Staff
Tom Koutsoumpas
Co-Chair of the Board of Directors
Tom Koutsoumpas has long been recognized as one of the nation’s leading experts and advocates in health care policy. He is also a recognized leader in issues related to Medicare, elder care, advanced illness and hospice care. With a career that spans from the U.S. Senate and the Indiana Governor’s Office to leading the development of the nation’s largest health care companies’ Washington presence, Tom has worked to ensure that private and public health care programs and organizations are prepared to meet the ongoing opportunities and challenges related to health system transformation. Tom has primarily focused on high-quality patient care delivery.
Tom co-founded and currently co-chairs the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC). In addition, Tom currently serves as President and CEO of the National Partnership for Hospice Innovation and a Principal at Healthsperien, a Washington-based policy and legal services organization. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President and Founding Executive Director of the Mintz Levin Center for Health Law & Policy, a part of the Mintz Levin law firm. Before joining Mintz Levin, Tom served as Corporate Vice President of UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation’s largest healthcare companies. Tom joined United as Senior Vice President at Ovations, United’s then-Medicare division. At Ovations Tom developed and oversaw federal and state government relations during implementation of Part D and the expansion of the Medicare Advantage program.
Tom is a member of the Roundtable on Quality Care for People with Serious Illness in the Health and Medicine Division of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which convenes experts in the in quality care for those with serious illnesses. Tom also serves as one of the leaders of the Project on Advanced Care at Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School. Tom is also the current Chairman of the Board of Directors of Capital Caring and the Immediate Past Chairman of the Board of Directors of The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship. In addition, Tom served as a member of the Advisory Council of the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership and he previously served on the Board of Directors of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization and on the Board of Trustees of the National Hospice Foundation. He has also been a member of the Business-Government Relations Council in Washington DC.
Prior to his work with UnitedHealth Group, Tom was Executive Vice President and Chief of Public Affairs at VITAS Healthcare Corporation. Tom’s work experience prior to VITAS included serving as Senior Advisor and Executive Assistant to former Indiana Governor (and later Senator) Evan Bayh. Tom also worked as a health policy advisor with the Health Practice Group of the Hogan Lovells law firm (formerly Hogan and Hartson law firm), where he was instrumental in creating and implementing the Medicare Hospice Benefit. He began his career working in the United States Senate and also served as an associate in public affairs for Burson Marsteller.
Tom is a co-author of the books A Roadmap to Success: Transforming Advanced Illness Care in America and Having Your Own Say: Getting the Right Care When It Matters Most by Gundersen Health System. Tom is a graduate of Georgetown University in Washington, DC where he served on the Georgetown University Board of Regents.
Bill Novelli
Co-Chair of the Board of Directors, Professor, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University, and former CEO, AARP
Bill Novelli is a professor in the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. He teaches in the MBA program and created and leads the Global Social Enterprise Initiative at the School. He also is Co-Chair of the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC), a national organization dedicated to reforming advanced illness/end of life care by empowering consumers, changing the health care delivery system, improving public policies and enhancing provider capacity. From 2001 to 2009, he was CEO of AARP, a membership organization of 40 million people 50 and older. During his tenure, AARP achieved important policy successes at national and state levels in health, financial security, good government and other areas. It also doubled its budget, added five million new members and expanded internationally.
Prior to AARP, Bill was President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, whose mandate is to change public policies and the social environment, limit tobacco companies’ marketing and sales practices to children and serve as a counterforce to the tobacco industry and its special interests in the U.S. and abroad. He now serves as chairman of the board.
Previously, he was Executive Vice President of CARE, the international relief and development organization. He was responsible for all operations in the U.S. and abroad. CARE helps impoverished people in Africa, Asia and Latin America in health, agriculture, environmental protection and small business support. CARE also provides emergency relief to people in need.
Earlier, Bill co-founded and was President of Porter Novelli, now one of the world’s largest public relations agencies and part of the Omnicom Group, an international marketing communications corporation. He directed numerous corporate accounts as well as the management and development of the firm. Porter Novelli was founded to apply marketing to social and health issues, and grew into an international marketing/public relations agency with corporate, not-for-profit and government clients. He retired from the firm in 1990 to pursue a second career in public service. He was named one of the 100 most influential public relations professionals of the 20th century by the industry’s leading publication.
He is a recognized leader in social marketing and social change, and has managed programs in cancer control, diet and nutrition, cardiovascular health, reproductive health, infant survival, pay increases for educators, charitable giving and other programs in the U.S. and the developing world.
He began his career at Unilever, a worldwide-packaged goods marketing company, moved to a major ad agency, and then served as Director of Advertising and Creative Services for the Peace Corps. In this role, he helped direct recruitment efforts for the Peace Corps, VISTA, and social involvement programs for older Americans.
He taught marketing management for 10 years in the University of Maryland’s M.B.A. program and also taught health communications there. He has lectured at many other institutions. He has written numerous articles and chapters on marketing management, marketing communications, and social marketing in journals, periodicals and textbooks, as well as two books: Fifty Plus: Give Meaning and Purpose to the Best Time of Your Life (with Boe Workman, updated 2008) and Managing the Older Worker (with Peter Capelli, 2010).
Bill serves on a number of boards and committees, including: Healthways, Strategic Partnerships, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Bipartisan Policy Center Action Network, Comeback America Initiative, the Philips Center for Health and Well-Being, KaBoom!, the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Transforming End of Life Care and IOM’s Roundtable on Value & Science-Driven Health Care. He and his wife, Fran, live in Bethesda, Maryland. They have three adult children and seven grandchildren.
Education
Bachelor of Arts –University of Pennsylvania
Master of Arts –University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School for Communication
Jon Broyles
Executive Director
JBroyles@TheCTAC.org
Jon oversees day-to-day operations and sets strategy for C-TAC. Early in his career he met Reverend Diane Smalley, a powerful advocate living with advanced illness, who told him to keep it simple: focus on opening doors. In acting on Diane's legacy Jon has the benefit of drawing on hundreds of innovators’ experience and talent in the Coalition. His role is channeling these resources into practical approaches to improve care for those living with advanced illness.
David Longnecker, MD
Secretary-Treasurer of the Board of Directors
Chief Clinical Innovations Officer
DEL@TheCTAC.org
David E. Longnecker, M.D. is the Chief Clinical Innovations Officer of C-TAC (the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care), an organization dedicated to the ideal that all Americans with advanced illness, especially the sickest and most vulnerable, receive comprehensive, high-quality, person- and family-centered care that is consistent with their goals and values and honors their dignity.
His career spans a spectrum of commitment to healthcare improvement as a physician-scientist, clinician and educator at the University of Missouri, the University of Virginia and the University of Pennsylvania, where he served as Robert D. Dripps Professor and Chair of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, Vice Dean for Professional Services and Sr. Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System.
He also served as a Director at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), where he founded the Chief Medical Officers Group and co-founded its Integrating Quality initiative to enhance quality, safety and cost-effective care delivery in academic medical centers. He is the author of over 110 scientific articles and chapters and the editor of eight medical textbooks, including the 1800-page Anesthesiology and its associated website, Access Anesthesiology (http://www.accessanesthesiology.com).
Dr. Longnecker is a fellow of the Royal College of Anaesthetists (UK) and member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences, where he chaired the IOM Committee on Aerospace Medicine and Medicine for Extreme Environments (2001-2009). He now serves on the NASA Human Exploration and Operations Committee and chairs its Research Subcommittee.
Brad Stuart, MD
Chief Medical Officer
BradS@TheCTAC.org
Brad is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of ACIStrategies. With more than 35 years of experience practicing internal medicine, palliative care and hospice, and as a healthcare innovator with a national reputation, he has a career-long commitment to improving clinical and economic outcomes by promoting dignity, choice and responsibility. He was instrumental in creating the first Advanced Illness Management (AIM) program in the US with a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 1999, shepherded its growth over a decade at Sutter Health, and spearheaded the proposal that earned AIM a $13 million award in 2010 from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation. Brad drove AIM’s growth and development toward a national model now adopted by the American Hospital Association and many US health systems and championed by the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC), where he is a founding Board member. For over 10 years Brad has focused on delivery system redesign, specializing in outcome and financial metrics and analytics, physician and staff training, and value-driven cost reduction in advanced illness. A graduate of Stanford University School of Medicine, he was named to the 2013 HealthLeaders’ Media list of Top 20 national difference-makers and was profiled in Atlantic Monthly. He has been named Physician of the Year by the California Association of Health Services at Home. Brad speaks internationally on clinical, economic and spiritual issues in advanced illness.
Mark Sterling
Chief Strategy Officer
MSterling@TheCTAC.org
Mark is C-TAC’s Chief Strategy Officer, and serves as the inaugural Senior Fellow in Advanced Care and Health Policy for the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.
For over 35 years, Mark has been an advisor to mission-driven healthcare organizations. His experience includes serving as partner in a leading global law firm, as general counsel and chief strategy officer of a leading health care services organization providing end-of-life care, and as a member of nonprofit Boards of Directors serving frail elderly and terminally ill individuals. He recently was a Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative. Mark has been a partner in the Washington DC and Miami offices of Hogan Lovells (formerly Hogan & Hartson), where he was a founding member of both its Health group and its Miami office.
Over three decades, Mark has worked to structure, develop and expand innovative programs serving the elderly and terminally ill, including PACE, home care, and hospice programs. He served on HHS’s first Negotiated Rulemaking Committee, which reached a consensus recommendation on the hospice wage index that was adopted by the Medicare program. He also has worked on public-private partnerships to establish new medical research institutes, including Scripps Florida on behalf of The Scripps Research Institute and JAX Genomic Medicine on behalf of The Jackson Laboratory.
Mark holds Juris Doctor and Master of Public Policy degrees from The University of Michigan, and served as Managing Editor of the Michigan Law Review. He has served as President (Board Chair) of Hospice Care of the District of Columbia, and as a Board member of Comprehensive Care Management Corporation (now CenterLight Health System), which operates PACE programs in New York City.
Marian Grant, DNP, ACNP-BC, ACHPN, FPCN, RN
Senior Regulatory Advisor
MGrant@TheCTAC.org
Marian Grant is a nurse practitioner (NP) dually certified in Acute Care and Palliative Care/Hospice. She is an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Nursing and is also a nurse practitioner on the University of Maryland Medical Center’s Palliative Care Service. She is currently a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow and worked in Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office on Capitol Hill in 2015 and is now an INSPIRE fellow at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) on their Hospice demonstration.
Grant received her Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) from the University of Maryland, and her Masters and Bachelors in Nursing degrees from the Johns Hopkins University. She has worked as a nurse at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, helped start the Palliative Care program at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, and worked as an NP at the Gilchrist Hospice In-Patient Unit in Towson, Maryland. She is a co-author of The Hospice and Palliative Care Approach to Serious Illness, has done research as an online palliative care nurse practitioner on the Johns Hopkins Pancreatic Cancer website, and blogged for the Journal of Palliative Medicine. Before becoming a nurse, Dr. Grant received a Bachelors in Science from Miami University in mass communication and had a career in advertising and marketing for the Procter & Gamble Company.
Andrew MacPherson
Senior Policy Advisor
AMacPherson@TheCTAC.org
As Senior Policy Advisor to C-TAC and Principal at Healthsperien, Andrew provides comprehensive strategic guidance, in-depth policy analysis and effective messaging development on wide-range of federal health policy and political issues, including those related to the implementation of Affordable Care Act (ACA), quality and value-based purchasing, Medicare, Medicaid, prescription drug coverage and pharmaceutical cost containment, long-term care supports and services, chronic care management, and public and private insurance coverage expansions. Through his work with dozens of public and private stakeholders at the local, state, regional and federal level, Andrew has a special emphasis on policy and political issues related to advanced care and serious illness.
Prior to his work at Healthsperien, Andrew was Founder and Principal of MacPherson Strategic, Inc., a health care policy, legislative strategy, and communications consulting firm. MacPherson Strategic served a diverse set of health care stakeholder clients, including consumer groups, broad-based coalitions, innovative health care start-ups, and the largest health care purchasers.
Prior to founding MacPherson Strategic, Andrew served as Director of Government Affairs at Jennings Policy Strategies, Inc. (JPS), a nationally recognized health policy consulting firm led by Chris Jennings, the former Senior Health Care Advisor to President Bill Clinton and now Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama. From 2005-2013, Mr. MacPherson staffed a wide variety of client and pro bono initiatives in the policy, political, and communications arenas with JPS, Inc., such as the Bipartisan Policy Center health reform project with former Majority Leaders Baker, Daschle, Dole and Mitchell, presidential campaigns including Obama for America and Hillary Clinton for President, and the Clinton Global Initiative. While at JPS, Andrew researched and co-authored numerous articles and speeches on a range of health policy issues.
From 2005 to 2007, Andrew served in the Government Relations Department with the American Psychiatric Association. At APA, Andrew developed national policy positions, conducted in-depth research on physician access and reimbursement, and engaged on all aspects of targeted lobbying activities including those related to implementation of the Medicare Part D drug benefit, physician reimbursement under Medicare and mental health “parity” legislation.
From 2001 to 2004, Mr. MacPherson worked for a range of policy and political organizations and elected officials, including Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Democratic Governors’ Association, Vermont Democratic Party, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, Inc., a market research and strategic communications consulting firm based in Washington, D.C.
Originally from Vermont, Andrew received a B.A. in Political Science from The George Washington University in May 2005.
Cheryl Matheis
Strategic Advisor
CMatheis@theCTAC.org
Cheryl Matheis is C-TAC’s Strategic Advisor. She is a recognized expert in healthcare, aging and consumer law and policy, having served in various high-level positions with AARP for over 25 years. Some of her many highlights include: serving as AARP’s Senior Principal and Counsel for External Affairs; serving as Senior Vice President for Policy, Strategy & International Affairs; providing expert counsel to AARP’s Board of Directors and executives; and directing successful campaigns on Health Reform and Medicare Part D Implementation. As State Affairs Director, Cheryl oversaw work combating predatory lending, and excessive utilities fees, and securing increased access to Medicaid services. She was AARP’s lead representative with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, drafting and securing adoption of consumer protection provisions in model laws. For more than a decade, Cheryl led AARP’s federal regulatory advocacy, brokering agreements with industry and government that resulted in important regulations. She helped write federal standards for Medicare Supplement and Long Term Care Insurance. Throughout her career, Cheryl has worked closely with State Attorneys General, pursuing joint initiatives with the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia Law School.
Cheryl received numerous awards during her AARP career, including the organization’s Outstanding Association Achievement award. She has appeared on major news outlets, including CBS, NBC, ABC, NPR, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
Cheryl is a graduate of Manhattanville College and Catholic University Law School, where she was a member of the Law Review. She is admitted to practice before the District of Columbia federal and local courts and the United States Supreme Court.
Ravi Parikh, MD, MPP
Senior Clinical Advisor
RParikh@TheCTAC.org
Ravi is a resident in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. Ever since serving as a hospice bereavement counselor in high school, Ravi has striven to improve seriously ill individuals’ quality of life, ensuring that people are not only dying better, but living better as well. He has worked to implement novel delivery models of care in advanced illness at the local, state, and national level. He has served on leadership boards of the American College of Physicians, American Geriatrics Society, and Massachusetts Medical Society, and has advised for-profit and non-profit organizations including AARP Services, Inc. and the Healthy Living Center for Excellence. Ravi worked on accountable care organization implementation as a Rappaport Fellow in the Massachusetts State House in 2010; his legislative recommendations earned commendation from the Massachusetts Speaker of the House and were incorporated into landmark payment reform legislation passed in 2012. Ravi’s research interests include delivery reform in advanced illness, cancer survivorship, and integrated palliative care. His work has been published in national venues including The Washington Post, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association, The Atlantic, and Readers’ Digest Magazine, and he is a staff contributor at the Now@NEJM Blog. He has received the AMA Foundation Excellence in Medicine Leadership Award and the American Geriatrics Society Edward Henderson Award. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Harvard College, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Ravi enjoys spending time with his family, cooking, tennis, and watching basketball.
Rev. Tyrone Pitts
Senior Faith Advisor
TyroneSPitts@gmail.com
An internationally published writer on racism, the Rev. Dr. Tyrone Pitts is the general secretary emeritus for the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. In addition for his work with the New Baptist Covenant, Dr. Pitts has also worked for racial justice under the auspices of the National Council of Churches, and currently serves as the chair of the Morehouse School of Religion Board of Directors.
Dr. Pitts is an ordained minister in the Progressive National Baptist Convention, having earned his doctoral ministry degree from United Theological Seminary in Ohio.
Angela Overton
Senior Advisor to the Interfaith and Diversity Workgroup
AOverton@theCTAC.org
Angela Overton serves as a Contract Chaplain at Norton Hospital, an Associate Minister at Green Castle Baptist Church and a Staff Member at Burnett Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville, KY, where she is dedicated to Godly compassionate care alongside advancing collaboration between church and community for all those that are affected by illness.
Luke Scuitto
Partnership Manager
LScuitto@theCTAC.org
Sarah Park
Outreach Associate
spark@thectac.org
Sarah Park serves as the Outreach Associate at The Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC). In her role, she supports efforts in building and maintaining partnerships as well as growing C-TAC’s reach across the advanced illness care spectrum.
Prior to joining C-TAC, Sarah worked at the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism for the South Korean government to foster awareness for Korean arts and culture. There, she developed social media campaigns, conducted community events, and oversaw New York City engagement for the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Sarah’s time at the Ministry grew her dedication for creative and genuine storytelling. She continues to pursue this passion at C-TAC by hoping to share the stories of those living with advanced illness.
Originally from New Jersey, Sarah received a B.A. degree in International Affairs and Global Public Health from The George Washington University in May 2018.
Stephen Waldron
Communications Manager
SWaldron@theCTAC.org
Stephen Waldron serves as communications manager at the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC). In this role, he supports the Coalition’s outreach with journalists as well as members of the various communities with which C-TAC partners. He monitors the latest media coverage of issues related to advanced care, identifying and generating opportunities to promote C-TAC’s mission to ensure that all Americans living with advanced illness receive high-quality and person-centered care. He is also heavily involved with the planning and execution of C-TAC’s National Summit on Advanced Illness Care. Trained as a journalist at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, Stephen works to amplify the compelling stories of people living with advanced illness to advocate for their needs. Before joining the C-TAC team, he supported communications efforts at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, first promoting research published in the open-access journal Science Advances, and then highlighting the organization’s various projects and initiatives on the News & Information team.
Davis Baird
Policy & Advocacy Manager
DBaird@theCTAC.org
Sage Rosenthal
Policy and Advocacy Associate
SRosenthal@theCTAC.org
Sage Rosenthal serves as the Advocacy and Policy Associate at the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC). In this role, she supports advancing the policy and advocacy mission of C-TAC through research and building and maintaining stakeholder relationships. Sage has a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Brandeis University in Health: Science, Society, and Policy and Psychology along with a minor in Business. Prior to C-TAC, Sage has gained experience working with state-level and federal-level advocacy on topics such as children’s mental health, global poverty, and preventable diseases. Additionally, she has spent a previous summer gaining policy experience working on the hill.
She hopes to contribute her public health and health policy lens to the mission of delivering high-quality, person-centered care to all individuals in the country living with advanced illness. As well as support the holistic perspective C-TAC emphasizes in its work.
Jennifer Driscoll
Project Manager
JDriscoll@theCTAC.org
Kristina Minior
Operations Coordinator
KMinior@theCTAC.org
Kevin Liu
Database Intern
KLiu@theCTAC.org
Kevin Liu is a doctoral student in clinical psychology currently studying at Palo Alto University. He obtained a BA in psychology and philosophy with a public affairs focus from George Washington University. His main interests include chronic health conditions, especially chronic pain, as well as what can be done to better the psychosocial outcomes of patients with these conditions.
Tim Bauerschmidt & Ramie Liddle
Caregiver Fellows
DrivingMissNorma@gmail.com
Tim Bauerschmidt and Ramie Liddle are professional nomads who retired by age fifty to travel full-time in an Airstream travel trailer with Ringo, their Standard Poodle. They have explored every state but Alaska and consider Mexico's Baja California Peninsula the closest thing to home.
CB Wismar
National Summit Producer
CWismar@theCTAC.org
CB Wismar is a writer and Creative Director who has written for film and television as well as both print and electronic media. He created events and experiences for Fortune 500 companies for over 30 years including TIME’s 75th Anniversary, the Xerox “drupa” Pavillion, 8 ASTA World Travel Congresses and nine Life@50+ events for AARP. He has created and scripted major events for United Way Worldwide, America’s Promise, MCI, ExxonMobil and Conoco-Phillips. Twice a finalist for the Academy Award in the short subjects category, his scripts have been nominated three times for EMMY Awards.
Lou Gagliano
Advisor
LGagliano@theCTAC.org
Daniel Gagliano
Changemaker Fellow
DGagliano@theCTAC.org
Alishia Parkhill
Strategic Advisor
AParkhill@theCTAC.org
Alishia Parkhill is a nonprofit executive with more than 17 years of experience in marketing, communications, membership and operations management. From leading multimillion-dollar cause marketing campaigns to driving change that creates new paths to reach organizational goals, her work has yielded increased awareness, efficiency and revenue for nonprofit brands. Her passion for improving serious illness and end-of-life care has inspired her to shift her career to focus on these issues and pursue her M.S. in Health and Social Innovation. In her spare time, she serves as a volunteer at a local hospice organization where she provides support to patients and families.
Sharon Yoon
Events and Logistics Intern
SYoon@theCTAC.org
Sharon Yoon is the Events and Logistics Intern for the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC). She assists the Partnership Manager with event planning, emphasizing on relationship-building with partners and stakeholders. While interning at the C-TAC, Sharon works at the George Washington University Division of Safety and Security focusing on streamlining productivity and innovation within the Physical Security and Technology Management team.
Sharon graduated from the George Washington University with a Bachelors of Arts degree in International Affairs from the Elliott School of International Affairs and a minor in Music.