All Hands On Deck At Kamehameha
That will be the battle cry of popular CEO Dee Jay Mailer, who just made one year on the job, until the school is educating all Hawaiian children. It doesn’t take long to realize that people like Dee Jay Mailer. Really like her. After just over a year at the helm of Kamehameha Schools, Mailer’s honeymoon period could certainly be considered over, yet people continue to sing her praises.
By Alice Keesing
E-mail this story | Print this page | Archive | RSS |
Del.icio.us
It doesn’t take long to realize that people like Dee Jay Mailer. Really like her. After just over a year at the helm of Kamehameha Schools, Mailer’s honeymoon period could certainly be considered over, yet people continue to sing her praises.
Mailer is getting high marks for getting the job done and for the gracious way in which she does it.
She’s the kind of boss who fetches coffee for others in her office. Who chooses to hold morning meetings at Zippy’s rather than at one of Honolulu’s exclusive clubs. Who will get down and dirty in the lo‘i as she delves deeper into Hawaii’s heritage.
When Mailer arrived at the $6 billion trust in January last year, she was hailed as a healer. Kamehameha Schools was rocking from a string of crises from the scandal-ridden departure of the former trustees to the abrupt resignation of former CEO Hamilton McCubbin amid allegations of an improper relationship with a female employee.
Mailer lightly brushes off the aura of healer as a neat play on her early career as a nurse. Nevertheless, it does appear she has smoothed the waters.
“She’s built a lot of trust,” says trustee chairwoman Diane Plotts. “While people might not always agree with her, she’s very straight, she’s very fair and very honest and that inspires trust.
“She is one of the outstanding leaders I am privileged to know,” Plotts adds. “We’re lucky to have her back in Hawaii — not just for Kamehameha, but for the wider community.”
Mailer, who is a 1970 graduate of Kamehameha, served as CEO of Kaiser Permanente Hawaii before moving to a California health plan that served more than 2 million members. Her path then took her to Geneva, where she headed up The Global Fund, a multibillion-dollar Swiss trust fighting AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in developing countries.
Now as chief executive officer of one of Hawaii’s major social landmarks, the scope of her job is huge — from overseeing its education and outreach mission to managing the trust’s vast land and investment assets.
As Plotts succinctly puts it, “She’s got the whole ball of wax.
“She’s an absolutely, incredibly quick learner,” Plotts adds. “Her grasp of it all in just over a year is just unbelievable.”
Page 1 of 2 pages for this story 1 2 >
E-mail this story | Print this page | Comments (0) | Archive | RSS
Most Recent Comment(s):
