Susan Dentzer is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the NEHI, the Network for Excellence in Health Innovation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization composed of more than 100 stakeholder organizations from across all key sectors of health and health care. NEHI’s mission is to advance innovations that improve health, enhance the quality of health care, and achieve greater value for the money spent. With offices in Washington, DC, and Boston, Massachusetts, NEHI conducts independent, objective research and thought leadership to accelerate these innovations and bring about changes within health care and public policy.
One of the nation's most respected health and health policy thought leaders and journalists, and a frequent speaker and commentator on television and radio, including NPR, Dentzer previously served as senior policy adviser to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Prior to that, she was editor-in-chief of the journal Health Affairs, and from 1998 to 2008, she served as the on-air Health Correspondent for the PBS NewsHour.
Dentzer is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the Council on Foreign Relations. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Rescue Committee, a leading humanitarian organization; a member of the board of directors of Research!America, which works to advance research to improve health; and a member of the board of directors of the Public Health Institute. She is a fellow of the National Academy of Social Insurance and the Hasting Center, an institution dedicated to bioethics and the public interest. She previously served as a public member of the American Board of Medical Specialties. She serves on multiple advisory boards, including those of the Duke-Margolis Center; the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California-San Francisco; and the March of Dimes public policy advisory group.
A graduate of Dartmouth, Dentzer formerly chaired the Dartmouth Board of Trustees, and is a member of the Board of Advisors of Dartmouth Medical School. She and her husband, Charles Alston, have three grown children.
Valerie Fleishman provides the strategic and operational direction for NEHI. As Executive Director, she oversees the institute’s policy research, programs, operations, fundraising and communications. Under her leadership, NEHI's programs seek to improve chronic illness care, promote disease prevention and wellness, and speed the adoption of valuable innovations across the health care system. She has authored numerous reports, articles and briefs on a wide range of health policy issues.
Ms. Fleishman joined NEHI at its founding in 2002. She has over fifteen years’ experience in health care, health policy, technology and innovation. Prior to joining NEHI, Ms. Fleishman was a director in Health and Wellness at Scient Corporation, where she led strategic consulting engagements with leading biotechnology, medical device and pharmaceutical clients in areas such as telemedicine, disease management, health information technology, clinical trials, and sales and marketing strategies.
Previously, Ms. Fleishman was a manager in Arthur D. Little's Global Strategy Practice. She also worked in product management and brand marketing at Johnson & Johnson's McNeil Consumer Products.
Ms. Fleishman received her bachelor of arts, cum laude, from Harvard University and her master of business administration from the Harvard Business School. In 2008, she was honored as one of Boston’s "40 under 40" by the Boston Business Journal.
