Photo: Phil Salzman
"Just imagine coming over here, not being able to speak English, with no money, with nothing," says Hong Potomski. "The community opened up their arms and took our family in. That's why I find it very important to give back."
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Rising Executives: Ones to Watch
Leaps and Bounds
HONG POTOMSKI
Senior Director, Business Development,
Florida Blue, Pensacola
Hong Potomski is named after Hong Kong, the place where she was born while her parents were living in a refugee camp. They had to flee Vietnam as Communists were taking over at the end of the Vietnam War.
Their next stop was Chicago, which was way too cold. So they migrated to Pensacola where her father, a fisherman, could earn a living on the water.
“Just imagine coming over here, not being able to speak English, with no money, with nothing,” she says. “The community opened up their arms and took our family in. That’s why I find it very important to give back.”
Today, Potomski is an executive with Florida Blue and a leader in a number of non-profit organizations in the Panhandle. Getting there took her on a journey through America’s health care system, with some interesting stops along the way.
After graduating from the University of Central Florida, she started her career with Baptist Health Care, which operates Baptist Hospital in Pensacola. Over nearly 15 years, she worked her way up to become operations director of Baptist’s Heart & Vascular Institute and led a multidisciplinary team to launch the only Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) program in the area.
An ECMO machine is a life support system that does the work of the heart and lungs around the clock. Within a week of going live in 2017, Baptist’s ECMO team saved the life of a 17-year-old. They saved many more during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2019, she was recruited be executive director of the Andrews Research & Education Foundation, a Gulf Breeze non-profit led by orthopedic surgeon James Andrew that works to advance the science of orthopedic care. Its focus is preventing injuries in youth sports, the community, and active-duty military.
In 2021, Potomski made the leap to one of the biggest health insurance companies in the Panhandle — Florida Blue, which is Florida’s Blue Cross Blue Shield plan. “Now that I’m on the insurance side, I’m able to see the health care world from a comprehensive 360-degree view. Because of that, I’m able to make more informed strategic decisions and collaborate with key stakeholders” such as hospital administrators.
A personal focus of hers is health literacy — improving people’s ability to navigate the health care system and their own health insurance policies. And she has a real-life example to draw from. She’s the primary caretaker for her aging parents. “My parents aren’t fluent in English... It’s been eye-opening to see how (they) aren’t able to navigate the system because it’s so complex. When I haven’t been with them on their (doctor) visits, it’s led to a few scary times,” she says. “Because of that, it fires me up to make it easier for my parents, my friends and my community to understand how to navigate the complex health care system.”
Potomski, who earned her MBA from University of West Florida, also has taken on leadership roles with a slate of local non-profits, including United Way Emerald Coast, the UWF Foundation board and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwest Florida. She was a Big Sister herself for several years, and has mentored others through the Pensacola Young Professionals. Why go to the trouble? “I’m standing on the shoulders of those who mentored me,” she says.
Business Beat - Week of May 3rd
