A Conversation with Karesha McGee, Author of The Family Healthcare Playbook
You have a crisis communications plan at work. A business continuity plan. A performance review playbook. But what about the plan for the moment your phone rings and a doctor is on the other end?
Titan Executive Network invites you to an evening that will change the way you think about your family’s health. Join us for a powerful conversation with Karesha McGee, a 25-year tech communications veteran and author of The Family Healthcare Playbook: An Action Plan for the Accidental Caregiver.
Karesha did not set out to be a caregiver. She set out to be an executive. But when her mother experienced two brain aneurysms, multiple brain surgeries, and a series of strokes, Karesha did what she knew how to do: she built a playbook. One she took to every doctor’s appointment, every emergency room visit, every 911 call.
Now she has turned that playbook into a book for all of us.
This event will cover:
The Before: what every family should have in place before a medical crisis hits
The During: how to advocate confidently in medical settings and know what to do in an emergency
The After: what caregiving actually looks like once your loved one comes home
The conversation we don’t have: Black families, healthcare distrust, and how to bridge it
About Karesha McGee
Karesha McGee is an award-winning global communications leader and sought-after public speaker with more than 20 years of experience in the high-tech industry. She is also a caregiver.
Throughout her career, McGee has advised C-level and senior executives at large multinationals, high-growth start-ups, and venture capital firms including Slack (now Salesforce), Cisco, Oracle, Uber, BEA Systems, Hello Tractor, and Vested World. Interspersed with these high-powered professional milestones have been intense seasons of serving as the primary caregiver for her mother through significant health crises, including breast cancer and two brain aneurysms which resulted in multiple brain surgeries and other medical interventions.
The dichotomy of working as a senior enterprise software tech executive while simultaneously serving as her mother’s primary caregiver has forced McGee to develop a pragmatic, systems-based approach to navigating healthcare and decision-making under pressure. Her experiences of embracing the joys and challenges of caregiving became the foundation for her book, The Family Healthcare Playbook: An Action Plan for the Accidental Caregiver, which translates hard-earned lessons and best practices into an empowering resource for families, medical professionals, business leaders, and anyone who suddenly finds themselves caring for a loved one.
Currently, McGee is the CEO & Founder of Allana Advisory Services, a boutique communications advisory firm. Previously, she served as VP of Communications at Slack, where she built their first global corporate communications function and helped lead the company through multiple fundraises, executive hires, its direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange, and its subsequent acquisition by Salesforce. She also led 1 executive communications at Uber and served as a partner at the Pramana Collective. Additionally, McGee spent nearly seven years as a member of the executive communications team for John Chambers, former Chairman and CEO of Cisco.
In addition to her professional pursuits, McGee has regularly volunteered in her community. She is currently a Board Trustee of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California, which comprises the de Young and the Legion of Honor museums, as well as the American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.). She is a member of Black Women on Boards (BWOB) and an alum of Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT) and the Rotary International group study program in Brazil.
McGee graduated cum laude from Cornell University with a BA in anthropology and received an executive MBA from the joint UC Berkeley Haas School of Business and Columbia Graduate School of Business program. She has traveled extensively throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. She speaks Spanish, has a working knowledge of Portuguese, and when she’s not caregiving, enjoys dancing Cuban salsa in the rueda style.
Karesha McGee