Leadership
Menninger is a nonprofit charitable organization governed by The Menninger Clinic Board of Directors. Daily management of Menninger is the responsibility of the following leaders.
 Ian Aitken
President and Chief Executive Officer
Ian Aitken serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of The Menninger Clinic with leadership responsibility for strategic planning for hospital and The Menninger Clinic Foundation. He has overseen The Clinic’s administrative, operational, marketing and outreach functions since joining the Menninger Management team in 1996.
While Chief Operating Officer from 2001 to 2003, he worked closely with the Board of Directors and national consultants on securing an affiliation with Baylor College of Medicine and The Methodist Hospital that enabled Menninger to continue its mission. He also directed the definition of core clinical programs for the national audience and was instrumental in relocating Menninger from Topeka, Kansas, to its current location in Houston, Texas.
Aitken has worked in behavioral healthcare throughout his career. Prior to joining Menninger, Mr. Aitken served as Vice President for health system development at Rock Creek Center, a psychiatric facility in the southwest Chicago suburb of Lemont, Illinois. He directed development of outpatient programs in a seven-state area, physician recruitment and managed care contracting. He also served as Vice President and CEO (1989-1995) of Four Winds-Chicago Hospital at Lemont, a 60-bed proprietary behavioral health hospital with outpatient and off-site programs.
For 16 years, he held a number of administrative and program director positions in the Illinois Department of Mental Health and Disabilities. During this tenure, Mr. Aitken entered management and development of acute and extended care programs. While working in the public sector, Mr. Aitken also presented at state and national mental health conferences and was published in the Journal of Health and Human Resource Administration.
He is a graduate of Northern Illinois University.
 Pam Greene, PhD, RN
Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer, Patient Care Services
Dr. Pam Greene, a nurse for 30 years specializing in psychiatric nursing, joined the Menninger management team in September 2005, two years after joining the staff. She has responsibility for the therapeutic milieu in the hospital. In addition, she oversees staffing and career development for nursing, rehabilitation therapy and the chaplaincy, wellness and laboratory services.
She travels throughout the country as a trainer in the assessment and management of suicide for the American Association of Suicidology and the Suicide Prevention Resource Center.
Active in the Texas Nurses Association, Dr. Greene is President-Elect of Region 9. In addition, Dr. Greene is a frequent presenter at local, regional and national mental health nursing conferences and author of nursing practice articles. She also serves as a member of the editorial advisory board for ADVANCE for Nurses.
Previously, Dr. Greene served as director of nursing practice and research with responsibility for coordinating application for magnet recognition, implementing a nursing internship program for new BSN graduates, collaborating with nursing staff to revise the conceptual framework used to guide nursing practice and working with nursing staff to develop a new clinical documentation system. She takes a special interest in research exploring experiences of nurses who work with suicidal patients.
She received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from The Ohio State University and her doctorate in nursing from Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas. In her nursing career, Dr. Greene has worked in a variety of inpatient and outpatient settings with people of all ages. She taught at Midwestern State University for seven years before joining The Menninger Clinic staff when the hospital relocated to Houston in 2003.
 Shawna Morris, MPA
Senior Vice President and
Chief Operating Officer
Shawna Morris oversees operations for Menninger, including Admissions, Facilities Management, Human Resources, Marketing and Quality Resources. In addition, she manages board relations for The Menninger Clinic and The Menninger Clinic Foundation.
Since she joined the Menninger staff in 1997 with responsibilities for Marketing, Business Development and managed care contracting, Morris has steadily added management of Admissions, Communications, board relations and the Development Office. To prepare for The Clinic’s relocation to Houston from Topeka, Kansas, she was instrumental in developing business relationships with Houston’s health and mental health community, with the affiliates Baylor College of Medicine and The Methodist Hospital, and the philanthropic community.
Most recently, Morris oversaw the Development Office during the majority of the Miracles in Mind capital campaign, which is in the final phase to raise funds for building a new Menninger hospital nearer to the Texas Medical Center.
Before joining Menninger, Morris served in a variety of regional and national marketing and business development leadership positions, including Assistant Vice President for Business Development at ValueMark Healthcare Systems, Inc. (1996-1997), Senior Consultant for Network Management at Human Affairs International (1994-1996) and Regional Managed Care Specialist at Charter Medical Corporation (1990-1994).
Morris graduated from the University of Kansas’ masters in public administration program in 2002 and from Grace College with a bachelor of science degree in communication and psychology. She serves on the Advisory Board of The Council on Alcohol and Drugs Houston and is a member of Sales and Marketing Executives International and the Alliance for Healthcare Strategy and Marketing. Morris volunteers regularly at community programs for children.
 James Murphy, PhD
Senior Vice President and Executive Director, The Menninger Clinic Foundation
James Murphy is responsible for the day-to-day operations of The Menninger Clinic Foundation with a special emphasis on securing and growing The Foundation's assets and overseeing the Menninger Development Office. The Menninger Clinic Foundation is a nonprofit charitable 501(c)(3) organization.
He joined Menninger October 2009.
After graduating from University of Houston with a degree in history and political philosophy and from Rice University with a doctoral degree in political science, Murphy, a Houston native, worked as a senior executive throughout the U.S and around the world in external relations, fund raising, business development, communications and consulting in nonprofit and private sectors.
He served as a senior executive for several postsecondary educational institutions, including the Illinois Institute of Technology, Rice University, Tulane University, Colgate University and Fielding Graduate University.
Most recently, Murphy directed external relations for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank. He has published on and is a lecturer in subjects ranging from business development and sustainability to ethics and philanthropy.
He has served on numerous boards and has had U.S. and international memberships in the arts, education, business and healthcare. Currently, he is a member of the Greater Houston Partnership.
 John Oldham, MD, MS
Senior Vice President and Chief of Staff, The Menninger Clinic; Executive Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs and Development and Professor, Menninger Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine
Dr. John Oldham specializes in personality disorders and is recognized internationally as a leader in psychiatric medicine, receiving numerous awards and honors. At Menninger, he leads the medical faculty and research, and he is board certified in psychiatry, psychoanalysis and forensic psychiatry.
At Baylor College of Medicine, he oversees clinical care, including the public psychiatry division of Harris County Hospital District and The Baylor Psychiatry Clinic. He also mentors clinical leaders of the large psychiatry service at the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Administration Medical Center.
In 2010-2011, Dr. Oldham is president of the American College of Psychiatrists and president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). The College is limited to 750 practicing psychiatrists who have demonstrated outstanding competence in the field of psychiatry and who have achieved national recognition in clinical practice, research, academic leadership or teaching. The APA serves more than 38,000 psychiatrists worldwide. Both positions are important platforms for advancing psychiatric medicine to meet the needs of individuals with mental illness.
Dr. Oldham has served the APA in many capacities during his career, including as a current member of the Personality and Personality Disorders Workgroup making recommendations for the forthcoming Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 5.0. He has been active on the Steering Committee for Practice Guidelines, Council on Research, Council on Healthcare Systems and Financing, as a chair of the Committee on Quality Indicators as well as the Council on Quality Care and as a representative of APA on the American Medical Association's Physicians Consortium for Performance Improvement.
A prolific writer and educator, Dr. Oldham is senior editor of the Textbook of Personality Disorders and the recently published Essentials of Personality Disorders. For more than 10 years, he has served as editor of the Journal of Psychiatric Practice. In addition, he is an associate book editor for the American Psychiatric Publishing Inc. (APPI) and a member of the APPI Board of Directors.
Before joining The Menninger Clinic staff in 2007, he served as professor and chairman of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences and executive director of the Institute of Psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC).
At Columbia University, Dr. Oldham was the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor and acting chairman of the Department of Psychiatry. He also directed the New York State Psychiatric Institute and was chief medical officer of the New York State Office of Mental Health.
Dr. Oldham received his medical education at Baylor College of Medicine and completed psychiatric residency training at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. He completed psychoanalytic training at the Columbia Psychoanalytic Center.
 Larry Denoyer, CFM
Vice President, Facilities and Property Management
Larry Denoyer manages all properties owned by Menninger, as well as The Clinic’s Engineering, Safety, Security, Call Center, Housekeeping and Food Service operations. In addition, he chairs the board of the Corporate Meadows Office Park businesses in Topeka, Kansas.
Currently, he works closely with the architect, contractor and other vendors on all aspects involved in the design, construction and furnishing of a new Menninger hospital, which will be built near the Texas Medical Center on South Main in Houston.
He joined the organization in 2001, and he is a certified facilities manager (CFM). To prepare for The Clinic’s relocation from Kansas to Houston in 2003, he oversaw the renovation of the Menninger facilities on 14 acres in Houston, ensuring that the campus met the hospital’s needs and complied with the healthcare and building code requirements. He wrote about the challenges of the renovation, which was published in Facilities Management Journal.
Previously, Denoyer held various senior management positions, including Chief Operating Officer of the Brown Schools’ 125-bed Brain Injury Facility in Austin, Texas. In addition, he led business development efforts at Brown. While in Illinois, he directed construction of Four Winds-Chicago, a proprietary behavioral health hospital in southwest Chicago and was Director of Facilities and Property Management for the Rock Creek Center psychiatric treatment center in Lemont and its outpatient programs in southern Illinois. He served as Chief Engineer for 23 mental health facilities operated by the Illinois Department of Mental Health. In this role, Denoyer planned and implemented annual training of the state’s 70 chief engineers in the departments of Mental Health, Corrections and Universities.
 Susan Hardesty, MD
Vice president and medical director, The Menninger Clinic;
Associate professor, Menninger Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine
As medical director, Susan Hardesty, MD, oversees the medical staff at Menninger and all assessment and treatment programs. She joined The Clinic in the fall of 2009 after holding the same post at the Institute of Psychiatry and serving as vice chair of Clinical Services for the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston.
She has worked as an inpatient psychiatrist and hospitalist at MUSC, developing clinical expertise and research on acute treatment of bipolar and psychotic illnesses as well as forensic psychiatry over 15 years. Dr. Hardesty has co-authored papers on medication management, treatment outcomes and quality service delivery.
She is board certified in psychiatry and forensic psychiatry, and is an active member of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.
After earning her undergraduate degree from Winthrop College, she worked for 17 years in the chemical and textile industries in various chemist and occupational health and safety management roles. To grow in her career, she completed medical school at the University of North Carolina and did her residency in psychiatry at MUSC. Rather than return to the field of occupational health, she chose to switch paths and practice psychiatric medicine. Brain pathology and people’s response to their brain disorder have been for her the most exciting and challenging areas of medicine in which to practice.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) honored Dr. Hardesty with the 2009 National Exemplary Psychiatrist Award and South Carolina NAMI selected her as the 2009 Psychiatrist of the Year for integrating mental health advocates in the process of improving hospital treatment and incorporating trauma-focused care initiatives at MUSC. The initiatives resulted in substantial improvements in patient safety and engagement in care.
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