trying to imagine how to make it a reality—developing and working through a road map. I like to look at the big picture and then dive deep, and I love that Booz Allen allows me to be at different altitudes almost hour by hour. One hour I can be thinking about a vision, and the next I can be looking at requirements for software that will get us to that vision. My work also helps me stay challenged all the time. There’s no end to what I can learn.
Do you have a mentor at Booz Allen?
I have a lot of mentors, and I believe in a 360-degree mentoring process. My mentors include some Vice Presidents, some of my peers, and some of my staff. I don’t believe a mentor has to be someone senior to me. I have three Vice President mentors with whom I interact with variable frequency. I have two peer mentors, one more informal who I talk with weekly, and another more formal who is outside of the health field—I value her global company perspective. My staff, too, are tremendous as mentors. They’re very experienced and available for me to talk to regularly. Their client and company perspective is extremely helpful.
What differentiates Booz Allen from other companies that you could work for—what makes Booz Allen special?
“Results that endure” and “ready for what’s next” are Booz Allen tag lines, and I feel both are very true here. I see a very supportive relationship between our clients and Booz Allen staff; it is so clear that we are there to help make them successful. I believe we become invested in our clients’ missions, and I believe it’s important at Booz Allen to have real passion for the work we’re doing—I see passion around me all the time.
How has Booz Allen helped you be ready for what’s next in your career?
Booz Allen has been working on healthcare issues for years—core issues that remain constant no matter what the policy is in Washington. These are the planks upon which policies are built. Because of our long history of working on key issues, we have an expertise that allows us to be ready to help our clients implement new policies.
How does the work you do help your clients be ready for what’s next? How has your work and your team's work made an impact for your client?
We are able to look at healthcare issues, such as interoperability, from so many different angles—city, state, federal, the private sector, hospitals, research organizations, physician groups, and state-level health information exchanges—and because of this, we have very broad knowledge and perspective of the issues. We can thus help our clients think about their strategies from perspectives they cannot easily access any other way. We also help them prepare options and contingency plans that take into account many viewpoints before they begin to execute their strategies.
Can you talk about a time when you saw one or more of our Core Values displayed?
I recently joined a new senior diverse women’s mentoring circle that brings together women from many different backgrounds. What has impressed me most is the Officer and senior women’s commitment to this mentoring circle. These women put phenomenal energy into making the mentoring circle a worthwhile experience.
Integrity is another Core Value that I see constantly. I am confident that, in any and every situation, if people at Booz Allen stand on the right side of the Core Values and use them to guide their decisions and actions, then the firm will stand behind them. It’s like a security blanket. I know that, in an ethically challenging situation, it would be more important to the firm for me to lose client work than to compromise my integrity or any of the Core Values.
