Jodie Lesh (’92)
In 2018, Ms. Lesh was asked by then Chairman and CEO, Bernard J. Tyson to launch and lead Kaiser Permanente’s first Office of Transformation with the objective of accelerating innovation well beyond the current pace of change. As Chief Transformation Officer, Ms. Lesh embraces a radically collaborative, agile and method agnostic approach to innovation, focused on scale and impact, with solutions designed through the complementary lenses of human and business need. The early work of the Office of Transformation has been focused on solving some of society’s most pressing problems, such as food security; creating new care models including the acceleration of care into the home; and developing digital tools that enhance patient engagement. She leads the Garfield Center for Innovation, which is focused on designing future delivery models, further developing the organization’s human centered design capabilities, and sharing Kaiser Permanente’s delivery system innovation for the purposes of partnership and collaboration.
In her prior role at Kaiser Permanente as the SVP, National Delivery System Strategy, Planning and Design, Ms. Lesh led the planning and design for the program’s care delivery and administrative facilities, representing approximately $3 billion a year in capital spending, as well as innovation efforts to envision the care delivery system of the future.
Before her role at the national level, Ms. Lesh was Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning and New Ventures for Kaiser Permanente Southern California. In this role, she led the region’s strategic planning process, business development, and capital planning for the region's health care and administrative facilities. Over Ms. Lesh’s tenure with Kaiser Permanente Southern California, she oversaw the planning and construction of 10 hospitals and more than 60 outpatient clinical facilities, representing $12 billion in total investment.
Ms. Lesh has long played a leadership role in driving innovation across Kaiser Permanente. She co-led the Small Hospital, BIG Idea worldwide design competition, soliciting the world’s most talented minds to envision the hospital of the future. A new state-of-the-art hospital in San Diego, California opened in 2017, ushering in the next generation of clinical and information technology designed to transform patient safety, patient experience, provider and patient collaboration, and environmental sustainability. It is among the first LEED Platinum hospitals in the United States.
Ms. Lesh led the Reimagining Ambulatory Design initiative to develop a vision for the future of outpatient care. The “Health Hub Experience,” a book that Ms. Lesh penned with her team, was a Fast Company Innovation in Design finalist. In Fast Company’s April 2016 World Changing Ideas issue, Kaiser Permanente’s first next generation medical office building was highlighted, espousing the use of technology and facility design to fundamentally transform the patient and provider experience.
Ms. Lesh was one of the early architects of Kaiser Permanente’s community health strategy which strives to harness the resources and expertise of Kaiser Permanente to improve the social and economic conditions facing our most disadvantaged communities. The redevelopment of the Marlton Square property in Baldwin Hills Crenshaw for a new medical office building has served as the prototype for coalescing resources devoted to construction, procurement, and hiring to positively impact the social and environmental conditions in our communities. The partnership with 2nd CALL, a second chance program, allowed those previously incarcerated to participate in construction trade apprenticeship programs as part of the building of the clinic. This $90 million groundbreaking project was highlighted as the lead story in the New York Times Business section in October 2019, “When A Steady Paycheck is Good Medicine.”
Ms. Lesh led the launch of Kaiser Permanente’s inclusive economic development strategy that seeks to improve the economic conditions in our most disadvantaged communities and continues to serve as an executive leader for this effort. Ms. Lesh brought the Inner Cities Capital Connections (ICCC) program to Kaiser Permanente, providing tuition-free training to help business owners in under-resourced communities build capacity for sustainable growth, a program that is now in every KP region. KP’s social impact investment strategy stems from this effort, which includes investments in affordable housing and small business lending. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms. Lesh led an effort to harness the talent, innovation and capacity of the Los Angeles Garment District to produce over $10M in Personal Protective Equipment, an effort to mitigate the disrupted supply chain for PPE. This effort protected over 600 jobs in an industry hard hit by the pandemic.
In 2018, Ms. Lesh was honored by Kaiser Permanente when she was the third person in KP’s history to be awarded the George Halvorson Community Health Leadership Award.
Ms. Lesh’s believes that the most impactful and innovative work occurs when the conditions for collaboration are nurtured. In early 2019, Ms. Lesh led Kaiser Permanente’s first company-wide crowdsourcing effort to develop solutions to some of society’s most pressing issues, including food insecurity, childhood trauma, and management of personal health. By harnessing the passion and expertise of over 220,000 employees, culminating in a 4-day accelerator, significant work was launched. Food for Life, Kaiser Permanente’s strategy to eradicate hunger, was launched in late 2019.
Before she joined Kaiser Permanente, Ms. Lesh was Vice President Strategic Planning at Health Net, where she directed strategic planning for its western region and product development and marketing for Health Net of California. Prior to Health Net, Ms. Lesh spent nine years at Deloitte Consulting where she specialized in health care strategy, working with the nation's leading health care organizations in the areas of strategic planning, turnarounds, process reengineering, and new program development.
Ms. Lesh received her bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of California, Berkeley, and her master's in business administration from the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Ms. Lesh is the past Chair of the Board of Governors for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC) where she was instrumental in driving the organization to adopt a more inclusive economic development approach. She currently serves on the LAEDC’s Executive, Governance and Strategic Planning Committees. Ms. Lesh serves on the Board of Directors for Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times and is past President of the Board. She was formerly Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees for Laurence School during the most ambitious capital campaign and building program in the school’s 50+ year history.
