Vice President of Human Resources, The Johns Hopkins Hospital

Kris Lukish joined The Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2017 as the vice president of human resources. In this role, she leads a team of human resources professionals to plan, create and implement innovative programs and services to attract, engage, develop and retain the best people for the 10,000-employee 1,200-bed academic hospital.

Her work is essential to ensuring that The Johns Hopkins Hospital, ranked in the U.S. News and World Report to its Best Hospitals Honor Roll, fulfills its mission of improving the health of the community and world by setting the standard of excellence in patient care.

Known as a strategic, high-energy and empathetic leader. Lukish works closely with leadership across the hospital to achieve strong employee engagement, advance a culture of diversity and inclusion, create pathways for employee development and advancement, and promote employee health and wellbeing.

Since joining The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Lukish redesigned the HR team, creating a business partner model that improved overall service to leaders. Having created a respectful environment for the 1900-member bargaining unit, negotiated two contracts without a strike.  Lukish is committed to maintaining a union free environment for the remaining 9,000 employees, most notably, successfully avoiding a unionization attempt by the NNU. She has also served as the executive lead for many committees. Most recently, co-executive lead for the Stay and Engage workgroup to identify reasons for turnover and strategies to improve retention.  Support for leaders remains a key focus and the motivation behind the implementation of Manager Solution Sessions.

Lukish brings more than 30 years of experience in health care to her role. Prior to joining The Johns Hopkins Hospital, she was regional vice president of human resources for the West Florida Division of the Hospital Corporation of America, a health system with 18,000 employees, 16 hospitals and 12 surgery centers. In that role, she collaborated with leaders across the system to implement a number of strategic initiatives, led the acquisition of four hospitals, creating a single system for pay, recruitment and hiring practices, and policies. She also initiated an annual leadership talent assessment to aid in succession planning and employee development.

Lukish distinguished herself as a strong leader while serving as vice president of human resources at Chippenham Johnston-Willis (CJW) Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia by developing and launching programs that substantially reduced turnover, boosted employee engagement and improved patient experience.

A native of West Virginia, Kris earned her B.S. in Business Administration and her M.S. in Industrial Relations from West Virginia University. Kris received her Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) Certification in 2009 and obtained her certification in Labor Relations from Cornell University in 2022.  Kris was honored to have been nominated into the Leadership Development Program for the class of 2020, where she worked with leaders throughout the state of Maryland.