A nationally known speaker, “equity evangelist,” strategist, master facilitator, and public health leader, Natalie provides executive leadership for CommonHealth ACTION whose mission is to develop people and organizations to produce health through equitable policies, programs, and practices. Since the mid-90s, Natalie has held leadership positions focused on creating opportunities for health through community, institutional, systemic, and policy change.
A graduate of the University of Maryland with a degree in Government and Politics, Natalie has been selected for numerous fellowships including the EmergingLeaders in Public Health Fellowship (hosted by the University of North Carolina’s Schools of Business and Public Health), New York University’s Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service Lead the WayFellowship for visionary and entrepreneurial leaders in the nonprofit sector, and she served as a W.K.Kellogg Foundation Fellow conducting federal health policy analysis at the National Health PolicyForum in Washington, DC.
In 2012, she was selected to serve on the Council of Innovation Advisors for ConvergeUS, a national initiative focused on technology-based social innovation. Since 2015, Natalie has served as co-Director of the culture of Health Leaders National Program Center, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; she directs the Kaiser Permanente Institute for Equitable Leadership in Baltimore; she is a member of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s EquityAdvisory Group, and she is a member of the NationSwell Council.
Committed to the health and well-being of all people, Natalie views health as the product of complex interactions amongst systems and factors such as education, employment, environmental conditions, access to technology, housing, transportation, and health care. Throughout her career, she has sought to understand the root causes of ill-health including the delicate balance amongst genetics, personal health behaviors, and the systems and institutions that provide the contexts within which we live our lives and make our decisions. That understanding guides her work with corporate, academic, elected, and community leaders whose decisions produce health.
For the past decade through curriculum development, education, and publications, she has focused on the roles that systemic privilege and oppression play in the production of the public’s health, particularly health inequities—this includes serving as the primary architect for CommonHealthACTION’s nationally-recognized Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Training Institute.
“As an advisor and strategist to corporate leaders, government, communities aspiring to change, and entities in between—I guide people and organizations to common language, plans, and solutions that make the world a healthy and equitable place. As a facilitator, writer, and speaker, I cultivate spaces for constructive discomfort because I know that meaningful change requires us to get uncomfortable. As a leader, I know that world-changing is serious business so what better way is there for me to spend my time?”
