The Two-Person Rule: How Healthcare Leaders Can Build a Network Without Working the Room
MGMA Annual Conference speakers Kelly Miller and Jannine Walker walked into a Las Vegas bar and came away with a friendship, a career alliance, and a networking lesson worth sharing.
Before Kelly Miller and Jannine Walker became conference speakers, career allies, and the kind of friends who plan Seattle hiking weekends together, they were two strangers sitting in a bar in Las Vegas.
“Kelly and Janine walk into a bar,” Walker laughed, invoking the old joke. But what began as a chance conversation over drinks became a friendship, a professional alliance, and proof of the networking advice they now teach.
Miller, product manager for Enterprise Information Systems Business at Fujifilm, and Walker, senior vice president of sales and business development at Human Assets, will share that experience at the MGMA Annual Conference in San Antonio. Their session, “The Networking Playbook: How to Build Relationships That Advance Your Career,” is scheduled for Sunday, September 27, from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. Central Time.
Daniel Williams, senior editor and host of the MGMA Insights Podcast, guides the two friends and colleagues through a wide-ranging conversation that should be quite familiar to practice leaders who can run a staff meeting, solve an access problem, or defend a budget — yet still feel the butterflies dancing on overdrive before entering a reception full of strangers.
A conference friendship that survived the conference
Walker spent her career in radiology across sales, business development, marketing, and practice operations. Her first sustained exposure to professional networking came when an employer sent her to a Radiology Business Management Association conference. She eventually spoke at its events, served on committees, and chaired a conference.
“It just became such a big part of who I was as a person,” Walker said. “And I made lifelong friends there.”
Miller arrived at one of those conferences four years ago. She had worked in radiology for about 25 years, beginning as a radiologic technologist before moving into informatics, leadership, and practice management. She didn't know many people in the organization, but Miller was willing to enter conversations already in progress.
The two met during the hours conference attendees are most likely to surrender to exhaustion.
“One of the most important things that people forget about networking is taking the time to go out to the after-parties and participate in the luncheons,” Walker said. “It’s really easy to go up to your room and take a nap or, you know, order some Uber Eats.”
The connection between Walker and Miller lasted because it was not limited to business cards or LinkedIn requests. They discussed work, but they also became close friends. In fact, during the podcast recording, they were together at Walker’s home in Seattle.
The career insurance nobody labels as insurance
Walker learned the financial and emotional value of a network after 11 years with a large Washington practice. The organization outsourced its marketing, sales, and business development function, eliminating her job in a single day.
“This had been my whole identity for 11 years,” she said. “Everybody in the industry knew I was Janine with this company.”
Two weeks later, Walker was scheduled to speak at an RBMA conference. Her topic was how practices should respond when financial pressure prompts them to eliminate marketing. Suddenly, she was no longer discussing a hypothetical. She told the conference director what had happened and rewrote the presentation around the decisions her former employer had mishandled.
“I may cry, but I really feel like this is an important thing to share with our members on how to do things the right way,” Walker recalled saying.
After the session, attendees approached her about consulting. She started her own company. Months later, a colleague named Harry connected her with an executive building a fractional operational management company. A Zoom conversation led to an in-person meeting in Seattle, where the executive arrived with a contract.
“I ended up in this dream job that I never knew I wanted or needed,” Walker said. “It’s all because of networking.”
It's important to establish a professional network before a reorganization, merger, outsourcing decision, or leadership vacancy makes it urgent.
The career value of stepping outside your circle
A large-scale study of more than 20 million LinkedIn users found that acquaintances outside a person’s closest professional circle increased job mobility, with moderately weak connections producing the strongest effect. That finding carries particular weight in medical practices, where recruiting is becoming harder and experienced employees are increasingly difficult to replace, according to MGMA’s 2025 Management and Staff Compensation Data Report, which drew from more than 4,300 medical groups.
Conferences create those connections, however, only when attendees make room for conversations between sessions. Walker didn't want to at her first major radiology conference in Chicago. “I went back to my hotel immediately,” she said.
She now encourages attendees to leave the occupational circle that feels safest. “If she stayed in her operations and IT circle and I stayed in my sales and business development circle, we never would have met each other,” Walker said.
The person with the fewest obvious similarities — for example, a revenue cycle leader from another specialty, an information systems professional, a vendor addressing an unfamiliar problem, or an executive working in a different ownership model — may be the one who introduces a new idea, a future colleague, or the next job.
Replace “work the room” with the two-person rule
Walker admitted she's experienced literal physical fear in social situations. Before her first public presentation, organizers brought her a stool, and she kept both hands on the podium because she was shaking. She assumed everyone in the room knew more than she did.
“Then I realized after I did the talk and everybody started coming up and asking me questions that that wasn’t the case at all,” she said. “You always have something to give. You have value, even if you don’t believe that you do.”
Her prescription is deliberately small: Do not enter a reception intending to meet everyone — just introduce yourself to one person. It's likely they will then bring others into the exchange, removing the burden of repeatedly starting from zero.
Miller uses a similar constraint. “Don’t try and go and meet 10 people,” she said. “Try and go and meet two people.”
The two-person rule converts an ambiguous performance demand into a measurable conference goal. A couple of conversations with clear relevance to an access initiative, technology implementation, recruitment challenge, or career goal are more useful than 10 names collected without context.
The Solution Center is a conversation laboratory
Walker encourages attendees of the MGMA Annual Conference to prepare before arriving. Use the conference app to review speakers and participants, identify a short list of people to meet, and note the operational questions worth discussing. Preparing for what's coming can give a nervous attendee an opening line before the room fills.
She also recommends the Solution Center because exhibitors assume responsibility for starting conversations. “Visit the vendors,” Walker said. “That’s a really easy way to meet people, and they will force the conversation with you.”
Miller added a second layer to this tactic. An attendee speaking with a vendor is signaling interest in a specific problem. Another attendee at that booth might be evaluating the same technology, replacing the same workflow, or managing the same constraint.
“You’re able to say, ‘Oh, hey, you were over at XYZ vendor. Are you looking for this?’” Miller said. “Now there’s where that natural kind of connection comes in.”
- The 2026 MGMA Annual Conference will be held at San Antonio's Henry B. González Convention Center. Scheduled networking opportunities include a first-time attendee session on Sunday and a Monday breakfast focused on mentors, mentees, and career pathways.
The fastest way to repel a future ally
Networking acquires a bad reputation when participants approach it as a transaction. Miller described the familiar image: Someone entering a crowded room with business cards in hand, scanning for the next useful contact.
“Networking is really about finding that genuine connection with someone,” she said. “Asking questions, really listening, being able to figure out if they have some sort of need.”
Walker has a sharper label for the alternative: “used car salesman-y.” She described an industry figure whose slick presentation causes people to scatter as soon as he arrives. But if every exchange begins with a pitch, potential relationships can become defensive encounters.
Miller's approach is to discuss the immediate environment rather than her product. She might ask whether someone has tried the convention center restaurant or found a good coffee stand. “It kind of throws people off a little bit,” she said. “And they open up.”
Her own Fujifilm career reflects the longer horizon. Years earlier, while leading an informatics team, Miller met Fujifilm employee Sherry Brandes during a search for a cardiology PACS. Miller’s organization selected another vendor, but the relationship continued. When Miller was finally ready to move to the vendor side, she called Brandes, entered the interview process, and joined the company.
“I always attribute my success in being able to get on with the Fuji team to Sherry,” Miller said.
Keep the person, not just the contact
A networking contact survives when both people contribute to the relationship rather than merely glance at a business card periodically. Miller and Walker talk about work, listen for what the other needs, and make room for a friendship that now includes gardening, hiking, dogs, and a planned paddleboarding trip.
“What you give into a relationship is what you get,” Miller said. “Networking and friendships and relationships is all about giving.”
Turn each new connection into a three-step follow-up:
- Capture the context, including where you met, what you discussed, and one personal detail.
- Follow up within a day with a specific note.
- Add value later by sharing a useful resource, candidate, benchmark, or introduction without attaching a request.
Walker’s network carried her through job loss because it contained people who understood both her work and her character. Miller’s network opened a career path years after the original business opportunity disappeared.
And neither outcome came from meeting the most people possible.
For attendees arriving in San Antonio with a detailed session schedule couple with a plan to disappear between presentations, Walker’s challenge is this: Stay for one conversation. Miller’s is smaller: Meet two people.
“If you're willing to be a little bit uncomfortable for a short time,” Walker said, “The reward is great.”
Resources
Connect with Our Guests
- Kelly Miller on LinkedIn, and learn more about Fujifilm
- Jannine Walker on LinkedIn, and learn more about Human Assets and Radiology Business Management Association
MGMA Networking Opportunities
- Connect with peers at the 2026 MGMA Annual Conference | September 27-30, 2026 | San Antonio, TX
- MGMA Member Community
- MGMA Resource Groups
Related MGMA Resources
MGMA members: Email us at dwilliams@mgma.com if you would like to appear on an episode. If you have a question about your practice that you would like us to answer, send an email to advisor@mgma.com. Don't forget to subscribe to our network wherever you get your podcasts!
