Sheehan is using her Past to Plot Our Future
Chief People Officer Rose Sheehan is all about team Hartford HealthCare
By Hilary Waldman
Through the glass of Rose Sheehan’s corner office at 100 Pearl Street, one might assume Hartford HealthCare’s new chief people officer followed a conventional path to success. Pressed and polished, her prep-school posture cuts a stereotypical image of a leader fast-tracked to the top.
But that’s not her story.
Sheehan’s immigrant roots and non-traditional path keep her grounded and connected to the real world. Her parents arrived from Portugal two weeks before their second daughter, Rosemary, was born in 1967. They had nothing but hope, fearing if they remained in their impoverished country they could starve.
The family moved in with relatives, each working multiple jobs in Massachusetts textile factories. They saved enough to buy a house a year later and then a restaurant in seven years. The restaurant was a family business and Sheehan worked there from the time she was a young child until college graduation.
At home, she and her sister cooked and cleaned while their parents worked multiple jobs. At school, she was quickly identified as bright and placed in classes with children of her blue-collar town’s doctors and lawyers.
“I just watched them and followed along,” she recalls.
“I work hard and I’m empathetic because I know how hard peoples’ lives are’’
When everyone else began applying for college, she applied too. The first in her family to go, Sheehan majored in chemistry at Assumption College, thinking she would become a doctor. Deciding medical school wasn’t the right path, she started in pharmaceutical sales, which she considers one of the best learning experiences of her career. Her career path took twists and turns before she landed at HHC as the top human resources executive, but she is clear that her past informs her approach to each job and colleagues.
I work hard and I’m empathetic because I know how hard peoples’ lives are,’’ Sheehan explains, adding she remembers her parents’ struggle to manage in a country without command of the language. “We just didn’t fit in. We were considered outsiders and there were many slights and insults we all endured as immigrants.”
As a result, she asks herself every day, “What can I do to uplift other people who might be struggling?”
The sales role is where Sheehan was introduced to the business side of healthcare and the man who would become her husband. Rose and John Sheehan settled in Weymouth, Mass., where they raised three children, Patrick, 29, Jack, 26, and Abigail, 22.
“Helping others become better leaders is a force multiplier”
While she and John have been married for 32 years, Sheehan left sales after two years – moving to hospitals in 1992 and building a long career leading revenue cycle operations at the Mass GeneralBrigham health system. Known for her ability to transform functions and create high-performing teams, she was tapped to lead human resources for the system’s 80,000 employees in 2017.
Despite minimal human resources experience, she knew how to build teams that produce great work and “took a risk” with the challenge. “Helping others become better leaders is a force multiplier,’’ she says.
Outside the office, Sheehan is also a “convener,” serving as board chair for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Mass since 2022, years after she started as a big sister herself.
“Leadership is what I love the best,’’ she says. “The whole team is much greater than the individual pieces. I love seeing what a team can achieve when they all work together on big, lofty, common goals.”