Kisha Hortman Hawthorne

Kisha Hortman Hawthorne, deputy chair and a Class C director, serves as senior vice president (SVP) and chief ambulatory officer at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). In this role, she provides strategic leadership for the CHOP Care Network, which encompasses primary care, specialty care, and urgent care services across Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The CHOP Care Network includes 11 regional outpatient specialty care centers, 30 primary care practices, and four urgent care centers. Supported by more than 1,250 staff members, the network delivers over 1.5 million outpatient visits annually. She oversees the matrix management of the Care Network’s associate chief medical officer and employed physicians. Kisha also provides leadership for CHOP’s Behavioral Health Crisis Center (BHCC), a pediatric inpatient behavioral health facility that includes a 24/7 walk-in crisis center, ensuring patients and families have access to critical behavioral health services when they need them most.

With a healthcare career spanning more than 24 years, Hawthorne has extensive experience in hospital operations, information services, and revenue cycle and project management. Within the CHOP Care Network, Hawthorne leads network growth and business development strategy, and establishes strategic alliances with regional healthcare systems, including Penn Medicine, Virtua Health, Main Line Health, and AtlantiCare Health System, managing over 100 medical/surgical beds at 10 hospitals across two states. Recently, she led CHOP’s system-wide regional care network expansion as executive sponsor, directing the vision and development of a new 42-acre destination campus in New Jersey.

For 10 years, Hawthorne served as an executive sponsor for the Multicultural Professionals Network (MPN), one of CHOP’s Employee Resource Groups (ERGs). Hawthorne is often a guest speaker for CHOP programs and symposia as well as for many external professional, educational, and civic organization events.

She was the 2020 recipient of the Philadelphia Business Journal Minority Business Leader award and was a 2020 finalist for the Philadelphia CIO of the Year ORBIE award. She was named among the “Most Influential Women in IT” in 2019 by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), and among the “Elite 100 Extraordinary Black Women Leaders for 2024” by Diversity Woman.

Hawthorne currently serves on the Abbott Medical Technology Advisory Council and the Children’s Hospital Association Leadership Development Advisory Committee. She is also vice chair of the University City Science Center’s board of directors. She is a fellow of the American College of Health Care Executives (ACHE), and an active member of The Executive Leadership Council (ELC), Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA), the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. (Omega Mu Chapter), and the Philadelphia Chapter of the Links, Incorporated.

She has a Ph.D. in information studies from the College of Computing & Informatics at Drexel University, an M.B.A. from the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN), an M.H.A. from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, and a B.S. in biological sciences from Florida A&M University.

Committee Assignments

• Executive Committee
• Audit and Risk Management Committee
• Nominating and Governance Committee

District member banks elect three Class A directors to represent banking and three Class B directors to represent the public; the Board of Governors appoints three Class C directors to represent the public, including the chair and deputy chair of the board.

Term ends on December 31, 2027.