Jason Little

President and Chief Executive Officer, Baptist Memorial Health Care

Jason Little is Baptist Memorial Health Care’s president and CEO. He is the fifth president in Baptist’s 111 year history, and under his leadership, Baptist has grown from a 14-hospital system to a 24-hospital, $3.6 billion integrated health system in three states with 21,500 team members and more than 5,000 affiliated physicians. He came to Baptist in 2002 after serving as an operations administrator at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona. Prior to his role as president and CEO, Little served as system COO and CEO of three different Baptist hospitals.

Little is passionate about improving his community and the delivery of healthcare. He serves on the boards of the Greater Memphis Chamber, Memphis Tomorrow, the New Memphis Institute, the Tennessee Hospital Association, the Mississippi Hospital Association, the Healthcare Institute and the American Hospital Association’s Health Systems Committee. Little also serves as a deacon and Sunday School teacher at Germantown Baptist Church.

He received his bachelor’s degree in health administration from the University of Tennessee, where he received the prestigious Whittle Scholarship and was elected student body president. He earned master’s degrees in business administration and health care administration from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

James Grantham

Vice President-Mississippi Operations

James Grantham serves as the vice president of Mississippi operations for Baptist Memorial Health Care, which includes responsibility for eleven hospitals in central and northern Mississippi. Grantham began his career at Baptist as a medical technologist and has worked in health care for over 25 years. After completing the Frank S. Groner administrative fellowship in 2010, Grantham became assistant administrator at Baptist Memorial Hospital Collierville. Grantham then served as assistant administrator for Baptist Memorial Hospital Union County from 2011 to 2012. Grantham was promoted to chief executive officer for Baptist Memorial Hospital Booneville in 2012. In 2019 Grantham also became the chief executive officer for Baptist Memorial Hospital Union County. Grantham was promoted to his current role in 2023. In addition, Grantham continues to serve as Baptist’s administrator of clinical services, a role he has held since 2014.

Grantham holds a Bachelor of Science in biology from Belhaven University, a Bachelor of Science in clinical laboratory science from University of Mississippi Medical Center and a Master of Health Care Administration from the University of Memphis. Grantham is a fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives.

John G. Anderson

Administrator and Chief Executive Officer – Baptist Anderson

As Administrator and Chief Executive Officer, John Anderson is responsible for overall operational management of Baptist Anderson Regional Medical Center, Baptist Anderson Regional Medical Center- South, Baptist Cancer Center- Anderson, and a network of primary and specialty clinics. Anderson began his career at Baptist Anderson in 1990 as an assistant administrator, becoming vice president of operations in 1997. He then served as administrator of Baptist Anderson South prior to becoming CEO in 2015. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Mississippi, a Master of Science in Health Administration from The University of Alabama at Birmingham, and he is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives. Anderson serves on the Mississippi Hospital Association Board of Governors and the MHA Committee on Legislation.

Chris Anderson

Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

Chris Anderson serves as the executive vice president and chief operating officer for Baptist Memorial Health Care. Chris has been with Baptist since March 2014 and served previously as vice president and market leader for Mississippi (2017-2023), then for the Memphis metro market (2023). From March 2014 to April 2017, Anderson served as the president and chief executive officer of Mississippi Baptist Health Systems. As president of MBHS, Anderson was responsible for all operations of MBHS and subsidiaries. Anderson has worked in health care for over 38 years. Prior to coming to Baptist, he served as the chief executive officer for Singing River Health System for sixteen years.

Anderson is a graduate of Mississippi State University, a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives, and has been a Certified Public Accountant since 1986. He has served in numerous professional and civic organizations, including service on the board of directors of the USA International Ballet Competition, board of directors of the Mississippi Museum of Art, the Mississippi Hospital Association board of directors, and the Mississippi Economic Council.

Kimberly Young

Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Kimberly Young was named Baptist’s executive vice president and chief financial officer in November 2023. She has served in a financial role for Baptist Memorial Health Care for more than 30 years, including most recently as vice president of finance operations from January 2020 to 2023. From 2012 to 2019 Young served as chief financial officer for Baptist Medical Group. Young earned a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Memphis.

Derick Ziegler

Vice President and Chief Transformation Officer

Derick Ziegler assumed his current position of vice president and chief transformation officer in March 2023. In this role, he leads all ongoing and future transformation initiatives as well as guiding all merger and acquisition synergy efforts across the system. Ziegler has enjoyed a highly successful healthcare leadership career spanning over three decades. He rose to the rank of Colonel in the U.S. Army, where he served as the administrator of some of the largest hospitals in the U.S. Army. After retiring from the military, Ziegler joined Baptist in August 2008 and initially served for two years as CEO of Baptist Memorial Hospital Union City and then for four years as CEO of Baptist Memorial Hospital Memphis. Ziegler was promoted to vice president of affiliate integration and of the West Tennessee market. In this role, he led numerous transitions, transformation projects, acquisitions, and mergers. Most notably, Ziegler helped lead the efforts to integrate Baptist Memorial Health Care and Mississippi Baptist Health System, realizing more than $209 million in synergy savings. He also spearheaded previous comprehensive transformation improvement initiatives supported by both Navigant and Vizient. In these roles, he has helped Baptist capture significant savings year-over-year through the activation of numerous improvement work streams.

Shawn Hamm

MD, MBA, Director of Addiction Medicine Fellowship

Shawn Hamm, MD, MBA, is the medical director for integrated addiction care and the program director for the Baptist Memorial Medical Education Addiction Medicine Fellowship program. He completed his medical degree at the University of Tennessee and did his family medicine residency training at UTHSC in Jackson, Tennessee. He is boarded in both family medicine and addiction medicine, which provided him with a strong background in physical health and substance-use disorders of patients of all ages. He was the first fellowship-trained, addiction medicine boarded physician in the state of Tennessee.

Dr. Hamm became dedicated to addiction medicine through seeing the impact of Substance Use Disorder (SUD) and Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) on close friends and patients and from experiencing the positive impact that a skilled physician could have on patients struggling with addiction. Dr. Hamm is a skilled clinician and dedicated to developing the most effective system of care for patients with SUD/AUD.

Dr. Hamm has previously served on the Shelby County Coalition Taskforce for Opioid Treatment Response, as well as the West Tennessee Addiction Network. He is a leader in the Baptist Center of Excellence in Addiction Treatment and a member of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

Chrissy Daniels

MS, Press Ganey Chief Experience Officer

Chrissy Daniels is a national thought leader in patient experience and health care value. She joined Press Ganey as a partner in August 2017, bringing to the company more than 20 years of expertise in advancing the patient experience and building an engaging and collaborative culture. She is also widely recognized for her pioneering work in the areas of consumerism and physician performance data transparency.

Prior to her current position, Chrissy was a Partner in Press Ganey’s Strategic Consulting division and served as the Business Unit Leader of Press Ganey’s transparency, consumerism and medical practice solutions. In this role, she collaborates with teams across the company in strategy, product development, operations, advisory, consulting and clinical thought leadership to design, develop and execute a coordinated strategy that unites these three critical market elements and ensures that the solutions are informed by and respond to the needs of health care providers.

Prior to joining Press Ganey, Chrissy was Director of Strategic Initiatives at University of Utah Health Care, where she was responsible for teaching and coaching physicians, leaders and staff on the importance of patient experience as a measure of quality. In this role, she was also responsible for designing University of Utah Health Care’s online physician review process, making the system the first in the country to electronically survey its patients and post the results publicly online. In addition, Chrissy worked closely with hospital, physician and executive leadership to drive culture change around improving patient experience and value in every encounter across the system. This work resulted in system wide initiatives targeting leadership and team development, communication and motivation which evolved into a model for cultural transformation.

Prior to this work, Chrissy led hospital and clinic operations for University of Utah Health Care. Among her accomplishments in this role was overseeing $180 million of hospital construction projects, including two expansions of the University of Utah Hospital.

In 2013, Chrissy was the recipient, with Dr. Robert Pendleton, Chief Medical Quality Officer, of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant to create ValueU, a free, open-access training platform where physicians and hospital administrators from around the United States could receive experiential knowledge on the role of transparency as a key driver of high-value health care. Coinciding with these efforts, she was editor-in-chief of Accelerate, an online learning site promoting health care transformation through value improvement.

Chrissy holds a master’s degree in economics and health administration from the University of Utah.

Mary Ellen Sumrall

MSN, RN, NEA-BC, Vice President/Chief Nursing Executive

Mary Ellen Sumrall currently serves as the vice president-chief nursing executive for Baptist Memorial Health Care. In her role Sumrall strives daily to deliver high quality nursing care while at the same time building teams to innovate and improve the nursing model-of-care to better meet the needs of patients, families and communities. Prior to her current position, Sumrall worked for over 34 years serving in various nursing leadership roles at Baptist Memorial Hospital Golden Triangle to include director positions of education, emergency department and ultimately Chief Nursing Officer. Known for building high performing teams and putting patients at the center of all decisions, she led efforts that achieved national recognition for delivering high quality, safe, efficient, and satisfying care for patients. Sumrall received her BSN from the University of Mississippi and her MSN in Nursing Administration from Union University. She is board Certified by the American Nursing Credentialing Center (ANCC) as an Advanced Nurse Executive.

Kristy Gay

Patient Experience Officer

Kristy Gay has served as the patient experience officer for Baptist since May 2019. Gay started in health care in 2000 and worked in two health systems in Arkansas and Tennessee before joining Press Ganey in 2011. While at Press Ganey, Gay provided patient experience support and insights to health systems across the country. She transitioned into a senior advisor role at Press Ganey, continuing her support of patient experience and also supporting employee and physician engagement. Gay holds a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Master of Healthcare Administration.

Dr. Sherri Brooks

Director of Baptist Center for Career Development

Dr. Sherri Brooks is the Director of the Baptist Center for Career Development. She has clinical, academic, and business leadership experience that spans over 25 years. Dr. Brooks began her career as a speech-language pathologist working in a variety of clinical settings before becoming a tenured, associate professor of communication disorders at Arkansas State University. She has held multi-site operations leadership roles with Genesis Rehabilitation, Encore! Rehabilitation, and DaVita Kidney Care. Dr. Brooks received her baccalaureate and master’s degrees from Arkansas State University and her Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky. Dr. Brooks believes in the power of education and lifelong learning; her passion is to inspire others to believe in better so they can own and achieve personally meaningful success.

Brad Parsons

Vice President-West Tennessee/Arkansas Regional Operations

Brad Parsons serves as vice president of market operations at Baptist, overseeing Arkansas, West Tennessee, and Desoto markets. With 15 years of dedicated service at Baptist, Parsons has progressively advanced in leadership roles. His passion lies in creating an environment that empowers people to excel, especially given the current challenges and dynamic landscape in healthcare.

Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, Parsons holds degrees in business administration and leadership studies from Birmingham-Southern College. He received his master’s degrees from the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB) in hospital administration and business administration. Parsons is a fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives and serves on various community and civic boards.