Dr. Jeffrey Brenner, MD, joined The Jewish Board as CEO in May 2021. A healthcare and nonprofit leader focused on improving outcomes for vulnerable and complex populations, Brenner began his career as a frontline family physician, providing full-spectrum family health services for a Medicaid-enrolled population.

Recognizing the need for a new way for hospitals, providers, and community residents to collaborate, he founded what would become the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers in 2002 and served as its CEO from its incorporation in 2006 through 2017. In 2013, he was honored with the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship for his innovative use of data to identify high-need, high-cost patients in a fragmented system and improve their care.

While continuing to serve as the CEO of the Camden Coalition, in 2012, Brenner accepted an invitation from a local hospital to jointly reorganize and co-lead its urban outpatient hospital clinics, which launched a highly successful inpatient and outpatient addiction treatment program which brought addiction services to the emergency room, hospital floors, and pregnant mothers experiencing addiction.

From 2017 to 2020, as a senior vice president at United Healthcare, Brenner co-developed and jointly scaled a national program to provide housing and support services to complex Medicaid members experiencing homelessness in over 22 states. Brenner holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from Vassar College and graduated from Rutgers University’s Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

Lara Kassel is the coordinator of Medicaid Matters New York, the statewide coalition of over 100 individuals and organizations representing the interests of New Yorkers served by the Medicaid program. In her role as coordinator, Lara organizes all the activities of this diverse coalition, which works to ensure that Medicaid consumer interests are included, understood, and met in any and all discussions on Medicaid in New York. She was a member of the original Medicaid Redesign Team, and she served on the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) Project Approval and Oversight Panel. Lara has been recognized by peer organizations for her role as a consumer advocate, including the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Association and Health Care for All New York. Prior to joining Medicaid Matters, she served as legislative staff to former Assembly Health Committee Chair Richard Gottfried. Lara has a bachelor of arts degree from the State University of New York College at Geneseo, where she majored in sociology.

Chad Shearer is senior vice president for policy and program at the United Hospital Fund (UHF) of New York, where he oversees work to build an effective and equitable health care system for every New Yorker. He leads work across UHF’s focus areas of coverage and access, quality and equity, and clinical-community partnerships, and manages a small grant program that reinforces those priorities. Shearer directs a team of experts engaged in policy and health system landscape analysis and guides programs and research to increase the quality, reliability, and efficiency of care. He also leads UHF efforts to foster health care and community organization collaborations to address social needs and oversees the convening of diverse audiences to collaborate on major health policy and delivery issues in New York. In prior roles at UHF, he directed the Medicaid Institute and served as vice president for policy.

Previously, Shearer was at the Princeton School of Public & International Affairs, where he served as deputy director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s State Health Reform Assistance Network, a project coordinating technical assistance to 11 states implementing the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansion provisions. He was also a lecturer in public affairs at the university, teaching a graduate capstone policy workshop. Shearer also spent time at the Center for Health Care Strategies, where he helped shape its Medicaid Leadership Institute. Before that, he served as legislative director for Congressman Pete Stark, who was chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, in the United States House of Representatives. Shearer holds both law and master of health administration degrees from the University of Iowa.