Jesse Beason
Northwest Health Foundation announced that Jesse Beason has been named, effective immediately, President and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Beason has been with Northwest Health Foundation since August 2013, most recently as Vice President of Strategy and Public Affairs. He was selected to be president after a thorough national search conducted by the Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group with guidance from the NWHF board of directors’ Presidential Search Committee. NPAG connected with hundreds of community partners and potential candidates before developing a shortlist of finalists.
Mr. Beason’s experience and expertise in policy and electoral work, his established relationships with community leaders and organizations throughout our region, and his bold vision for the foundation’s future, among other qualities, distinguished him as the best candidate to lead NWHF.
Contact: Laura Nash
Phone: 503.220.1955
Email: laura@northwesthealth.org
Steve Coen
Kansas Health Foundation (KHF) President and CEO Steve Coen has announced plans to retire effective July 31, 2019. Mr. Coen has served as President and CEO since August 2008. Since joining the foundation in 1987, Mr. Coen has held several other positions, including Director of Public Affairs, Senior Program Officer and Vice President for Administration.
The Kansas Health Foundation Board plans to begin a national search for the foundation’s successor President and CEO, in order to ensure a smooth transition.
Mr. Coen championed a number of significant initiatives during his tenure at KHF, including the following:
- The creation and development of the Kansas Leadership Center;
- The establishment of a 20-year, $60 million investment in Kansas community foundations called Giving Resources to Our World (GROW), vastly expanding the resources and technical capability of local community foundations;
- The development and implementation of innovative in-school physical education programs;
- Leading the foundation’s movement from private foundation to public charity tax status so that it could support public policy and advocacy efforts in the state; and,
- Most recently, the launch of the foundation’s statewide “Can’t-Wait to Read” early childhood literacy campaign.
Beyond these efforts, Mr. Coen has led work to improve our public health system, to ensure access to healthy foods, and to improve the affordability and availability of medical care for all Kansans.
Before coming to the foundation, Mr. Coen served as a legislative assistant to Sen. Bob Dole in Washington, DC and as state director of his four Kansas offices. In addition to his professional experiences, Mr. Coen has been an active member of Grantmakers In Health, served as chair of the Governor’s Council on Fitness and is a member of the Leadership Council of the Greater Wichita Partnership.
Contact: Kristi Zukovich
Phone: 316.491.8419
Email: kzukovich@khf.org
Marianne Smith Edge
Marianne Smith Edge, a food and nutrition expert from Owensboro, Kentucky has been named to the board of directors of the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky. Ms. Edge is a registered dietitian and founder of The AgriNutrition Edge, a food and agriculture communications consulting firm.
Ms. Edge is the first Owensboro resident since 2006 to serve on the board of the foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that advocates for policies to improve health throughout the Commonwealth. She has been appointed to a three-year term that begins January 1, 2019.
Ms. Edge is a sixth-generation farm owner. Prior to founding The AgriNutrition Edge, she served as senior vice president and in other roles at the International Food Information Council in Washington, DC. Before that, she owned MSE and Associates, LLC, a strategic nutrition consulting firm for the food and health care industries. She is also a recognized speaker in consumer insights and food systems issues.
She is a former president of the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics and a member of both the Institute for Food Technologists and the American Society for Nutrition. Ms. Edge served two terms on the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Research, Extension, Education, and Economics Advisory Board.
Contact: Bonnie J. Hackbarth
Phone: 877.326.2583
Email: bhackbarth@healthy-ky.org
Shirley Franklin and Kristen Silverberg
Shirley Franklin, Former Mayor of Atlanta, and Ambassador Kristen Silverberg, Managing Director at the Institute of International Finance, have each been elected to a serve five-year term on the board of directors of the CDC Foundation.
In 2002, Ms. Franklin was the first African-American woman to be elected mayor of a major Southern city. She served two terms, leaving office in 2009. Currently, Ms. Franklin serves as Executive Chairman of the nonprofit Purpose Built Communities and as president of Clarke-Franklin & Associates, Inc. During her eight years as mayor, the city of Atlanta experienced unprecedented growth and gave Ms. Franklin the opportunity to partner and collaborate with many local and regional leaders in addressing urban policy challenges, including urban planning, economic development, and infrastructure.
From 2013 to 2016, Ms. Franklin served as the inaugural Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and from 2010 to 2012 she was a visiting professor in political science at Spelman College. Ms. Franklin co-chairs the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta’s Regional Commission on Homelessness, serves as the chair of the National Center of Civil and Human Rights, and sits on the board of Delta Air Lines, The Volcker Alliance, and the Mueller Water Products.
Ambassador Silverberg served in the George W. Bush Administration as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union from 2008 to 2009 and as Assistant Secretary of State for international organization affairs from 2005 to 2008.
Prior to her time at the U.S. Department of State, Ambassador Silverberg held a number of senior positions at the White House, including Deputy Assistant to the President and Advisor to the Chief of Staff. She served in 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq, for which she received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service. Ambassador Silverberg formerly practiced law at Williams and Connolly, LLP in Washington, DC, and served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals. She serves on the board of directors of Vorbeck Materials, as an advisory board member of Beacon Global Strategies, and on the Statecraft Board of the Clements Center.
Contact: Amy Tolchinsky
Phone: 404.523.3486
Email: atolchinsky@cdcfoundation.org
Anne Marie Boursiquot King, William Graham, and Lino Covarrubias
The MetroWest Health Foundation’s board of trustees elected Anne Marie Boursiquot Kingas its new Board Chair, William Graham as Vice-Chair, and Lino Covarrubias as its newest Trustee. Ms. Boursiquot King is Senior Program Officer at RIZE Massachusetts, an independent nonprofit foundation working to end the opioid epidemic in Massachusetts and reduce its devastating impact on people, communities, and the economy. She has served on the board for seven years, most recently as Vice-Chair. Mr. Graham is Senior Vice President for Medicare at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care based in Wellesley. He has served as a trustee since 2015.
The board also re-elected John Corron of Framingham, Massachusetts as treasurer, and Anna Cross of Framingham, Massachusetts as clerk of the corporation. Re-elected to additional three-year terms as trustees are Ms. Cross, John Krikorian, MD of Needham, Massachusetts and Alan Geller of Framingham, Massachusetts.
Lino Covarrubias, a resident of Framingham, Massachusetts joins the board for a three-year term. Mr. Covarrubias currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer of Jewish Family Services (JFS) of MetroWest, a position he has held for ten years. Prior to joining JFS, Mr. Covarrubias completed 20 years of active military service with the United States Navy.
Contact: Martin Cohen
Phone: 508.879.7625
John R. Lumpkin, MD, MPH
John R. Lumpkin, MD, MPH will serve as President of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, starting April 22. Mr. Lumpkin most recently served as Senior Vice President, Programs for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). Before joining RWJF in 2003, Mr. Lumpkin served as director of the Illinois Department of Public Health for 12 years.
Mr. Lumpkin has an impressive career in the health care system—from practicing emergency medicine and teaching medical students, to leading improvements to programs dealing with emergency and bioterrorism preparedness, infectious disease prevention and control, immunization, supporting local health departments, reducing childhood obesity, and more.
Mr. Lumpkin was the first African-American trained in emergency medicine in the country after completing his residency at the University of Chicago. He has served on the faculty of the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago.
The Blue Cross NC Foundation seeks to increase health equity and improve health outcomes in North Carolina communities by:
- Transforming the health care system (including oral health)
- Expanding access to healthy food
- Supporting a healthy start for children
- Improving the places where people live
- Strengthening the ability of communities to improve their own health
Phone: 919.765.3005
Dr. Michael J. Murray
The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations (AVDF) announced that Dr. Michael J. Murray will become the next President of the Foundations effective April 1, 2019. Dr. Murray will succeed Dr. Nancy Cable who has led the Foundations since 2012. During her tenure, the foundations refined its strategic focus within five key areas: private higher education; public educational media; interfaith leadership and religious literacy; environmental engagement, stewardship & solutions; and palliative care.
Dr. Murray comes to AVDF from the John Templeton Foundation where he served first as Vice President of Philosophy and Theology and, since 2011, as Senior Vice President of Programs. Dr. Murray was responsible for overseeing the growth of the foundation’s grantmaking work that supports academic research and public engagement in the sciences and between the science and the humanities. During this period the foundation’s annual grant support grew from $72 million to $162 million. He further managed the expansion of its work to Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. In 2016, Dr. Murray relaunched of the foundation’s departments of Communications, Public Engagement, and Strategic Alliances, including a refreshed brand, logo, and new website.
Dr. Murray began his career at Franklin and Marshall College where he was awarded the Arthur and Katherine Shadek Chair in Philosophy and the Humanities. He also held faculty positions at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, the University of Notre Dame, and Oxford University. During this period he published numerous academic articles as well as monographs and edited collections with Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Blackwell, and Yale University Press. His research focuses on issues at the intersection of science, philosophy, and theology, as well as on seventeenth-century Continental philosophy. Dr. Murray is currently a Senior Visiting Scholar at Franklin and Marshall.
Contact: Doreen Gross
Phone: 904.834.1034
Email: dgross@avdf.org
Kathy Sessions
Kathy Sessions will step down as Executive Director of Health and Environmental Funders Network (HEFN) in the summer of 2019. HEFN’s Steering Committee is formulating plans for a smooth transition. Any advice or recommendations the search committee can be emailed to EDSearch@hefn.org.
Ms. Sessions dedicated her professional life to the fields of environmental health and environmental justice and wearing many organizational hats with grace and great skill. Through her guidance and leadership, HEFN has grown into an active learning community of over 60 foundations and donors and has interacted over the years with hundreds of funder colleagues through webinars, conference calls, conferences, and shared research projects. HEFN members have catalyzed learning into action, with the support of Ms. Sessions and her staff, from mobilizing resources for communities hit by hurricanes or industrial pollution to collaboration through a HEFN working group helping catalyze the 2016 passage of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act in 2016 updating the nation’s primary chemicals management law.
Continually challenging herself to understand the complexities of this work, Ms. Sessions invited many funders to join her in seeking best practices and new information on environmental health, environmental justice, and equity issues. Through her kind, welcoming, and intellectual spirit, HEFN has become a home for those seeking to know more about the intersections of environment and health, and an opportunity for those steeped in this work to find partners to share their knowledge and build long-lasting relationships.
Contact: Jalonne White-Newsome and Amy Panek
Phone: 301.565.0500
Sonia Shah
The Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts welcomed Sonia Shah, Esq. in the new position of Senior Program Officer. Ms. Shah’s previous roles have included Development Director at MetroWest Legal Services; Manager of Foundation and Public Service Programs at the Boston Bar Association, In-House Counsel at Sumaria Systems, Inc. and Staff Attorney at Casa Myrna Vazquez, Inc. where she represented domestic violence survivors in court. Ms. Shah currently serves on the board of directors of her family’s manufacturing business, Spectro Coating Corporation.
Ms. Shah will assume primary responsibility for the development and implementation of the foundation’s Activation Fund grants, which are typically one-year grants for discrete projects aimed at helping nonprofit organizations working to improve health in Central Massachusetts shift to a higher level of capacity that can be sustained over time. She will provide technical assistance to applicants and grantees, manage the award process, monitor grants, and assist in evaluating the foundation’s impact.
Contact: Daniel P. Germain
Phone: 508.438.0009 ext.4
Email: dgermain@hfcm.org
Tracy Yellen and Dr. Michael Kelly
Tracy Yellen, CEO of the Paso del Norte Community Foundation, was recently appointed to the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas – El Paso Branch. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (Dallas Fed) is committed to building a vibrant economy. This is achieved through fair and informed access to financial markets for all consumers. The Dallas Fed works to understand the particular needs of underserved populations by engaging community leaders on effective community development policies and strategies related to education, health, and affordable housing. With growing evidence that the root causes of poor health and poverty are the same, the Dallas Fed, through its Healthy Communities Initiative, brings together stakeholders to discuss practices that promote economic mobility, reduce health inequalities, and create healthier communities for all.
Ms. Yellen will serve an initial three-year term and provide insight into issues and challenges that limit the opportunity for individuals and communities in the region, and insight into the status of philanthropy/non-profit based organizations.
Dr. Michael Kelly, Vice President of Programs for the Paso del Norte Health Foundation, was selected to the Texas School Health Advisory Committee (TSHAC). TSHAC provides assistance in establishing a leadership role for the Department of State Health Services in the support for and delivery of coordinated school health programs and school health services. Dr. Kelly will serve three years as a member representing an organization and/or agency involved with the health of school children in Texas.
Contact: Ida Ortegon
Phone: 915.218.2613
Email: iortegon@pdnfoundation.org