Our Leadership

Prior to her appointment as CEO, Alex held several executive roles at Health Leads spanning more than a decade. In addition to pioneering efforts to enable major healthcare organizations to design and launch innovative models of care bridging health systems and communities, she has led multiple strategy planning processes and guided the implementation of key internal operations. Most recently as managing principal, Alex oversaw the organization’s unprecedented west coast expansion as well as nationwide talent acquisition, human resources and diversity, equity and inclusion functions at a time when Health Leads staff more than doubled in size.

Before joining Health Leads, Alex served as vice president of program at Peer Forward (formerly College Summit), an organization that connects students in low-income communities to college and careers by tapping a readily available resource found in every high school – influential students. During her tenure, Alex spearheaded scaling initiatives which expanded Peer Forward’s reach, connecting thousands of students each year to the peer support networks they needed to succeed. She also led the team that created and implemented professional training for educators and student leaders, along with the development of in-school management tools for principals and superintendents. Alex is also a part of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Leadership Network. 

Earlier in her career, Alex served as a political appointee at the U.S. Department of Justice for former Attorney General Janet Reno. Her public service calling began when she spent a year working as an Assistant in the Office of the Cabinet Affairs as a White House intern. Alex holds a BA from Smith College and an MA from Georgetown University. 

Alex was born and raised in New York City, spent a lot of time growing up in rural Texas and in her work at Peer Forward spent time learning from educators across the country – from Kanawha County, West Virginia to Chicago, IL to Inglewood, CA. This place-based learning heavily influenced how she thinks about advocacy, equity and working with and for communities. Alex now calls Oakland, CA home where she lives with her partner Dorian, two sons and a hyper but loving rescue dog. When not at work she can be found running, biking, playing around and exploring the Bay Area.

Before joining Health Leads, Damon worked most recently at the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency where he spent five years supporting all aspects of the agency’s vision for “healthy people, places, policies and systems.”

During his time there, he served as the interim director and medical director of Alameda County Health Care for the Homeless where he led the adoption and expansion of clinical models addressing the whole person, including medical, behavioral and social needs.

In that role and others, he worked to reduce health disparities affecting men of color, providing policy analysis and representing the public health department in cross-governmental initiatives and public-private partnerships related to housing, criminal justice, and clinical quality improvement.

Prior to joining Alameda County, Damon worked at the East Bay AIDS Center in Oakland where he spearheaded the development of the CRUSH project, a clinic developed specifically to increase access to sexual health services for young men of color who have sex with men. 

Damon is an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, San Francisco. His clinical experience since residency includes inpatient and outpatient practice in public, private and academic settings, and he continues to provide urgent care at a community clinic in Oakland. He has also served as the interim chair of the UCSF Health, Equity, Action and Leadership (HEAL) Initiative Steering Committee. Damon holds a BA from University of California, Berkeley and an MD from University of California, San Francisco. Following school, Damon did his residency and chief residency in Primary Care Internal Medicine at UCSF/San Francisco General Hospital. 

Damon lives in the Bay Area with his wife and son. He is a life-long reader and enjoys playing basketball and soccer with his son (and as many neighborhood kids as they can convince to join them at the playground). Damon has always lived in California, but still enjoys discovering new places across the country.

“I love the work we’re doing and what we stand for at Health Leads, but it’s ultimately about the people. We’re a team of individuals who want to have a positive impact on the world — who enjoy and push one another to do better.”

Jennifer Valenzuela brings nearly 20 years of experience building and supporting teams in the healthcare sector to her role at Health Leads, where she oversees the organization’s People, Culture and Equity strategy.

Jenn has held several leadership roles at Health Leads overseeing clinical program implementation and integration at health systems and clinics nationwide — coaching and training of staff, establishing and promoting best practices for resource navigation, and codifying the program model using data and analytics.

Prior to Health Leads, Jennifer served as director of The Young Parents Program (YPP) at Boston Children’s Hospital, a multi-disciplinary clinic dedicated to working with teen mothers and fathers. There, Jennifer learned the strengths of her Boston community as the young families demonstrated resilience, unparalleled kindness, patience and great humor. As a licensed independent clinical social worker, Jennifer also worked in the emergency departments of Boston Children’s Hospital and Brigham & Women’s Hospital providing psychiatric and social crisis intervention. She has also been a part of the MassHealth Delivery System & Payment Reform Implementation Council and the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation Institute for Community Health Leadership program. Jennifer holds a BS from Portland State University and an MPH and MSW from Boston University. 

Jennifer lives in the Boston area with her family, Carlos, Alexandra and Max. When not at work, Jenn loves to run with her friends and dream of being on the sandy beaches with her family, anywhere warm.

Aziza previously served as Health Leads’ East Coast Director of Philanthropic Partnerships. She began her career with Charity Navigator, gaining unparalleled experience in the evaluation of the nation’s largest health, international relief, and education organizations such as The International Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. Since then, she has worked with philanthropic leaders to advance the impact of equity-related causes, overseeing the development efforts for Teach For America, and served as the head of EdTech sales for BetterLesson. She continues to work as a Management and Talent Strategy Consultant for cross-sector clients in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

Aziza proudly sits on the boards of BuildX, a crowdfunding social enterprise platform, and Giving Well International, which makes capital healthcare investments aimed at strengthening health systems in the Middle East.

She received a master of social work and management of human services degree from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and lives in the greater Boston area with her husband and three children.

Sheena oversees research and technology innovation efforts, identifies emerging and promising practices, and tests new approaches to care that advance health equity. This work builds on over 15 years of experience at various nonprofit organizations and in academic research focused on utilizing participatory research to ensure that population health interventions are being designed, governed, implemented, and assessed by communities. She has worked specifically in cross-sector settings where multiple stakeholders ranging from large institutions to community-based organizations and resident leadership groups collaborate to improve care coordination and drive systems-level improvements.

Prior to joining Health Leads, Sheena worked on nutrition education and maternal-child health through community-driven program development and evaluation as Program Director at Para Los Niños, an education-based nonprofit that integrates mental health, public health, and social services in their work with children and families in Los Angeles County. There, she continued to build on past experiences in policy, communication, and research for various nonprofit organizations in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and abroad. She has also taught at colleges and universities in the U.S. and served as Principal Investigator on several research projects. 

Sheena earned a master’s of public health from Drexel University and has a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Irvine. She enjoys traveling and eating and often brings the two together by taking a cooking class in every new country she visits.

Keely has over 20 years of program experience, which includes developing and implementing solutions for NGOs, humanitarian assistance, psycho-social, medical, prevention, and educational interventions.  

Joining Health Leads in 2012, she led New York programs for design, development, implementation, and operations as program director. In her current role, she now oversees the strategic planning, development, delivery, and evaluation of a range of initiatives to support achieving health equity. She is also the subject matter expert on all things caregiving. 

Prior to joining Health Leads, Keely worked on program design, development, and evaluation as a program director for the Children’s Burn Foundation, including developing prevention education campaigns and an international burns education program for medical teams in partnership with the American Burn Association. Building on her work with the foundation, she worked as a consultant for several child-focused nonprofit organizations designing program monitoring and evaluation efforts in national and global settings.

Keely completed her master’s degree at Georgetown University in emergency and disaster management. She is active in her Washington Heights community in New York as a volunteer.  She is also a Shakespearean actress and a classically trained opera singer. 

With more than 20 years of communications experience, Sue has led messaging, content, and engagement strategy for Health Leads since 2015. In this role, she is responsible for and takes tremendous joy in executing a communications strategy that increases interest and action around health equity innovation across the U.S. and expands the impact and application of Health Leads tools, resources, and learnings. 

Prior to joining Health Leads, Sue served as a vice president in the healthcare division of FleishmanHillard (Boston office), a global strategic communications firm serving to emerge and established technology and healthcare companies. Over the course of her career, she has led communications strategy and execution for organizations across the healthcare chain, including thought leadership and storytelling campaigns targeting health systems, physicians, patients, payers, employers, and drug and device developers. She has executed new product launches, social media programs, and proactive media relations efforts. Her healthcare campaigns have been featured in PR News and recognized by the Publicity Club of New England. 

Sue has a bachelor’s degree in communication with a journalism and political science focus from Villanova University and is working toward her master’s degree in public health at Tufts University. She volunteers in support of local and national political and voter registration campaigns. A recreational runner, yogi, and soccer player, she lives outside Boston with her husband and two daughters. 

Margaret Laws is committed to bringing together government, non-profit and private-sector stakeholders interested in advancing the role technology can play in supporting and improving health and well-being, with a focus on improving care and outcomes for underserved populations. She brings a deep understanding of the healthcare sector and the cutting-edge innovations reshaping the field.

As president and CEO of HopeLab, Margaret leads a multidisciplinary team combining behavioral science, user-centered design and partnerships with innovative companies to create technologies and products that help people thrive.

Before joining HopeLab, Margaret spent 17 years at the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) in a number of roles, including director of public financing and policy and director of the Innovations for the Underserved program. During her tenure at CHCF, Margaret founded the CHCF Health Innovation Fund, a mission-focused fund investing in companies that improve access to and lower costs of health care. The Fund, launched in 2010, has now made investments in 11 early stage health care technology and services companies.

Education

• Lecturer at Stanford University Graduate School of Business
• MA in Public Policy from Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government
• AB in English Literature from Princeton University

Board Affiliations

• DaVita Village Trust
• Peer Health Exchange
• Acumen US Fund

Adria Goodson is the chief program officer of the Pahara Institute. Adria also serves on the faculty of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education teaching personal mastery courses. She has spent over 15 years coaching and supporting the learning and development of national non-profit and education leaders. From 2005 to 2015, she was the founding director of Hunt Alternatives’ Prime Movers fellowship program, a program that supports social movement leaders in the United States. Adria earned her Ph.D. from Boston College in sociology, specializing in social movement theory, public policy, and philanthropy. She has authored several pieces on movement leadership and has been a featured speaker at TedXBeaconStreet.

Education

• Ph.D. from Boston College in Sociology
• BS from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Awards

• Pahara-Aspen Fellowship
• K Kellogg Foundation Non-profit Opportunity Leadership Fellowship
• Boston College President’s Fellowship.

As a practicing primary care physician, health policy researcher and health systems innovator, Asaf Bitton focuses on the implementation and evaluation of new models of primary care delivery and payment structures nationally and globally. He is a Health Leads alum and has firsthand knowledge of the transformative effect of Health Leads work across the health care system.

Asaf is the Director of Primary Health Care at Ariadne Labs, a center for health systems innovation based at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Brigham & Women’s Hospital. He leads Ariadne Labs’ work on the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative, a joint effort with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization, and the World Bank that aims to better measure and improve primary care functions in low and middle income countries. He and his team have worked in Ghana, Estonia, Costa Rica, and China on these efforts. He also serves as a senior advisor to the Comprehensive Primary Care (CPC) Plus initiative led by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation – an 18 state multi-payer initiative in the United States that is working on matching payment reform to delivery improvement in primary care. Asaf is currently an assistant professor of medicine at the division of general medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and assistant professor of health care policy at the department of healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School.

Education

• MD from University of California, San Francisco
• MPH in Clinical Effectiveness from Harvard School of Public Health
• BA in Health and Society from Brown University

Awards

• Harvard Medical School Certificate of Excellence in Tutoring (2015)
• SGIM Annual Quality and Practice Innovation Award for BWH South Huntington (2015)

Recent Publications

• Finding a Parsimonious Path for Primary Care Practice Transformation
• The Necessary Return of Comprehensive Primary Health Care
• Primary Health Care That Works: The Costa Rican Experience
• Primary Health Care as a Foundation for Strengthening Health Systems in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Chris Cox has extensive experience and expertise working through complex business issues including accounting and financial reporting implications; investment portfolios and bond offerings; and research compliance matters. As chair of the Finance committee, Chris’ financial expertise is critical to the organization’s management of philanthropic and earned revenue.

As a Partner at PricewaterhouseCooper (PwC), Chris leads the northeast healthcare, higher education and not for profit practice portfolio where he oversees all service activities for the portfolio across assurance, tax and advisory. Chris is also the national Higher Education assurance leader.

Education

• CPA in Massachusetts and New Hampshire
• BS in Business Administration and Accounting at Nichols College

Affiliations

• Member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
• Member of the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA)

Gary Cohen brings an extensive background in coalition building and social enterprise to Health Leads. As President and Executive Director of Health Care Without Harm (HCWH), Gary Cohen leads an international coalition of organizations and partners in 50 countries working to reform the environmental practices of the healthcare industry. By assisting healthcare organizations in understanding the links between a healthy environment and a healthy people, HCWH continues to work toward a goal of preventing disease and illness.

Prior to co-founding HCWH, Gary founded and served as director of the Environmental Health Fund, an international non-profit incubator of innovative ideas, building strategic coalitions responsible for international and national chemicals policy campaigns.

Education

• Post Graduate Work in South Asian Studies at University of California, Berkeley
• BA in Philosophy from Clark UniversityBoard Affiliations
• International Advisory Board of the Sambhavna Clinic and Documentation Center

Awards

• Skoll Global Award for Social Entrepreneurship
• Frank Hatch Award for Enlightened Public Service Award
• Champion for Change for Climate Change and Public Health

John Mandile has served as co-chair of the Health Leads board since the organization was founded in 1996 and has stewarded the organization through several key strategic shifts. His expertise and counsel has enabled Health Leads to position itself as a nimble social enterprise that can easily adapt to and thrive in the ever-changing healthcare sector, while driving the leading edge of the social health movement.

With more than 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur, manager and investor, John currently serves as managing director of Sigma Prime (formerly Sigma Partners), where he guides and supports Sigma’s portfolio of early stage technology companies. Before joining Sigma, John was president and CEO of Vermeer Technologies, Inc., the developers of the leading web authoring tool FrontPage.

Education

• MS in Computer Science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute
• BSE in Engineering Science and Mathematics from Tufts

Board Affiliations

• Acquia
• CiRBA
• Barkly
• HubLogix
• Silverlink Communications

Torrey K. Young is a health care lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP and a member of the firm’s Health Care Industry Team and the Government Enforcement Defense & Investigation Practice. She provides health care regulatory compliance advice, investigation defense counseling, and strategic planning for financial arrangements for many types of providers, including hospitals and health systems, academic medical centers, laboratories, home health agencies, hospices, urgent care providers, telehealth companies, and DMEPOS suppliers.

Torrey has significant experience conducting internal investigations, responding to False Claims Act claims, providing fraud and abuse analyses, and advising on Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement issues. She also implements compliance programs and assesses their effectiveness, as well as counsels clients on clinical research, research misconduct, and grants administration. She has appeared in publications such as Science, Compliance Today, JD Supra, Federal News Radio, and Bloomberg Law.

Education

• JD from Georgetown University Law Center
• MPH from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with a certificate in bioethics and health policy
• BS from Emory University

Awards

• Massachusetts Super Lawyers – Rising Stars® lists (2013 – 2019)
• Harvard Business School’s Young American Leaders Program in 2019.
• Leadership Council on Legal Diversity’s 2018 class of Pathfinders
• Member of the Year award from Tomorrow’s Women Today

Recent Publications

• “That ‘Hot’ Research Project May Land Your Lab In Hot Water,” HCCA Compliance Today (November 3, 2018)
• “Viscosupplement Enforcement – Provider Pain Points,” Bloomberg Law (July 27, 2018)
• “Anatomy of a Self-Disclosure: From Concern, to Disclosure, to Closure, and Everything In Between,” Association for Corporate Counsel Webcast (May 17, 2017)

Wendy Ellis is an Assistant Professor in Global Health and the Founding Director of the Center for Community Resilience at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. Dr. Ellis has spent the last decade developing and working to grow a
‘resilience movement’ to address systemic inequities that contribute to social and health disparities that are often transmitted in families and communities from generation to generation.

The Building Community Resilience (BCR) collaborative and Resilience Catalysts networks are implementing the BCR process and CCR’s Community Resilience framework– strategic approaches for cross-sector partners to align resources, programs and initiatives with community based efforts to address adverse childhood experiences and adverse community environments– or as Ellis has coined it “The Pair of ACEs”. The strengths-based approach is aimed at building the infrastructure to promote resilience in communities by improving access to supports and buffers that help individuals ‘bounce back’ and communities thrive. The BCR process is being used in 14 urban and rural regions areas including New York City, NY; Cincinnati, OH; Dallas, TX; Portland, OR; Washington, DC; Baltimore, MD; St. Louis and Kansas City, MO; Seattle and Tacoma, Washington; Leon County, FL; Watauga County, NC; Louisville, KY; Jersey City, NJ; Lee County, IA; Cleveland, OH and Deschutes County, OR.

In 2019, Dr. Ellis launched the Resilience Catalysts in Public Health using a novel framework that leverages local public health departments as Chief Health Strategists in the resilience movement. Dr. Ellis holds several leadership positions in public health including Chair of the National Academy of Science’s, Enhancing Community Resilience in the Gulf States Committee, Scientific Advisor to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Prevention and Injury Center and the National Academy’s Culture of Health Advisory Board. In 2018 Dr. Ellis was selected as an Aspen Institute Ascend Fellow to support her leadership in developing cross-sector strategies to address childhood trauma, foster equity and build community resilience. Dr. Ellis co-authored an article detailing the BCR process, “A New Framework for Addressing Adverse Childhood and Community Experiences: The Building Community Resilience Model” which can be found in the September 2017 Journal of Academic Pediatrics.