Domestic Health Partners

THE PARTNERSHIP FOR A HEALTHIER AMERICA
In 2009, I teamed up with First Lady Michelle Obama to serve as a Vice Chair, along with Newark Mayor Cory Booker, for her obesity campaign, The Partnership for a Healthier America. The partnership is an independent, nonpartisan organization that will serve to link and mobilize communities around the specific goals outlined in the First Lady’s Let’s Move! campaign, which seeks to eliminate childhood obesity within a generation. Obesity is generational – it wasn’t an issue when I was in school, but has become an epidemic today. Behavior is such an important part of health, and I am pleased to be able to lend a voice to such a worthy and important cause.

With the goal of eliminating childhood obesity within a generation, it will take a broad effort to engage every community in the nation. Researchers estimate that 21.2% of children from 2 to 5 are already obese or overweight, a number that has doubled over the past 30 years. The obesity rate for children ages 6 to 11 has also more than quadrupled—from 4.2% to 19.6%—as well as tripled for adolescents ages 12 to 19—from 4.6% to 18.1%—over the past four decades.

KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION
I am proud to serve on the Board of Trustees for the Kaiser Family Foundation. A leader in health policy analysis, health journalism and communication, the Kaiser Family Foundation is dedicated to filling the need for trusted, independent information on the major health issues facing our nation and its people. Kaiser is a non-profit, private operating foundation focusing on the major health care issues facing the U.S., as well as the U.S. role in global health policy. Unlike grant-making foundations, Kaiser develops and runs its own research and communications programs, sometimes in partnership with other non-profit research organizations or major media companies.
KFF serves as a non-partisan source of facts, information, and analysis for policymakers, the media, the health care community, and the public. Our product is information, always provided free of charge — from the most sophisticated policy research, to basic facts and numbers, to information young people can use to improve their health or elderly people can use to understand their Medicare benefits.

ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION
In 2012, I was elected to the Board of Trustees for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. As the nation’s largest philanthropy devoted solely to the public’s health, the RWJF has a unique capability and responsibility to confront the most pressing health and health care problems threatening our society. Our efforts focus on improving both the health of everyone in America and their health care—how it’s delivered, how it’s paid for, and how well it does for patients and their families. As we invest in improving systems through which people receive care and in fostering environments that promote health and prevent disease and injury, we expect to achieve comprehensive, meaningful, and timely change.

The Foundation is guided by a fundamental premise: we are stewards of private funds that must be used in the public’s interest. Our greatest asset isn’t our endowment; it’s the way we help create leverage for change.
RWJF creates leverage by building evidence and producing, synthesizing and distributing knowledge, new ideas, and expertise. We harness the power of partnerships by bringing together key players, collaborating with colleagues, and securing the sustained commitment of other funders and advocates to improve the health and health care of all Americans.

CRESSEY & COMPANY
I serve as a Partner at Cressey & Company LP, which is a private investment firm focused exclusively on investing in and building leading healthcare businesses. With a history spanning over 25 years, the Cressey & Company team is one of the most experienced and successful in middle-market private equity. The team manages a group of healthcare investments in a wide range of segments in excess of $1 billion of capital committed to building leading healthcare companies in partnership with outstanding executives and management teams. By identifying companies that are making a difference in the delivery of health care, Cressey is working to grow these companies that would benefit from an increase in scale. Cressey helps to improve the delivery of health care in the companies that it invests and in the process helps to improve health care delivery and access.