Michellene Davis serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer of RWJBarnabas Health.
Ms. Davis leads Social Impact and Community Investment across the System. She oversees the areas of Policy Development and Governmental and External Affairs, Healthy Living and Community and Employee Wellness and Engagement, and Global Health. She is the creator of the RWJBarnabas Health Women’s Leadership Alliance, the Young Professional Advisory Council and the Corporate Institute for Internship.
RWJBarnabas Health is the largest integrated healthcare delivery system in the state of New Jersey, and Ms. Davis is the first woman and the first person of color to ever ascend to the position of Executive Vice President in its 152 year history. Ms. Davis directs the strategic policy decisions of the System and strengthens the System’s position with state and federal elected officials and agencies. The RWJBarnabas Health Social Impact and Community Investment Practice leverages the system’s range of assets to advance a culture of health and lift the quality of life in New Jersey communities.
With a programmatic emphasis on ensuring health equity, the practice spearheads innovative social impact and external affairs initiatives that address the social, economic, and environmental conditions that have a significant impact on health outcomes. The policy arm leads the practice as it seeks to change systems, structures, and policies to create a more equitable future for all New Jerseyans.
Before joining RWJBarnabas Health in 2009, Ms. Davis served as Chief Policy Counsel to former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, where she was the first African American to serve in this position. She was the first African American and only the second woman to serve as Acting New Jersey State Treasurer responsible for a state budget of over $30 billion dollars. She was the youngest person to serve as Executive Director of the New Jersey Lottery in state history and served as a senior policy advisor in the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services.
Ms. Davis has a proven record of supporting the building of community wealth throughout her career and, while Acting State Treasurer of New Jersey, founded the New Jersey Department of the Treasury’s Office of Supplier Diversity and Division of Minority and Women Owned Businesses.
She is also active in civic engagement in the local and the global community. She is the past President of the Executive Women of New Jersey, the state’s premier organization for senior level executive women in business and currently is Chair of Academic Affairs for the Joint Board of Rutgers-Rowan Universities; Treasurer of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center Women’s Association; and is on the boards of the New Jersey Women Lawyers Association; Rutgers Institute for Women’s Leadership; New Jersey Bipartisan Coalition for Women’s Appointments; Caucus Educational Trust and the New Jersey Legislative Black Caucus Foundation. Globally, she serves on the Board of Directors of the International Black Women’s Public Policy Institute; the Health Anchor Network Founding Design Team; Root Cause Coalition National Advisory Board, United Way ALICE National Advisory Council and The Democracy Collaborative Foundation, Inc.
She began her legal career as a trial litigator, is an Honors graduate of Seton Hall University and holds a Juris Doctorate from Seton Hall School of Law. She also received an Executive Education Certificate in Corporate Social Responsibility from the Harvard Business School and a Wharton Executive Education Certificate in Social Impact Strategy.
She has been named among the Top 25 Most Influential Minority Leaders in Healthcare in the nation by Modern Healthcare Magazine, Becker’s Hospital Review Top 50 African American’s to Know in Healthcare, the Top 10 on the NJBIZ Health Care Power 50, the 2017 Top 100 in Business, the ROI-NJ Top Influencer, the Insider-NJ Politically Most Influential List, ranked by NJBIZ as the State of New Jersey’s top lobbyist in the healthcare industry and as one of the Top 25 Most Influential Black Women in Business in the World by The Network Journal.
