Why Nurses Make the Best Entrepreneurs: Ilana’s Story
How one nurse used her clinical chops to build a company from scratch.
Nurses are trained to assess problems quickly, make high-stakes decisions, and coordinate across teams — all under intense pressure and with limited resources. In other words: nurses are already entrepreneurs. In this conversation, Ilana Borkenstein shares her journey from bedside nurse to CEO, the skills she carried from the hospital floor to the startup world, and why she believes more nurses belong in leadership and innovation roles. Whether you’re curious about starting something of your own or just want to hear a fresh take on what nurses are truly capable of, this is a conversation you don’t want to miss.
Event Takeaways:
- Why nurses are uniquely equipped to lead innovation in healthcare
- How to spot a solvable problem and test your ideas early
- What Ilana wishes more nurses knew about entrepreneurship
Speakers
Ilana Borkenstein
Ilana Borkenstein is the cofounder and CEO of M7 Health, a company reimagining how health systems manage and support their nursing workforce. A registered nurse turned entrepreneur, Ilana began her career at Deloitte, where she led change management efforts for academic medical centers as part of the Human Capital Consulting practice.
She later worked as an inpatient bone marrow transplant nurse at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on a unit called M7, which inspired the company’s name. Ilana earned her nursing degree from the University of Pennsylvania and her MBA from Harvard Business School, where she co-founded M7 Health and was named a Blavatnik Fellow.
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