Planned Parenthood Great Plains Announces President and CEO Brandon Hill’s Departure; Emily Wales Named New Interim President and CEO
For Immediate Release: July 7, 2021
Media Contact: Mandy Culbertson, [email protected]
Overland Park, KAN. — Curtis Fisher, Chair of the Board of Directors of Planned Parenthood Great Plains (PPGP), announced today that PPGP’s President and CEO, Brandon Hill, PhD, will step into a new role as Executive Director of Chicago’s Howard Brown Health Center for Education, Research, and Advocacy in August. Emily Wales, PPGP’s Chief Operating Officer, will take the helm as the Interim President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains.
“We are honored and eternally grateful for the expertise Brandon brought to PPGP. Under his leadership over the past three and a half years, PPGP has expanded services and continued to provide life-saving, essential care in an ever-changing health care environment and a political landscape hostile to reproductive health and inclusive comprehensive health care,” said Fisher.
Hill said, “I have been fortunate to serve alongside such a compassionate and dedicated team of providers and advocates who work every day, often amidst daunting challenges, to provide essential sexual and reproductive health care and education, and to fight for equity and justice for all people. I am exceedingly grateful for the countless hours, ideas, and effort PPGP’s employees, loyal supporters, and donors have put in during my tenure here, from the years-long reinvention of health services throughout our states, to defeating bad bills in state legislatures, and most recently, to our innovation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Everything I have accomplished has been thanks to them.”
According to Fisher, Hill brought an unsurpassed passion and drive to his work at PPGP. Within three and a half years, Hill established a deeper organizational commitment to the states it serves and led the organization through significant expansions of health services, the construction of new health centers, a deepening of fundraising and community support, and an elevation of the importance of sexual and reproductive health care in our state legislatures and in public opinion. Hill’s data-driven public health approach to health care service delivery has strengthened PPGP’s position as a provider of choice and has significantly increased access to sexual and reproductive health care across our four states. In his new role, Hill will continue following his passion for improving health outcomes among the LGBTQ community, with a specific focus on addressing racial and ethnic sexual health disparities experienced by LGBTQ people of color.
Hill was joined in his efforts over the last three and a half years by PPGP’s Chief Operating Officer, Emily Wales, who will now lead the organization as the Interim President and CEO while the Board of Directors conducts an extensive national search to identify PPGP’s next leader.
“We applaud Brandon’s remarkable efforts in establishing critical infrastructure to ensure that PPGP will maintain its course and thrive under Emily’s skillful direction,” said Fisher. “We look forward to the leadership Emily will bring to PPGP as the Board conducts its search.”
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Planned Parenthood Great Plains has been a leading provider of sexual and reproductive health care for nearly 85 years, serving women, men, and families in communities across Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. Each year, we provide care to more than 40,000 people in our 10 health centers. We believe that every person deserves to have access to the resources and information they need in order to make decisions about their own health.