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Famous CEO who grew up in thatched hovel and started as janitor reveals secrets to his success
The CEO of New York's largest hospital system has revealed how he went from an impoverished boy living in Ireland to one of the most successful healthcare executives in the United States.
Michael Dowling, chief executive at Northwell Health since 2002, has played an integral role in expanding the company from just one Long Island hospital to a chain of 28 hospitals and 1,050 outpatient centers across the tri-state area.
But he certainly had humbler beginnings, which he has been reflecting on amid the news he is set to retire in October.
Dowling, 75, told the New York Post that he lived in a thatched-roof house without running water.
In the 1960s at just 16 years old, he left his tiny town of Knockaderry with just 500 residents for New York, one of the biggest cities in the world.
'I worked on the boats in Manhattan, I worked in construction, I worked in the plumbing business based out of New Rochelle - but mostly doing a lot of work in Yonkers in the Bronx. I worked cleaning out bars in Queens,' said Dowling.
After having a storied career for last forty or so years, his advice is to simply outwork the competition.
'You do the best work you possibly can. You treat people well. You work harder than anybody else. You give it your best,' Dowling said. 'When you kind of climb the ladder of life, you don't know where the top rung is.'
Another important part of his success, he said, is getting to know as many of his nearly 105,000 employees as he can.
He takes workers out to monthly dinners and spends each Monday giving a two-hour orientation to new hires.
He even used to walk the COVID floor of a Northwell hospital every day during the height of the pandemic.
'This is not done that often by CEOs - although I can tell you that a number of them are now doing it because they found out I was doing it,' he said.
These warm welcomes aren't just for the sake of it, though. Dowling finds that they allow hiring managers to spot employees with lousy attitudes.
'There have been occasions when I've asked employees at orientation to leave,' he said, adding that this is a rare occurrence.
'Life is about opportunity. It's not about challenges. …People whine too much, people complain too much. "Aw, this was a hard day" - it's supposed to be hard!' Dowling said. 'Get over it. Suck it up, and deal with it for God's sake.'
Dowling revealed he has never been afraid to roll up his sleeves and work manual labor jobs.
But he eventually saved enough money working to put himself through school. He earned a master's degree in human-services policy in 1974 from Fordham University.
Dowling taught social policy at the college and rose to become an assistant dean of the Jesuit university in the Bronx.
He also amassed 12 years of government experience across a number of roles, including serving as deputy secretary to former Governor Mario Cuomo and New York's director of Health, Education and Human Services.
Following a stint as a a senior vice president at Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, Dowling took an executive-level position in 1995 at the North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset.
That was the beginning of a historic upward trajectory for the man who started from the bottom and climbed his way up.
Dowling inherited a growing hospital system. Five years before he took the helm, North Shore University Hospital bought out a failing hospital in Glen Cove.
He continued this strategy even though there was plenty of skepticism, especially since he said there were 'no health systems in existence at all in this part of the country.'
'When you got to about 1996, we had about nine hospitals,' he said. 'Most people were looking at us and thinking, "What the heck are you doing?"'
Later that same year, the company, then called North Shore Health Systems, requested a merger with Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park.
The two hospitals were rivals, but the real obstacle became the federal government, which tried to block the merger.
'The Justice Department, I believe in response to advocacy by the insurance companies, sued us and took us to court to prevent the merger,' Dowling said. 'It ended up at a two-week court trial - and we won.'
By 1997, Northwell had expanded into a 10-hospital system. These key acquisitions in the 1990s allowed for it to grow into New York City, Westchester County, and most recently, Connecticut.
Northwell is now looking to get a bigger footprint in New Jersey.
'If you've traveled for more than a half an hour and you don't see one of our locations, call us because we've got to put something in there,' Dowling said.
