Her Story
About Sofia
I have been in the healthcare field for over 25 years, working in various clinical and leadership roles. Currently, I serve as a clinical director at Cigna Behavioral Health (Ever North Behavioral Health), where I have worked for about 16 years and have been in my current director role for 6 years. In this capacity, I oversee clinical operations for behavioral health, specifically something called utilization management, where we work with hospital systems and different behavioral health providers and facilities. I oversee the clinical team that does this important work. In addition to my corporate leadership role, I work as a therapist through Octave, a company that links providers like psychotherapists to clients. Through their platform, I see adult clients outpatient via telehealth, providing very traditional psychotherapy - work I have been doing for over 20 years in different roles. I also serve as a clinical supervisor for a community center, a position I have held for the last 5 years. My clinical work focuses on adults dealing with depression, anxiety, life transitions, and various issues of grief. I am passionate about leading a dedicated clinical team that is very focused on the patient experience, and I take pride in the fact that our clinicians are all really good at what they do and truly care about patients.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Sofia
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to being an immigrant and being brought up in a family of immigrants. I'm from Moscow, Russia, and one of the reasons that we moved here as a family is to be able to have more opportunity. One of my motivations has been to be able to realize those goals that our parents had, that we had, to be able to have more opportunity to learn and to grow and do whatever we wanted to do. That drive to make the most of the opportunities we came here for has really pushed me forward in my career.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received came from a supervisor I had before I went into leadership. He told me to 'bring my Hollywood,' and what that meant was to be able to feel comfortable highlighting the things that you're good at and not downplay them. I think, especially as an early person in the corporate world, I was someone who downplayed things and thought I should just let the work speak for itself. But he said no, you've got to tell people about your work so that they know what you're doing. He used to call that 'Bring Your Hollywood,' and it really changed how I approached my career.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say to do what you're most passionate about without reservation. When you're passionate about something, then the rest lines up. I think oftentimes, even when I talk about women wanting to get into the career of psychology, there are so many different options, but they sort of feel like, oh, I have to go to school, I have to do all of these things, it doesn't feel accessible. But if it's something that you're drawn towards, you know, that time is going to pass, and it's like either you do it or not. If you're passionate about it, just do it.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I would say probably across the board, when I think about across fields, it's probably change saturation. Especially in the last 5 to 8 years, there's just been so much change, post-COVID especially, and I see this both on the patient side and on the administrative side. For our patients or our members, there's just a lot of change in everyone's lives, globally. I think that's been the biggest challenge - how to catch up with that and be able to process it. Folks are having symptoms as a result of that inability to be able to manage all of the things that are coming at them.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Some of the values I think about, especially in work life, are integrity, building trust within teams, and good communication. One of the things that I think about when leading a pretty large team is ensuring that we have a culture of trust and good communication. These are the key values, especially when I think about leading big teams, and the things that have made them successful.
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