Nancy Plaxico

With a background in international relations, Nancy Plaxico has spent most of her career in health care as an entrepreneur and has worked in both the public and private sectors. After receiving her master’s degrees in International Relations and Asian Studies from Columbia University, she began work at the U.S. State Department specializing in China. She later joined the Office of Management and Budget, where her career in health care began and she covered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Food & Drug Administration.

After moving to San Diego, she became a founder of Community Care Network (CCN), a health care management company, and helped it grow over 15 years to become nationwide. CCN was also a social enterprise, with most of its profits going to a foundation she helped found, Alliance Healthcare Foundation. After the sale of CCN, $83 million of the proceeds went to create an endowment for that foundation, which continues to fund innovative community health programs in California. In recognition for CCN’s development, she was named an Entrepreneur of the Year in San Diego. She went on to work as an executive in other health care startup companies, most recently as Vice President of Healthways, which became a global company serving 68 million people.

She has served on the boards of local, national and international nonprofit organizations and was a board member of Project Concern International (PCI) for more than 20 years. She was also Managing Director of the PCI board for seven years before its merger with Global Communities, when she joined the Global Communities board.