As the President and CEO of HealthCorps., Amy is responsible for ensuring that 100,000+ students receive access to health and wellness education—with the goal of empowering them to live longer and healthier lives. Being fairly new to HealthCorps, Amy has experienced quite the change of operations as the company quickly pivoted from delivering their programming in-person to delivering it digitally (and tailoring the content to fit pandemic-related concerns). Despite a complete overhaul of their workforce and structure, Amy and her team conquered the challenge with open arms.

The Basics

Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Current city: Los Angeles, California
Alma mater: University of Chicago; PACE University; UCLA
Degree: B.A., Public Policy; M.S., Education; MBA
Very first job: File clerk at a real estate investment firm
Hustle: President and CEO, HealthCorps

The Interests:

Babe you admire and why?
There are too many babes I admire to list. In terms of women in the public arena, I truly admire Ruth Bader Ginsberg. What I love about her is that she represents many different facets of being female—she shows women they don’t need to fit within one label and that we should stand up and fight for what we believe in. I am particularly drawn to her as a Jewish woman and respect her commitment to making a difference in the lives of those around her. She is a badass. On a more personal level, two babes who have made a huge impact on me were my first two bosses at Mattel, Lori Pantel and Nitya Madhavan. They were, and continue to be, incredible mentors. They showed me what an authentic leadership style is. That you can lead with vulnerability, empathy, and humor and still be an incredibly intelligent and strong leader that others look to and trust. I strive to emulate their leadership style every day.

Favorite fictional female character? Why?
There are too many to count as I am a lover of fiction. That said, I will go with my first love in the world of fiction: Matilda. I must have read this book 10 times when I was younger. I still have the very battered copy from my youth. Mathilda was a wonderful nonconformist—as you can possibly tell from my answer above, I love women who rebel against the rules to break barriers and fight for what is right. I love that Matilda fought against injustice for not just herself, but for wherever she saw it and I love that she did it with magic. As little girls (and as adult women), it’s important to remember we all have the magic inside to do what is right. 

The Hustle:

Tell us about your hustle
As CEO of HealthCorps, I am responsible for ensuring that over 100,000 students receive access to health and wellness education to empower them to live longer and healthier lives. How this looks each day is fairly different. There is no typical day for me—whether it’s addressing a current health issue, developing new financial partnerships, managing messaging and creative material, or developing strategic growth plans. Each day is grounded in this mission. I play many roles: I am a cheerleader, financial planner, team member, decision-maker, fundraiser, marketer, storyteller, and friend. I love my job primarily because I can engage in these various roles to better the lives of our incredible students.

How has your job changed since before COVID-19?
As the COVID-19 pandemic worsens in the United States, the teens and families we serve are in need of our services more than ever. We know this crisis will have a disparate impact on them and their families, resulting in many challenges and far greater difficulties than those experienced by most. As an organization, we have quickly pivoted from delivering our programming in-person, to delivering it digitally. This has meant a complete overhaul of our workforce and structure. We have had to quickly determine how we could organize our team members to create and assist teens and families at home. This includes the ongoing creation of health and wellness education materials that engage teens (and from which they can learn), while experiencing school remotely. We feel it is important to offer our program both directly to teens (primarily through our social media channels) and in a more formalized environment (that can be included in their online learning assignments). HealthCorps is delivering programming to assist with healthy eating, staying physically fit, and managing stress and anxiety through this time of isolation in the following ways:

• Our coordinators continue to deliver live lesson and health-wellness programming via Zoom to students.

• We continue to work with teachers and faculty to record lessons they can use and assign to students as part of their online learning.

• We are conducting online small group and one-one-one mentoring for students and faculty.

• We are developing and distributing health and wellness materials for the faculty and promoting wellness challenges for the school community targeted to support the work- or study-at-home environment.

What are some additional resources HealthCorps is providing during this time?
HealthCorps developed a resources page on our website to share our curriculum and program resources nationally over social media and the web. We are incredibly proud that our resources page has been included in the Charity Navigator COVID-19 Hot Topics page featuring organizations that are raising awareness of ways to prevent COVID-19 and cope with the stress it’s causing. HealthCorps coordinators across the nation are not only providing educational resources to the students, families and school where they serve, they are answering a more immediate call for basic necessities like food, cleaning supplies, and an antidote for loneliness that sadly is setting in. We, early on, decided as an organization to focus on the fact that many of our families would be facing dire economic circumstances and a lack of access to the food that their schools normally provide. We started scouring for opportunities and ways to support our communities. Our coordinators are engaged in their school communities, supporting students and their families by:

• Preparing and delivering breakfast and lunch to-go meals to student communities in Kentucky, Oklahoma and Florida

• Working with the Houston Food Bank to distribute groceries to families in need;

• Distributing Chromebooks to students for virtual learning in San Bernardino, California

• Making daily calls to local seniors and distributing groceries to food insecure families in New York City, Phoenix, and San Bernardino County, California

With such a high-level operational job involving many moving parts, how do you stay organized?
Lists, lists, lists. I am someone who needs to write everything down in a list. Nothing beats the satisfaction of crossing something off!

What’s one thing you wish the general public knew with regards to the pandemic?
The media and general public seem surprised by the health disparities the pandemic is exposing among at-risk communities. Sadly, those disparities have been known to us for well over a decade and were in part why HealthCorps exists. Staying healthy goes far beyond social distancing and washing your hands during this pandemic. At HealthCorps, we are constantly stressing the importance of our three pillars of health: nutrition, physical fitness, and mental resilience. Every day we are working to get our message and curriculum to teens, families, and educators, because we believe in a well-rounded health approach and know that it can save lives. Since the pandemic, we have increased our efforts  to address health disparities in our at-risk communities and give them the tools they need to stay healthy during this pandemic (and beyond).

How has being a woman affected your professional experience?
I think being a woman has positively impacted my experience. It has allowed me to be a much more dynamic leader and thoughtful marketer. I believe that once I learned to embrace my more “female” traits and bring them into my professional leadership style, I was able to create stronger and more innovative teams due to my ability to create a safe, open, and productive environment. Madeline Albright is famous for saying, “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” I believe this speaks to the matter that women in the workplace must ensure other women are encouraged, and to support one another even when our lives or values are not the same. Women have a tendency to be more critical of one another. We must move past this and realize that when we change the system, we all rise. (As for men, I would urge them to try to put bias aside and let merit prevail.)

What’s the gender ratio like in your industry? Do you see it evolving?
My current industry is dominated by women (which is not necessarily a positive thing). In my experience, there are more women in the nonprofit sector, as it’s seen as an emotional industry and more suited to traditional “female” tendencies. I would love to see more men in my industry in the hope that this stereotype could phase out, which would benefit the industry as a whole. The nonprofit space is incredibly dynamic, and the work done betters the lives of many. Gender should play no role whatsoever in the jobs we take, the money we are paid, or the ways in which we advance in our careers. Unfortunately, women are stifled in these areas, and I am passionate to do my part to change that.

Career and/or life advice for other babes?
Leadership comes from within. Being a good leader means recognizing your own strengths and weaknesses, while also incorporating the strengths and weaknesses of those you come across in business. If you are empathic by nature, lead with empathy—be true to yourself and learn to find where you can uniquely add value. (And take the job that scares you—most often it turns out to be the best experience!)

Connect with Amy:

Email / Website / Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn / Instagram

This interview has been condensed and edited.

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