Barbara Grimm

Senior vice president, Office of Labor Management Partnership

Barbara Grimm hates stupid stuff. Just ask her. The senior vice president of the Labor Management Partnership has no patience for process that doesn’t show results or metrics that don’t reflect deep culture change. It’s about raising the bar to continually serve members and patients better.

“This needs to be the best place for the best people to work. We need to have high expectations of one another and be demanding partners, in the best sense,” she says.

Barb has been with Kaiser Permanente since 1991. She has served as a medical group administrator in San Diego and as vice president of operations for the Colorado region. Before coming to KP, Barb worked as a physical therapist for several years and also received a master’s degree in health administration. These experiences inform her hands-on approach and commitment to making partnership the core of KP’s operations strategy.

A native New Yorker, her quick wit and laugh are infectious. But she says many who know her as a “people person” would be surprised to find that she’s an introvert. Barb says she needs down time to think and read and “recharge alone.” 

Her vision of partnership? “To have a fully engaged organization where people are recognized as experts in their own area and …continuously improve their own performance and the performance of their team.”

No nonsense, no stupid stuff.