Crista F. Durand is an accomplished healthcare executive, strategic advisor, and transformational leader whose career spans more than three decades of executive leadership in complex healthcare organizations. Throughout her 34-year career, she has built a reputation for guiding organizations through periods of significant growth, financial transformation, operational excellence, and cultural evolution. As a trusted executive who combines financial acumen with operational expertise and a people-first leadership philosophy, Crista has consistently demonstrated the ability to align mission, margin, and organizational performance while delivering measurable results. Her leadership reflects a rare combination of strategic vision, disciplined execution, and unwavering commitment to improving both organizational outcomes and the communities she serves.
Crista’s executive career has been defined by progressively larger leadership responsibilities, beginning with finance leadership roles before expanding into enterprise-wide operational oversight and ultimately serving as President and Chief Executive Officer of nationally recognized healthcare organizations. Her foundation in finance has enabled her to approach organizational challenges with analytical precision while maintaining a steadfast focus on long-term sustainability, governance, and stakeholder value. Throughout her career, she has earned the confidence of boards of directors, physicians, executive leadership teams, government officials, community organizations, and employees by fostering transparency, accountability, and collaborative decision-making.
As President and Chief Executive Officer of Hospital for Special Care, Crista provided strategic leadership for one of the nation’s premier long-term acute care hospitals specializing in medically complex patient populations. She oversaw enterprise strategy, operational performance, financial stewardship, physician recruitment, quality improvement, and organizational culture while strengthening relationships with legislators, healthcare systems, physicians, and community stakeholders. During her tenure, she developed a comprehensive three-year strategic plan, secured $13 million in additional Medicaid funding, expanded autism services, strengthened physician recruitment, earned first-time Joint Commission Behavioral Health accreditation, secured a transformational philanthropic gift, and further elevated employee engagement through innovative leadership initiatives that reinforced accountability and organizational alignment.
Prior to this role, Crista served for a decade as President and Chief Executive Officer of Newport Hospital, where she successfully led one of the most impressive financial and operational transformations in the organization’s history. Under her leadership, the hospital moved from a $16 million annual operating loss to sustained profitability while simultaneously improving employee engagement, patient satisfaction, clinical quality, physician alignment, and philanthropic success. She guided the organization through the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, expanded rehabilitation services, advanced physician integration, improved emergency department operations, and successfully completed a major capital campaign that exceeded fundraising goals. Her leadership demonstrated that financial discipline and compassionate, patient-centered care are not competing priorities but complementary drivers of organizational excellence.
Earlier in her executive journey, Crista served as Vice President of Strategic Planning, Marketing, and Business Development at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital, where she led enterprise-wide strategic planning, business development, physician recruitment, facilities planning, and organizational growth initiatives. She directed the planning and execution of a comprehensive master facilities strategy, helped lead the acquisition and integration of Westerly Hospital, spearheaded the development of multiple Centers of Excellence, and successfully partnered with Yale New Haven Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute on groundbreaking clinical collaborations. These experiences strengthened her expertise in mergers and acquisitions, strategic partnerships, market development, and long-range organizational planning while reinforcing her reputation as an executive capable of leading transformational change across highly complex healthcare environments.
Crista’s leadership foundation was established during her years as Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President at Day Kimball Hospital, where she developed extensive expertise in financial strategy, reimbursement, compliance, revenue cycle optimization, budgeting, enterprise risk management, and operational improvement. She helped guide the organization’s strategic planning efforts, strengthened financial performance over multiple consecutive years, significantly improved the hospital’s credit profile, increased cash reserves, and implemented innovative financial systems that enhanced operational efficiency. Her finance background continues to influence her thoughtful, data-driven approach to governance, strategic growth, executive compensation, succession planning, compliance, and enterprise performance management.
Beyond her executive responsibilities, Crista has become a respected voice on leadership, cultural transformation, healthcare innovation, and women in executive leadership. She has spoken at Becker’s National Healthcare Conference, served as a keynote speaker for numerous healthcare organizations, participated in leadership panels focused on women executives, and regularly shares insights on organizational culture, AI in healthcare, and executive leadership development. Her professional accomplishments have earned widespread recognition, including being named to Becker’s Healthcare Women Hospital Presidents and CEOs to Know, Hartford Business Journal’s Power 25, Top 50 Women Leaders of Hartford, Providence Business News’ Leaders & Achievers Award, and numerous other prestigious honors recognizing both her professional excellence and industry influence.
Crista also brings extensive governance experience through service on university advisory boards, healthcare organizations, nonprofit boards, finance committees, and professional associations. She currently serves on the Department of Business & Economics Advisory Board at Salve Regina University while maintaining active involvement with executive leadership organizations including the American College of Healthcare Executives, where she is a Fellow and has served as Regent for Rhode Island. Her board experience, combined with decades of executive leadership, provides her with a comprehensive understanding of governance responsibilities, fiduciary oversight, strategic planning, enterprise risk, succession planning, executive compensation, and stakeholder engagement.
As Crista transitions from full-time CEO responsibilities into broader board service, she brings a distinctive perspective shaped by years of making consequential executive decisions under challenging conditions. She believes exceptional governance requires balancing mission with financial performance, understanding stakeholder expectations, fostering healthy organizational cultures, and creating long-term sustainable value. Her experience leading organizations through financial turnarounds, strategic growth initiatives, regulatory complexity, cultural transformation, and market disruption uniquely positions her to contribute meaningful insight in boardrooms across healthcare, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, retail, startups, and other growth-oriented industries. As a lifelong learner and inclusive leader, Crista is committed to helping organizations move beyond incremental improvement toward transformational success, creating lasting impact for employees, customers, investors, and the communities they serve.
Character:
Crista leads with integrity, humility, and a deep commitment to serving others through purpose-driven leadership. She consistently demonstrates resilience, accountability, and compassion while fostering cultures built on trust, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Knowledge:
Her extensive expertise in healthcare leadership, finance, governance, strategy, mergers and acquisitions, operations, compliance, and organizational transformation enables her to address complex business challenges with confidence. She combines analytical discipline with practical executive experience to develop solutions that create sustainable long-term value.
Strategic:
Crista has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to develop bold strategic visions while executing disciplined operational plans that improve financial performance, organizational culture, and market position. She evaluates opportunities through both a governance and operational lens, ensuring decisions align with long-term organizational objectives and stakeholder expectations.
Communication:
An engaging executive communicator who builds alignment across boards, physicians, executive teams, employees, government leaders, and community stakeholders. Her transparent, authentic communication style inspires confidence, strengthens relationships, and helps organizations successfully navigate periods of significant change.
