In the face of rapid change and increasing complexity in healthcare, seasoned executive takes position as key strategic advisor to impact the industry more broadly.
Wheless Partners announces the addition of Brian Aston as a Senior Partner, Corporate Executive Officer, and Co-Leader of the firm’s global healthcare search practice. The addition comes at a time when the firm’s business is experiencing unprecedented growth in the health care sector, and across the more than 16 additional industries Wheless Partners serves.
Aston launches into the executive search industry following a highly successful 20-year career in large complex tertiary hospitals and multi-hospital systems. During Aston’s career, he worked in markets across the country for nationally ranked healthcare institutions where he served as a key senior c-suite executive responsible for orchestrating all phases of strategic, operational, and cultural change. His efforts resulted in unprecedented operating margins, prestigious quality awards, hospital turnarounds, and market-moving physician alignment strategies. Aston established a successful reputation by selecting and building committed and unified leadership teams and aligning key stakeholders in sharing and executing his vision and passion for quality care and financial and market strength.
The rapid pace of change and the increasing complexities in the healthcare industry are putting pressures on trustees and top executives to respond in new and innovative ways, particularly when it comes to designing leadership teams for future success. With a solid understanding and experience in these critical dynamics, Aston will offer executive search consulting, succession planning, and talent mapping expertise and guidance.
“I bring a unique perspective to executive search consulting in that I have been serving in key executive leadership roles within complex health systems over the last 20 years working with Boards, physicians, and other executive team members in advancing the delivery of care in communities. I know that my experience will translate extremely well in being a strategic advisor to boards and executives throughout the country.”
Having counseled healthcare leaders and hospital trustees on the inside and engaged external recruiters on the outside, Aston brings to Wheless Partners a rare combination of experiences that now can advise and influence key leadership decisions that impact communities, employees, physicians, and most importantly, patients. Aston worked with multiple search firms throughout his career and found Wheless Partners to be genuine and unique.
“Wheless Partners has always been attractive to me because they consistently produce quality candidates and they have been long term advisors to me as well as to name-brand enterprises across numerous industries. Their business strategy and portfolio approach to limiting the number of clients they work with to an exclusive number absolutely ensures the best talent and makes for a more intimate relationship,” Aston says. “Given my own experience with Wheless as an executive leader making key organizational hiring decisions, as well as becoming aware of their unbelievable growth in the Board and executive search business both in and outside of healthcare over the last several years, made it an easy choice to join them.”
“Obtaining the true market moving intellectual capital is key in being able to advance an organization,” Mike Wheless, chairman & chief executive officer of Wheless Partners, says. “Brian’s practical and pragmatic approach and experience affords him an advantage in working with Boards of Trustees tasked with hiring CEOs and hospital executives seeking to make stellar hires. He understands first-hand the complexities and nuances of working at the governing and executive levels as well as the nuances of how to navigate today’s ever increasing complex healthcare marketplace.”
Brian Aston, Senior Partner and Co-Leader of the Global Healthcare Practice, is based in the Atlanta corporate offices of Wheless Partners and can be reached by phone at 404.962.3671 or by email at baston@whelesspartners.com.