Isaac B. Mitchell

About Isaac B. Mitchell

Isaac Mitchell is a Toyota-trained engineer and strategy deployment executive who has led organizational transformations across automotive, manufacturing, and healthcare. As Vice President of Project Management and Operational Excellence at Ballad Health, he oversees enterprise-wide initiatives that improve patient outcomes, enhance provider experiences, and reshape operational culture.Isaac\'s expertise lies at the intersection of people, process, and technology. His data-driven approach to Lean and project management has delivered measurable results throughout his career, and he brings a practitioner\'s perspective to every challenge—grounded in technical rigor but centered on the people doing the work.He holds Fellow status in both the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE) and the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (FIISE), reflecting his impact across disciplines. Isaac also serves as a guest lecturer at the University of Tennessee\'s Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, where he shares real-world insights with the next generation of industrial engineers.Beyond his corporate role, Isaac is committed to building learning communities. He founded the Lean Book Club to connect practitioners worldwide, and he volunteers as a mentor through the Tennessee Promise College Scholarship program, helping students access higher education.His leadership philosophy centers on empowering teams to solve problems at the source, building sustainable processes, and cultivating cultures where engagement and results go hand in hand.For more information, visit

Experience

1. VP, Enterprise Program Management Office and Operational Excellence

   Ballad Health

   Sep 2021 — Present

   Provides strategic leadership and operational oversight for Ballad Health\'s large-scale enterprise-wide transformation initiatives. Leads the Enterprise Project Management Office and Operational Excellence department focused on high-level projects integrated with the organization\'s strategy and management action plan across a 20-hospital system in 29 rural counties- Spearheaded strategic alignment and deployment across a 20-hospital system, delivering a documented annualized ROI of $61M with a 14x return on budget and a 16x multiplier on average employee salary for departments- Transferred project management software to Smartsheet\'s web-based platform, which increased stakeholder transparency and project management capacity. Developed real-time dashboards, reports, and project plans to reduce documentation sources from six to one while increasing project manager utilization by up to 30%, freeing up administrative hours annually- Facilitated strategic priority project across that reduced emergency department decision-to-admit times by 44%(from 298 to 165 minutes) over 3 years, utilizing A3 thinking methodology and real-time strategic dashboards in Smartsheet to track performance, directly improving patient care- Led a cross-functional team to design and implement a 9-week 4 Disciplines of Execution leadership development program, training frontline staff to translate strategic goals into measurable daily actions through visual scoreboards and accountability systems- Employee Retention and Career Path Planning: Developed a defined career path for the Enterprise Program Management Office with a job skill matrix and market rate analysis to retain employees and grow future leaders- Surgery First Pass Denials: Reduced surgery first-pass denials rate for Cardiology surgeries at Ballad by 85% by automating processes comparing ICD codes pre and post-surgery, flagging accounts for discrepancy, and retro-authorizing to increase revenue $2.7M annually.

Education

• University of Tennessee, Knoxville

  Bachelor of Science, Industrial Engineering

• Xavier University

  Master of Business Administration - MBA, Business Administration and Management, General

Skills

• Problem Solving
• Operations Management
• Toyota Production System
• Process Engineering
• A3
• Spc
• Kaizen
• 5 Why
• Continuous Improvement
• Project Management
• Autocad
• Business Process Improvement
• Six Sigma
• Kanban
• Quality System
• Root Cause Analysis
• Cross-Functional Team Leadership
• Change Management
• Healthcare
• Fmea
• Strategic Planning
• Lean Manufacturing
• Presenter
• 5s
• Design of Experiments
• Manufacturing
• Dmaic
• Manufacturing Engineering
• Value Stream Mapping
• Process Improvement
• Lean Healthcare