This year, we welcome seven new members to our Chicago Board of Directors. We are proud to have a 17-person board with such diverse leadership roles, experiences, and expertise. It is reinvigorating to navigate a global pandemic and global demonstrations against racism with such a committed board to advance our vision of health equity. We’re proud to welcome the following six new board members:
- Diana Bowen, MD is an Assistant Professor of Urology at Lurie Children’s Hospital and Northwestern Medicine. Her practice is focused on reconstructive surgery and the transition of pediatric patients with chronic urologic conditions into adult care, as well as the transgender and gender non-binary community. She earned her BA from Harvard University and MD from the University of Michigan, followed by surgical training at Northwestern and fellowship at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
- Luis Llanos is a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and a graduate from Northwestern Kellogg’s School of Management MBA program. Originally from Cali, Colombia, Luis and his family immigrated to the United States due to the political unrest of his home country and has called St. Louis home since. He attended the University of Notre Dame where he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. From there, he worked at Accenture where he was an Associate Manager in the human resources technology space, a leader in the Hispanic group, and Accenture relationship lead for the non-profit Back on My Feet Chicago where he also served on the junior board. Prior to joining the board of PHE, Luis was a Kellogg Board Fellow.
- Vijen Patel was the co-founder and CEO of Pressbox, the largest locker–based dry cleaner in the world. Our guests place their clothing in any one of our locations, 24/7, and receive them back two days later. Pressbox sold to Procter & Gamble in July 2018 after building a portfolio of 1,200 locations across 8 cities. As of July 2020, Pressbox has re-branded to Tide Cleaners and has 2,000 locations in 14 cities. He continues to advise Tide Cleaners. Before Pressbox, Vijen was a private equity investor focusing on retail, consumer, and healthcare. Prior to private equity, Vijen worked at McKinsey & Company and Goldman Sachs in New York, London, and Johannesburg. Vijen lives in Chicago with his wife and 9 month old. He graduated from University of Notre Dame with degrees in math and finance. His first business at 14 was selling Chicago Cubs tickets and his second venture was starting the Actuarial Science Club of Notre Dame. He loves Liverpool FC, running, and investing.
- Connie Sun is an MBA candidate at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, where she is focused on growth and scaling and technology management. At Kellogg, she leads the Greater China Club, and also serves in leadership positions on the Tech Club, Venture Capital Club, and Ski Club. This summer, she will be interning at Salesforce as a Product Marketer on their Customer 360 team. Prior to Kellogg, she spent 4+ years at Deloitte Consulting focused on digital strategy and transformation across various industries. She is passionate about problem solving in the non-profit sector and leveraging her skillset to solve disruptive strategic, digital, and organizational challenges businesses face today.
- Allison Sutera is a dynamic leader with over 18 years of food and hospitality experience. She has an impressive track record of delivering results through leadership, critical thinking, strong listening and communication skills, collaborative teamwork, and creating solutions during her time at PepsiCo, Kellogg Company, and Aramark. Allison is a Region Vice President at Aramark in the Business Dining Division, focused on delivering exceptional hospitality and dining experiences to companies across the US. She has held a variety of roles in her 6 years at Aramark, including Chief of Staff to the former CEO, President, and Chairman of the Board. She serves as the Chair for EMPOWER, Aramark’s Employee Resource Group for women, and has consistently been an advocate for mentoring and developing others throughout her career. She is passionate about supporting individuals to discover their own talents and helping create tools and resources that enable them to achieve their goals. Allison has a B.A. in International Business from the University of Kansas and an Executive M.B.A. from the University of Colorado. She is a founding board member to a woman-owned business and food start-up in Minneapolis – Humble Nut Butter. She is an event leader and volunteer for Chicago Special Olympics annual Polar Plunge. She lives in Chicago with her husband Dan, twins Elena and Tyler, and their dog, Rocky.
- Crystal Pirtle Tyler, PhD, MPH is the Executive Director of Ci3 at the University of Chicago, a research center addressing the social and structural determinants of adolescent sexual and reproductive health through design, narrative, play, and policy change. She began her career at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta first as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer then as an Epidemiologist within the Division of Reproductive Health. There she served as a subject matter expert on adolescent sexual and reproductive health, and the translation of research to public health practice. In this role, Dr. Tyler also partnered closely with national health care provider organizations to advance adolescent sexual and reproductive health. From CDC, Dr. Tyler moved on to become the Director of the Michigan Public Health Institute’s Center for Child and Family Health where she implemented systems-level improvements to promote equity in the quality and availability of public health services for vulnerable populations. Dr. Tyler is a trained facilitator and strategic planner with additional expertise in both qualitative and quantitative research methods. She has published on topics such as contraceptive safety and use, adolescent sexual and reproductive health, reproductive cancers, birth defects, and infant mortality. Dr. Tyler completed both her PhD and MPH in Epidemiology, at Michigan State and the University of Michigan, respectively, and her Bachelor’s degree in Women’s Studies at Spelman College.
- Betsy Westhoff is an executive and leadership coach bringing years of business and non -profit experience, natural curiosity, intuition, a sense of humor and careful, thoughtful listening to her clients. Betsy believes leadership is a right and not a privilege. Her business experience is diverse. She has practiced law and led marketing teams at a Fortune 100 Company, a company focused on marketing to Women and Moms, and at a Chicago-based Non-Profit. She has also served on boards on strategic planning, marketing and business development. Betsy is currently coaching and mentoring rising female leaders and entrepreneurs at Women Unlimited and Chicago Innovation. Betsy’s career has been built with a deep commitment to lasting, trusting relationships and a natural curiosity about people. Betsy is also a mom, daughter, wife, sister, dog owner and friend…in no particular order!