The Journey with Partners in Health

Please join us on Friday when our speaker will be Lesley King who sits on the Board of Directors for the Partners in Health organization. Their mission is to provide a preferential option for the poor in health care. By establishing long-term relationships with sister organizations based in settings of poverty, Partners In Health strives to achieve two overarching goals: to bring the benefits of modern medical science to those most in need of them and to serve as an antidote to despair.

  Lesley graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School with a BSE in Strategic Management and went on to spend 15 years on Wall Street at JP Morgan as a Managing Director in Fixed Income Sales. A determined social justice advocate, Lesley retired from JP Morgan to focus more of her energy on non-profit work, primarily with Partners In Health (PIH) out of Boston where she has served as an active board member for ten years. She served as Interim COO for Village Health Works, a PIH sister organization operating in Burundi, and is now the Chair of the Board of Directors. She is also a founding board member of the University of Global Health Equity, a new medical university located in Rwanda.

  Lesley and her family run “The Back 40 Farm”, an organic vegetable farm in Washington, Connecticut, where they are involved in the local and organic food movements as well as international food security. They are co-owners of a few food related businesses in Greenwich, Connecticut including “Back 40 Mercantile”, a country store that gives 10% of all profits to PIH’s Food Security Program.  She is an active member of her community, is on the board of the Perrot Memorial Library in Old Greenwich and previously served as PTA president for Old Greenwich School, interim executive director of Trinity Church, and the co-head of the Trinity Church Rwanda Council.   Lesley‘s family and two other families founded the Old Greenwich Farmers Market in 2010.. Lesley and her husband Bill have four children- one in college, one in high school, one in middle school, and one in elementary school. Lesley and Bill are taking a sabbatical of sorts to participate in the Distinguished Careers Institute program here at Stanford.  Lesley’s work with Partners In Health and Village Health Works will continue from West Coast.