Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The American Samoa TeleCommunications Authority’s former chief executive officer, Falaovaoto Sualevai-Lesa has been selected by the American Samoa Medical Center (LBJ), board of directors as the hospital’s new chief financial officer.

LBJ made the official confirmation yesterday morning in a news release from the hospital’s CEO Moefa’auo Bill Emmsley, on behalf of the board, which “unanimously selected” Sualevai-Lesa, pursuant to local law and based on “the rigorous evaluation process of the applications received.”

As part of Sualevai-Lesa’s “application package, she had a strategic financial plan, which lays out several approaches for the modernization and improvement of LBJ’s financial systems and performance,” Moefa’auo said in the news release but provided no other details on the improvements.

LBJ board had publicly advertised the CFO position. And the LBJ news release shared information on the selection process after the board received seven applications by the submission’s deadline.

It explained that the applicants were evaluated based on the criteria listed within the position announcement and each applicant was scored on each criterion on a scale of zero-to-three, with zero equating to a failure to meet criteria and three exceeding criteria.

The applicants were initially screened based on the minimum requirements for the position as advertised. Of the seven applicants, three not only met and/or exceeded the minimum requirements — education and experience — but were well suited for the CFO position.

According to the news release, these 3 applicants possessed distinctive capabilities including an intimate and extensive knowledge of the Medicare, Medicaid and Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) systems, which are unique to hospitals and the healthcare industry.

And the top three applicants were advanced to further consideration and offered an interview, during which each applicant was evaluated based on their competencies, achievements, and other unique abilities useful to LBJ and preferred for the CFO position.

After the interviews and deliberations were completed by board members, the highest scoring applicant was Sualevai-Lesa, “who stood out as the strongest and most suitable applicant,” the news release said.

BACKGROUND

Sualevai-Lesa has previously held the position of Financial Controller and other senior finance posts for Bluesky Communications for several years before joining ASTCA as its CFO. In early 2018, she was selected by the ASTCA board to serve as acting CEO following the passing of then CEO, Puleleiite Li'amatua Tufele, Jr. Later on ASTCA secured a CEO, who resigned later.

In July 2020, the ASTCA board named her as CEO, replacing Lewis Wolman who did not renew his contract, which expired April 30 of that year.

However, in early 2021, she was served a termination letter by the new ASTCA board, appointed by then incoming Gov. Lemanu Peleti Mauga.

Sources in ASG had told Samoa News at the time that the new ASTCA board discovered that Sualevai-Lesa’s employment contract, which was for five years, had been signed by only one member of the former ASTCA Board.

Sualevai-Lesa later on joined the Health Department, heading DoH’s Finance Division, from which she resigned last week to take up her new post at LBJ.