Jennifer Crabtree has been Tampa General Hospital’s vice president of corporate communications and chief of staff to CEO John Couris for four years. She became president of the Tampa Medical & Research District last month. Crabtree, 36, recently spoke with FLORIDA TREND about the district and her certainty that it can be a catalyst attracting more business to Tampa.
FLORIDA TREND: What does the president of a medical and research district do?
Crabtree: TGH and USF together as the two anchor institutions of the district have really been on this heads-down path of building assets throughout the city. … Over the last couple of years, we’ve opened up the behavioral health hospital, a free-standing rehab hospital, a freestanding emergency department.
Now in this next evolution of the district it’s all about … looking across the city and (pulling) together different pieces of the ecosystem that aren’t necessarily TGH and USF. … For us to attract businesses into the district, we partnered with the Tampa Bay EDC — this is their bread and butter. They were great helping us bring additional businesses to the city.
We have this incredible list of community leaders (on the district advisory committee). We have higher ed. We have the school district. We have real estate developers. We have city, we have the county. We have our arts and cultural institutions like the museum and the aquarium. And of course we have USF, (the University of Tampa) and ourselves sitting on the committee to help make this something bigger than TGH and USF alone.
My role will be really diving deep into the advisory committee, partnering with them on where we want the strategy to go, where we want to invest in trying to take this to the next level.
FT: How are you approaching all of that?
Crabtree: I’ve been able to work with CEO John Couris for close to 10 years, so I’ve really been mentored and shaped under his leadership style, which is based on authenticity, transparency, kindness, vulnerability.
FT: What does success look like in two or three years?
Crabtree: Success is where the medical district has a very clear brand and identity, which then drives Tampa to have a very clear brand and identity. That’s all housed around Tampa being a hub of life sciences and health care. I think up until now people are kind of keeping an eye on Tampa. We’re this up-and-coming city and we have so much great potential. If I fast-forward three years from now, I would love to not be that up-and-coming city. I want people to know.
When they think of Tampa, they think of this hub of life sciences and health care excellence, and then to see all kinds of new businesses recruited to the area. If we have one major metric of success, it’s more businesses in our ecosystem. That’s going to push us toward clinical breakthroughs for clinical trials, discoveries and innovation.