Mona Morales; The Future of Health Ep. 7

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Healthcare keeps calling for job-ready talent while classrooms graduate learners who still need months of ramp-up. In this episode, we sit down with Mona Morales, Founder & CEO of E2i Partners—a performance advisory and partnership brokerage helping education and industry co-create the future of work—to unpack what it really takes to close that gap. Drawing on 25 years across education and industry, including her time as Industry Executive Director for Education at Microsoft, Mona shares a practical blueprint for aligning learning outcomes with business outcomes. Across the conversation, we explore partnership models that actually move the needle: clinical
apprenticeships, work-based learning, and on-site BSN programs that help hospitals pursue magnet status without pulling nurses away from patients. Mona explains why early exposure through HOSA and pre-high-school pathways matters, how to design competency frameworks that hold up on the floor, and what sustainable governance looks like when academic calendars and hospital operations rarely sync. If you’re an educator, you’ll hear how to co-create learning that is grounded in research, built with business insight, and designed to perform—leveraging shared expertise with employer partners instead to align learning outcomes to business goals. This is transformative collaboration in action. Imagine a world where education and industry co-create the future of work. We do. If you’re a healthcare leader, you’ll learn how to use data to name critical skill gaps, contribute preceptors and mentors, and build advancement pathways for future-ready talent pipelines— treating academic partners as strategic extensions of your workforce strategy, not just clinical sites. And if you’re a student or early-career professional, you’ll find guidance to stay bold, stay curious, and build meaningful experience early so you can add value on day one. Come for the strategy, stay for the playbook: a shared language, clear metrics, and partnership models that are resilient, tech-aware, and centered on better outcomes for patients, learners, and communities.

Learn more about E2i Partners here: https://www.e2ipartners.com/

Mona's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monamorales/

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:04):
Welcome to the HOSA Future Health Professionals
Future of Health podcast live atthe HOSA International
Leadership Conference here inNashville, Tennessee.
Today I am honored to have withme Mona Morales from E2I
Partners.
Founder and CEO.

SPEAKER_01 (00:21):
Right.
It's a pleasure to be here.
It's so good to see you.

SPEAKER_00 (00:25):
You know, it's an incredible moment in time, Mona,
and we'd love to start by askingyou about your background and
what inspired you to start E2iPartners.

SPEAKER_01 (00:37):
Yeah, I've spent the last 25 years building a
strategy across education andindustry.
And what I found, and mostrecently actually, as the
industry executive director atMicrosoft for education, what I
was finding is that there's adisconnect, a persistent
disconnect between education andindustry.

(00:57):
And so you see employers thatare actually having a struggle
with creating or closing the gapwith uh shortages, skill
shortages.
And then you also see uheducation struggling with
declining enrollments and withoutdated models.
So this is the solution to that.

SPEAKER_00 (01:17):
Wow.
And so we've all heard about thegrowing pressures on the
healthcare system.
And what do you, Mona, believeis missing from how we currently
prepare the healthcareworkforce?

SPEAKER_01 (01:30):
The connection between developing skills that
employers need and education andthe curriculum that's tied to
the skill development.
So the goal here is to co-createlearning solutions between
academics and industry.
So then that way learning isgrounded in research, it is

(01:53):
built with business insights,and it also has a design that is
enables performance in terms ofoutcomes for business.
So it ties learning outcomes tobusiness outcomes.

SPEAKER_00 (02:06):
And so you describe ETUI as a bridge between
education and industry.
What does that actually looklike in practice?
And can you share a real-worldexample?

SPEAKER_01 (02:15):
Absolutely.
So what we do is we help scaleclinical apprenticeships, we can
do work-based learning, we'vedone on-site uh degree programs
for BSN programs.
So if a hospital is looking todevelop or um designate for
magnet status and they need acertain number of their nurses

(02:38):
degrees, so we actually willcreate degree programs on-site
within an enterprise.

SPEAKER_00 (02:43):
And so many of our listeners are host of students
or educators across the world.
How do you see hosts playing arole in the broader healthcare
talent pipeline?

SPEAKER_01 (02:52):
Oh, host is a vital part of the talent pipeline.
Um, and that's because it's anearly part of the talent
pipeline right now.
A lot of the focus is onpost-secondary to employer, and
we really need to start earlier.
And so, um, even before highschool now at this point.

SPEAKER_00 (03:09):
Yeah.
And so you've supported hundredsof workforce programs, Mona.
Why is work-based learning socritical?
And how can more institutionsand employers get involved?

SPEAKER_01 (03:22):
It's about building the right kind of sustainable
partnerships.
And so, what we're using iswe're using partnership
frameworks that have been provento create sustainability so we
can create full degree programsor create a pipeline that is
strategic to the organization sothat we can advance industry
through innovation and throughacademic and skill development.

SPEAKER_00 (03:44):
Wow.
And so healthcare and educationare both being transformed by
technology.
We talked a lot about AI and allthese other things, right?
Why is work-based learning socritical?
And how does E2I use innovationto support better partnerships
and outcomes?

SPEAKER_01 (04:01):
So, I mean, there's a lot of change in the industry,
and especially with healthcare,we're gonna have workforce
shortages, we're going to haveuh rapid technology adoption, we
are going to see aging.
What that means is it affectsthe pipeline.
And so we need to get muchbetter at creating the skills
that are needed for the futureroles of tomorrow in healthcare.

(04:21):
Um, AI is gonna play a huge rolein it.
And so we use data and we useresearch and we use analytics
and we use frameworks to createthose partnerships so that
they're sustainable, so that theskill gets developed in a way
that's relevant to the needs ofthe industry.

SPEAKER_00 (04:35):
And so, for those listening, whether they're
educators, employers, or studentleaders, what is one thing they
can do today to help build abetter healthcare future?

SPEAKER_01 (04:48):
For educators, I would say build more employee
partnerships.
They're really important becauseyou need the relevancy to
curriculum from the employerpoint of view in terms of the
skill set.
I would say to healthcareleaders, I would say take an
active role in closing theskills gap in a way that's
meaningful to both education andto the business itself.

(05:10):
And for a host of students, Imean, they're just so motivating
when you're in the conferenceand you're seeing the students,
they're just so dedicated.
So stay bold and stay curiousand go out there and continue
learning and growing and youknow, pushing the envelope so
that we all get better.

SPEAKER_00 (05:27):
Exactly.
And so you've said imagine aworld where education and
industry co-create the future ofwork.
What does that world look liketo you and why is it worth
fighting for?

SPEAKER_01 (05:41):
Because it's no longer just the job of academic
institutions to develop skill.
Employers need it.
So we have to start workingtogether in terms of building
the right and most relevantskill sets.
Um, academia works from adifferent point of view, they
speak different languages, theyoperate differently.
So it's really important that westart to build partnerships that

(06:03):
bring both sides together.

SPEAKER_00 (06:05):
And so, how can folks learn not learn more about
E2I?

SPEAKER_01 (06:09):
Uh you can go to www.e2ipartners.com.
There's information there, butwe are actually working to build
a profile so it'll make iteasier for employers to um go to
the platform and find differentprograms across the nation that
will make it easier for them toidentify partners to work with.

SPEAKER_00 (06:28):
Awesome.
Mona Morales, CEO and founderE2i Partners, changing the
world.

SPEAKER_01 (06:34):
It's always a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 (06:35):
Always a pleasure.