How would you describe a powerhouse: a former attorney turned CEO, a breaker of glass ceilings, someone of both great accomplishment and great humility? One word is simply not enough, so I’ll take the liberty of using two: Rachel Shmueli.
One calculated career switch
Rachel began her career practicing law, where she mainly worked in the public health care system. The nature of law is reactive, where advice and decisions are primarily made ex post ante. While Rachel achieved successes, she desired a career where more active decisions could be made in order to preemptively better both individual lives and society as a whole.
It is at this juncture that Rachel decided to make a career switch and transition from law to management, enrolling in the Hebrew University Business School’s Executive MBA program, which opened her eyes and granted her the skills that have assisted in propelling her career in management.
“I decided that instead of being an attorney who gives advice, I wanted to be in the position where I can decide. I decided to make a change and transition into a management role. While I was still practicing law for Maccabi Health, I started in a management role.”
Eventually, Rachel advanced to her current role as the Vice President of Assuta, a subsidiary of Maccabi Health. She continued on to become the CEO of Assuta Ashdod, managing the building and execution from an empty lot six years ago to the beautiful private hospital that stands there today.
Rachel views Assuta Ashdod proudly as her “child”, and still gets butterflies in her stomach when she walks into the lobby. While Rachel thought that Assuta Ashdod would be the pride of her career, much to her pleasant surprise, she is actively involved in the management and development of various new medical centers, such as the recently opened medical center in Jerusalem and the upcoming hospital in Beer Sheva.
Although these tremendous achievements take years of hard work, planning, and execution, Rachel insists, “For me, it’s not a job; it’s a mission. The feeling that we have, of building a hospital and establishing medical centers… we know that lives will be saved because of our work”.
Women in the workplace
Throughout her career, Rachel has been a champion for women. By being a woman in the male-dominated field of management, she has opened up the doors and possibilities for women who seek to thrive professionally.
Rachel is proud of her all-women, “no ego” staff at Assuta. “I firmly believe in the qualification and success of women in management. Women manage with a lot of intelligence, emotional intelligence, and ability. Women demand of themselves first, and then from their staff. Yet at the same time, women have the ability to say thank you, to hug, and to most importantly admit, ‘I made a mistake, and I’m going to correct it’.”
In addition to her support of women at Assuta, Rachel also is a mentor for women students in the Jerusalem Business School’s Mentorship Program. “I asked to be a mentor for women, because I really believe in the power of women. I think that I can share with them my experience as a woman in management surrounded by men”.
Never stop learning
Rachel is very proud of how the public health care systems and hospitals functioned exceptionally during the pandemic. She cites how the Israeli medical reaction to covid, specifically the vaccine rollout, has served as a model to other countries throughout the world.
That being said, she was disappointed in the reaction of Israeli society, saying that while initially there was unity, overall “it’s disappointing, because usually in Israel, in a national crisis, everyone comes together, and during the pandemic I didn’t feel that enough.”
The advice she has for college students is: “You have to know that people count on you. Sometimes, when you are young, you don’t understand enough that people count on you.” Additionally, she imparts that the growing and developing process does not end with university. “Keep on learning and educating yourselves. Learning is so important.”
Ending on a positive note, Rachel says that there are no limitations on what the young generation can and will accomplish, joking, “building a hospital is easier than using Zoom.”