Najja Orr, MBA, assumed the role of president and CEO of Philadelphia Corporation for Aging (PCA) during an unprecedented time in PCA’s history as services had to quickly adapt during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under his direction, services are continuing to meet the ever-evolving needs of Philadelphia’s older adults. This includes delivering more than 1.9 million meals to older Philadelphians through home-delivered and community-based meal programs in the last 11 months. Orr in 2017 joined PCA as its Chief Strategy Officer, leading the agency’s planning department. Prior to coming to PCA, Orr worked for the Bucks County Area Agency on Aging starting in 2002, serving as the agency’s director from 2011 to 2017. Orr has served on several boards during his tenure in the aging field and held a number of positions. Currently he sits on ASA’s Board, and has chaired the Pennsylvania Department of Aging Cultural Diversity Advisory Council, PCA Care Connections and the Bucks County Commissioners Senior Task Force; as well as having been president of the Bucks County Foundation on Aging and Innovations Home Care.

Rani Snyder, MPA, has more than 25 years’ experience working with preeminent healthcare institutions across the nation improving the care of older adults, identifying and guiding healthcare programs that have set the standard for medical best practices, increased medical education opportunities and maximized resources to improve healthcare broadly. She brings that experience to The John A. Hartford Foundation, where she coordinates initiatives that foster collaboration among academic institutions, hospitals and healthcare providers to build Age-Friendly Health Systems, support family caregivers and improve serious illness and end-of-life care. She also chairs the board for Grantmakers in Aging, is a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, and previously served as a volunteer Long-Term Care Ombudsman for the State of Nevada Aging and Disability Services Division.

Ginna Baik has had over a decade in senior care and technology experience with a mission to provide scalable technology and services to underserved populations. Prior to her work in senior care, she worked years with title one projects with Sylvan Learning in Chicago Public Schools. As she transitioned from serving the nation’s youth to the nation’s older adult population, she has established a social platform startup, led innovation and resident technology with a national senior care provider, Brookdale Senior Living, and most recently built the senior care business practice at a national technology solution provider, CDW. With her role at Amazon, she is leading Alexa smart properties business focused on senior living and pioneering voice technology with older adults. Ginna is an executive board member at America’s Society on Aging, member of Board of Directors at Leading Age California, and the Chairman of the board at OATS (Older Adults Tech Services), an affiliate of AARP. Ginna lives in sunny San Diego with her husband, two young adult children and her dog Lily.

Melissa Tischler, MBA, leads innovation strategy in Lippincott’s New York office. With more than 20 years of such experience, she has created products, services and experiences across a range of industries. Tischler has a strong track record of bringing new products and experiences to market for a range of clients including Citi, Airbnb, Nestle, Marriott, Virgin, Office Depot and ASA. Prior to joining Lippincott, she spent nearly a decade as the Head of Strategy at Fahrenheit 212, an innovation consulting firm, where she shaped Fahrenheit’s approach to strategy and led the firm’s engagements in retail and consumer packaged goods. Previous to that work, Tischler was an entrepreneur, designing and launching the personal care brand, EOS. Tischler also co-founded Women in Innovation, a nonprofit focused on building the skills of women in the innovation industry

Davis Park, MA, has been developing and managing Front Porch Center for Innovation and Wellbeing’s (FPCIW) technology initiatives and programs since 2011. The FPCIW is a center of excellence within Front Porch, a Southern California nonprofit provider of retirement living communities and affordable housing. Park has more than two decades of program development experience in technology program design, testing and implementation among older adult, low-income and other underserved communities to explore and deploy innovations to improve access to digital solutions. Park is the former director of Community Technology Programs at the Little Tokyo Service Center, where he managed several community-based initiatives that focused on bridging the digital divide. He also is an inaugural member of the Zero Divide ZFellows, a program developed to facilitate technology adoption and social justice in underserved communities. He has served on several boards and committees dedicated to promoting technology access, adoption and policy.

Benjamin W. Veghte, MPA, PhD, is Director of the WA Cares Fund, the nation's first universal long-term care insurance program in Washington State. He is also an MIT CoLab Mel King Community Fellow and member of the Care Guild, a group of 125 innovators redesigning care for the 21st century. Previously, he was Vice President for Policy at the National Academy of Social Insurance and led the research portfolio at Caring Across Generations, where he led design of Universal Family Care. Veghte studied the history of European social policy at the University of Chicago and holds a MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Vincent Tilford has 30 years’ experience in the not-for-profit and for-profit housing and community development sectors. He has worked as an investment professional and a banker. Additionally, he has been the CEO of four nonprofit/public sector organizations, including the Arkansas Development Finance Authority, Detroit Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Habitat for Humanity Detroit and now the Luella Hannan Memorial Foundation (Hannan). At the Hannan Foundation, Tilford leads a team whose mission is to improve the quality of life for older adults throughout Michigan. Tilford has served several boards, including the Center for Community-Based Enterprise, the Wayne State Institutional Review Board, and the Council of Michigan Foundations. He also has served on the Grant Makers in Aging board of directors, where he was treasurer for four years.

Stephen Farber, JD, MBA, has a background in law and investment banking. He left his career as the Global Co-Head of Project Finance Advisory at Barclays Capital when his mother developed pancreatic cancer. His experience with the healthcare system, caregiving and care management refocused his professional goals to address problems he encountered with his mother. Farber built UltraLinq, a cloud-based SaaS (Software as a Service) company that improved clinical imaging workflow and accessibility. Following the sale of UltraLinq, Stephen found his passion building HealthHive, PBC. This early-stage digital platform creates a “community of caring” around older adults, empowering improved care coordination by sharing communication, data, social information, resources and knowledge, resulting in improved care and reduced costs.

Denny Chan, JD, is managing director, Equity Advocacy, at Justice in Aging (JIA), responsible for leading and developing JIA’s Strategic Initiative on Advancing Equity. Chan and his team work across all program areas to ensure that JIA’s advocacy eliminates barriers and inequities for older adults experiencing systemic discrimination. The son of working-class Chinese immigrant parents, Chan has worked significantly on non-discrimination in healthcare, language access and issues of aging and equity for low-income older adults and brings these experiences to his advocacy. He serves as affiliate faculty at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law and was appointed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom to serve on California’s Civil Rights Council.

Velma Carter-Dryer, MSW, has more than 40 years’ experience as a licensed social worker in behavioral health, aging and healthcare. Her career focused on developing clinical and management skills and understanding organizational dynamics, with a growing awareness of ethics, equity, leadership, caregiving, advocacy and social justice. Her work experience includes positions at the Pennsylvania Department of Aging, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, AARP, and Penn State Health. Her history at ASA began when she completed its New Ventures in Leadership program. She has chaired several committees including NVL Advisory Committee and Minority Concerns Committee and most recently was co-chair of the DEI Upstanders. She has been a mentor for NVL and ASA RISE fellows. Carter-Dryer serves as vice chair of the Dauphin County Council on Aging, on the PA Council on Aging, as a member of the Village-to-Village Network national board, on the Dementia Friendly PA Community Advisory Committee and has served on a regional healthcare advisory board.

Nicole Howell is director of Direct Care Workforce Development at the National Council on Aging (NCOA), where she leads its Direct Care Workforce Strategies Center. Prior to joining NCOA, she was the director of Workforce Policy at LeadingAge, where she advanced innovative policies to support the aging services sector. Howell also served as health policy advisor to Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (NJ-9), managing a portfolio that included health, Social Security, and veterans’ affairs. She was a 2021–2022 Health and Aging Policy Fellow, working with the House Ways and Means Committee’s Health Subcommittee, where her work focused on long-term care, elder justice, and workforce policy. Prior to her time in Washington, she was the executive director of Empowered Aging, leading advocacy and support efforts through the long-term care ombudsman programs across three of California’s most diverse counties. She was named one of Congressman John Garamendi’s 2020 Women of the Year for her dedicated service to long-term care residents.

Paul Nash, PhD, is a professor in the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California. His research focuses on intersectional discrimination and stigma as well as health inequity, predominantly for older minority and “at risk” communities living with HIV. Nash is also a commissioner and co-chair of the aging caucus for the Los Angeles County Commission on HIV, as well as being actively involved with many local advocacy and patient-centered organizations. He works collaboratively and uses multidisciplinary approaches to further translational and community engagement in Geroscience. Nash is committed to not only furthering the research agenda but also to widening accessibility to research, leading to forming new evidence-based practice and policy, as well as new academic and professional gerontological programs to translate research into accessible education.

Ling Kung, MBA, is senior director at Kaiser Permanente, leading the Continuum of Care product vertical for KP’s Care Delivery Technology Services. She loves working at the intersection of design, technology, and healthcare to bring creative solutions to market in service of improving the total experience of members and clinicians. Ling began her Kaiser Permanente career as an administrative fellow in Southern California, and has worked in care delivery, hospital and health planning, and now technology. Her former roles include strategic planning for the Medicare Line of Business, department administrator for OB/GYN, product innovation for the commercial lines of business, and innovation for care delivery technology. Prior to KP, Ling was a management consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers.