50 Most Influential Physician Executives – 2016

A career in medicine was always going to be a good bet for Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, growing up with parents who were both practicing physicians. And the wager would have paid off, since healthcare has been her life's work. For more than 13 years, Lavizzo-Mourey has led the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation's largest philanthropic organization focused solely on health and healthcare delivery. In 2015, the foundation awarded more than 700 grants and contracts worth $375 million. Since taking the helm, Lavizzo-Mourey, 61, has led an initiative dubbed the Culture of Health in America, emphasizing healthy communities and healthy children, and a transformation in both the healthcare system and in healthcare leadership. Before joining the RWJF, she served as the Sylvan Eisman professor of medicine and healthcare systems at the University of Pennsylvania. A geriatrics specialist, Lavizzo-Mourey also directed Penn's Institute on Aging and was chief of geriatric medicine at the medical school. Earlier she was deputy administrator of what is now the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. She also co-chaired a groundbreaking Institute of Medicine study on racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare.