Carlton Smalls

Carlton Smalls

Hudson County Workforce Leadership Academy, Class of 2019-2020, Economic Opportunities Program

Director, RWJBarnabas Health, Oceanport, New Jersey

Carlton Smalls was a treasured Fellow of the Hudson County Workforce Leadership Academy family, bringing his unique perspectives and gifts to helping create new employment opportunities for Hudson County residents. He was a bright light and thoughtful and dedicated servant leader. He is deeply missed.


Before his passing, Carlton led the direction and development of the Revenue Cycle Organizational Development (Process Improvement, Training and Quality Assurance) services and was responsible for designing the architecture behind many of service lines offered to internal clients within RWJBarnabas Health. Carlton had over 22 years of hospital and physician practice Revenue Cycle experience. Carlton’s operational experience included direction and management of patient access and centralized patient access clearance processes for health systems such as Carolinas HealthCare System and Novant Health in North Carolina. As a consultant with firms like PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLC and MedAssets, LLC, he assisted hospital systems like Ochsner Health System in implementing revenue recovery and transformative process improvement initiatives. Carlton graduated from The Citadel – The Military College of South Carolina with a B.A. in Chemistry. He had a Master’s Degree in Business Administration and Healthcare Administration. He was pursuing a PhD in Organizational Development and Leadership with a specialization in Training and E-Learning.

Carlton Smalls is a member of the Hudson County Workforce Leadership Academy, Class of 2019-2020, one of several Workforce Leadership Academies in localities across North America.

The Workforce Leadership Academies are part of the Economic Opportunity Fellows Network, a network of leadership and fellowship programs run by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program. Within this Network, EOP connects national and local leaders from across sectors — nonprofit, government, business, philanthropy, academia, and more — to advance policies and practices with the potential to help low- and moderate-income Americans thrive in today’s economy. Learn more at as.pn/eofn.