“Great Experiences Don’t Just Happen … If you don’t pursue deliberate, thoughtful, coordinated experience staging, your organization will be stuck with satisfied customers and not raving fans.”—Diane Stover-Hopkins

Diane Stover-Hopkins was Vice President for Marketing and Innovation Strategy at Memorial Health System, South Bend, Indiana, where she worked for over 20 years. Diane was a member of the administrative team at Memorial beginning in 1990. She directs system-wide advertising, public relations, brand management, web, and social media strategy and referral systems, and she served as Chief Experience Officer. She led the Innovation Everywhere@ Memorial effort using WOW! Project planning and developed the concept and managed implementation of the Memorial’s HealthWorks! Kids’ Museum in 1999. She managed the Memorial Venture Center for unique alliances with companies such as Best Buy, Dupont, Underwriters Laboratories, Lands End, South Bend Chocolate, Intel, Steelcase, Baxter, and others. 

Prior to Memorial, Diane managed Marketing Strategy for American Medical International in Alabama at the AMI flagship hospital, Brookwood Medical Center in Birmingham, West Alabama General Hospital in Tuscaloosa, and the Medical College of Pennsylvania.

A native of Philadelphia, Diane is a graduate of Temple University and was named the Trevor Fisk Young Marketer of the Year in 1996 by the Alliance for Healthcare Strategy and Marketing, and the 2010 Professional Excellence Award Honoree of the American Hospital Association Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development. She is a Certified Experience Economy Expert, Certified WOW! Project Guru, and Future Shape of the Winner Expert. 

Diane is a life-long volunteer with the YMCA and a guest lecturer at Indiana University-South Bend, University of Notre Dame, and Saint Mary’s College speaking on Marketing Strategy, Building an Innovation Culture, and Experience Design Methods. She is also coauthor of the book Wake Up and Smell the Innovation with Memorial CEO Phil Newbold, published in 2011.