Pioneering in the health sector for more than 30 years of service

Lisa David is the president and CEO of Public Health Solutions, the largest health nonprofit organization serving New York City. For more than 60 years, its mission has been to support the city’s underserved residents in achieving optimal health. It focuses on research, supporting community-based organizations through government partnerships, health equity and providing direct services to vulnerable populations. 

David has led the organization for just over a decade. She previously held several leadership roles at multiple health nonprofit organizations, including Medicines360 and Planned Parenthood. She also helped lead the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the Columbia School of Physicians and Surgeons. 

As she prepares to retire from leading Public Health Solutions at the end of the year, David spoke with City and State about her accomplishments and plans for her next phase, as well as her reflections on health care’s place in America and where it could go in the future, including with the city’s next mayor. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What does a typical day look like leading Public Health Solutions? 

There’s actually no typical day because we’re a fairly large and somewhat complex organization in terms of the scope of different types of things that we do. There are always issues that come up, some of which you’re working on and are expected. But these days, also a bunch that are not. At the level of a CEO, it’s always, for the most part, thinking strategically about how our programs and what we’re trying to do will impact New Yorkers and the external things that we don’t control and their impact on our organization and as well as New Yorkers. It’s busy, it’s nonstop and exciting.

How does it feel to be at the end of this? 

I am proud of my accomplishments. I’ve been a change-maker and have helped promote very good changes. These fights don’t end; they go on and on. We’ve been fighting for stuff for decades and hundreds of years. There are ups and downs. We’re in a little bit of a down, generally, in this country. But that too will pass, I believe, and I’m optimistic that we’ll come back out and move on ahead. But I am ready, I think, having pretty strong battles for 30 years, for the next generation to come and take the lead. I think that broadly, in politics and business and health care. It’s time for someone younger, with the innovation and enthusiasm I might have had more years ago, to move us to the next level. Public Health Solutions still has a lot to accomplish. 

I’m a board chair for a nonprofit pharmaceutical company that develops women’s health products, so I’ll still be engaged. And I’m on my community board in Chelsea, which has all kinds of big projects going on that are controversial. I’ll still be engaged, but without as much 24/7 responsibility.

Looking back at the past 30 years, I think it’s fair to say that health care has expanded greatly in that time. How do you feel about where it is now? 

I think the Affordable Care Act was something that really, really benefited the population at large. A lot of the other changes that have happened in health care have not benefited everybody. 

Some of that mission orientation and making sure we’re taking care of people has been a little crowded out by the business requirements of survival in this system these days, so I think we need to focus on building that back. Health care has gotten completely unaffordable. What we need to focus on is how to make it more affordable again.

What does the future hold for Public Health Solutions?

The Social Care Network has been a way to bring together all the work that we’ve always done. We are a direct service provider in all five boroughs of New York City. It’s like an umbrella that brings everything Public Health Solutions has been doing together. 

We provide a lot of services. We’d like to use the technology we’re beginning to use in this platform to increase access to those services. We’d like to continue this management work for the Department of Health and continue to enhance the infrastructure we have, the IT infrastructure, to support and scale that. It’s a great way of leveraging what Public Health Solutions has always done to have more impact. 

Now that Zohran Mamdani is mayor-elect, do you feel hopeful about your organization working with the city going forward?’ 

Yes, definitely. I think the focus of his campaign – making New York City affordable and livable for everybody – includes most of the people we serve. So I can relate to that. 

Some people think he’s going to do everything all at once … and you can’t do that, and he has no intention of doing that. In a big city and government, you take it step by step and build off the successes. We’re not instantly going to have everything he says he wants to work towards, but I think you could get steps in all of those directions that would be meaningful. 

Once you’re retired from Public Health Solutions, is there anything you’re looking forward to having more time to do? 

I’d like to read more fiction and nonfiction, as opposed to just clips and journals for public health. I want to spend more time with my two grandchildren when I don’t have to work all day. I’d like to travel. And again, I look forward to keeping my fingers in the pot locally, through my community board and with a lot of the contacts and relationships I’ve built in this job, having a chance to see people socially. So I’m looking forward to it.