Amy Dellamora Amick, '94, Makes a Difference Through Her Work in Corporate America

Making a difference—it’s a theme echoed over and over again by Jepson graduates. Some choose to make a difference through the work they do for nonprofits or nongovernmental organizations. Some choose to make a difference by working in government or the political arena. And some, like Amy Dellamora Amick, '94, choose to make a difference by working in corporate America.  

Amick spoke about the rewards of working for Cerner, a company that designs, implements and manages health-care information technology (HIT) in an effort to provide clinical and operational improvements to a wide range of health-care organizations. Cerner strives “to connect the appropriate person(s), knowledge, and resources at the appropriate time and location to achieve optimal health outcome,” according to the mission statement on its Web site. 

“It’s a pretty powerful vision,” Amick said. “It has generated a culture where we continually ask ourselves what we can create and offer that provides physicians, nurses and other health-care workers what they need to promote the optimal health outcome for their patients. Cerner associates have more passion about what we are doing, and why we are doing it, than any company I’ve seen. It’s really exciting to see so many people committed to making a difference.” 

Amick plays a major role in making that mission a reality. As vice president for services for the Midwest region, she oversees nine executives and 369 consultants in 13 states. Her business unit generates approximately $25,000 in sales and revenue per quarter, with an annual plan just exceeding $100 million. Pretty impressive for someone who hadn’t really considered a career in business as an undergraduate.

In fact, as an undergraduate majoring in leadership studies and political science, Amick was making plans to attend law school. But she decided to follow her father’s advice to take a couple of years off between college and law school and get some real-world experience, she said.  

Amick had her first exposure to the business world a month after graduation when she started working in the corporate office of Richmond-based Owens & Minor, a Fortune 500 company and the nation’s leading distributor of name-brand medical and surgical supplies. An Owens & Minor human resource representative had spotted Amick conducting a leadership-development session for local high school student-government leaders in the Owens & Minor auditorium when Amick was still an undergraduate.  

Impressed by Amick’s presentation, the representative stopped to chat with her. This chance encounter ultimately led to Amick landing a job with Owens & Minor, where she worked on the roll-out of a system for pricing and contracts. She discovered she liked project work and decided to pursue a career in consulting.  

After almost two years with Owens & Minor, Amick moved to Chicago in March 1996 to join Peterson Consulting (now a subsidiary of Navigant Consulting) as a project manager for systems implementations of insurance and environmental projects. Her clients included major insurance firms like Equitas/Lloyd’s of London, Aetna, Travelers and Wausau. Eighteen months later, while still with Peterson, she entered the evening program at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.  

Amick graduated from the MBA program in May 2000 and left Peterson to begin working in the Chicago office of management-consulting firm Arthur D. Little. In a shift from the implementations work she had done for Peterson, Amick focused on strategy and management consulting for Arthur D. Little clients.  

For example, she helped U.S. Steel develop and launch a subsidiary known as Straightline to handle the distribution of steel to small customers, something that U.S. Steel had previously outsourced to middlemen, Amick said. She also analyzed British Petroleum’s back-office commercial operations, identifying process-improvement opportunities. Later, in 2001, she accepted a position with Cerner in Kansas City as a project executive responsible for the implementation of various software solutions.  

She moved up quickly in the company and has served in her current role as vice president for services for the Midwest region for 18 months. Although managing the finances, operations and personnel of a region that exceeds $100 million in annual consulting services and service-based revenue would undoubtedly intimidate many older, more experienced persons, Amick has risen to the challenge and continues to excel in her work.  

“I’ve been very, very fortunate in that I’ve worked for some phenomenal managers who have really helped me grow and afforded me great opportunities to stretch my leadership and management skills,” Amick said. “I am also extremely grateful that my Jepson education gave me real-life experiences in many different venues. It taught me how to communicate and correspond effectively, how to work with groups and how to motivate people. It put me a couple of years ahead of my peer group.” 

Now Amick puts many of the theories she learned at Jepson into practice on a daily basis. “I look at my job [at Cerner] as being in the business of people,” Amick said, “not as selling or installing software. I try to give our consultants the framework they need to serve our clients. I start every day by thinking about what’s needed to make my team most effective.” 

Clearly Amick is making a difference in her role as an executive in corporate America: By helping her employees reach their full potential. By ensuring her clients receive the best possible service. And by advancing the mission of a company dedicated to providing optimal health care to all of us.

And if that’s not enough, Amick is making a difference in her free time as well by volunteering for initiatives designed to stem domestic violence.  

Dean Kenneth Ruscio once described the essence of the Jepson education thus: “If the Jepson School has a cause, it is to…send students into the world convinced they can make a difference—indeed that they have the obligation and responsibility to do so.” Amick, like so many Jepson graduates, embodies that cause.