If you asked Timothy Kasprzak 13 years ago if he ever saw himself pursuing an administrative or entrepreneurial path in his career, his answer surely would have been “no.” At the time, Kasprzak moved to Cleveland with a medical background to work as an associate professor of radiology at The MetroHealth System.
“I really had no concept of things like finance or marketing and I wasn’t interested in it at all,” Kasprzak says. “But as I became more exposed to the administrative side at the hospital, I saw how important these things were and how interesting it was to take a new discovery and figure out how we implement it, bring it to our patients and make sure it’s financially viable and successful.”
While at MetroHealth, Kasprzak’s mentor and at the time chair of the radiology department, Dr. Robert Ferguson, encouraged Kasprzak to get his MBA at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University.
Kasprzak went through the Weatherhead Executive MBA program from 2014-16 and it was during these years that Kasprzak had, what he calls, “a professional epiphany.”
“Light bulbs just started going off in my head during all my classes and I realized I’ve been neglecting an unknown passion of mine,” he says. “In each class I found myself a lot more interested in business administration than I ever thought I would be. It was this whole new world.”
In 2019, Kasprzak began working as the chief medical officer (CMO) at University Hospitals, and at other hospitals through the pandemic. Kasprzak found the role didn’t completely satisfy his interests, though––both in business and for his background in radiology.
“Through the pandemic, I realized in the sphere of possibilities what I really want to focus on,” he says. “And some of those were entrepreneurship, strategy, innovation, things I wasn’t necessarily able to give attention to as a CMO.”
Just two months after starting his own healthcare consulting business, McGraw Catalpa, Kasprzak uses his patient bedside experience, administrative knowledge and lessons from the EMBA program to help investment firms, healthcare entrepreneurs and enterprise executives improve their strategies.
To satisfy his interest in academic radiology, Kasprzak is also a part-time associate professor of radiology at University Hospitals.
“If you discover an invention that’s going to improve patient care, but don’t know how to approach venture capital, we can help with that pitch messaging—how to approach it and help do the market analysis for the product,” Kasprzak says. “We also work with investment firms like venture capital and private equity, who are looking to invest in new inventions. It’s a two-way street between medical inventors and investment firms.”
Through the EMBA program, Kasprzak says he learned both the tangible and intangible leadership skills used in his previous CMO role and now at McGraw Catalpa.
“For every pragmatic accounting or finance skill, there were introspective or societal learnings for our work,” he says. “A great balance for an executive MBA program.”
For example, some of the lessons he learned on marketing and value chain analysis have been, “key to the work of McGraw Catalpa,” he says. “We have to assess the potential impact of a device or technology on bedside care, enterprise quality and financial viability.”
Other lessons included courses that covered what it means to be a CEO and “taking accountability of the entire organization, how do you set culture, an intangible thing,” he says.
One of the most impactful projects Kasprzak recalls working on was when a professor had his class write their own obituaries. “It evoked strong emotions but it was also one of those projects that puts into perspective what you want to get accomplished,” he says. “It was really impactful.”
When asked what he loved most about his time at Weatherhead, Kasprzak says, “The camaraderie. The people in the class, on my team, the professors and staff, all were fantastic and I stay in touch with many of those individuals today. The Case [Western Reserve] EMBA program balances scholarly sophistication with an at home feeling.”