Rachel Weiss to Lead Health Care Advocacy for Arnold Ventures’ Growing Advocacy Team

Experienced health care and advocacy leader taking on new role as Vice President of Advocacy for Health Care

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 14, 2022 – Rachel Weiss, a health care and external affairs expert and veteran of strategic communications and policy advocacy roles, has joined Arnold Ventures as Vice President of Advocacy for Health Care. This is a new role at Arnold Ventures created to develop and implement effective advocacy campaigns focused on lowering health care costs while maintaining and enhancing access to needed, high-quality care.

As the organization continues building its advocacy capacity on critical health care issues, Weiss will work with grantees, coalitions, and partners to drive state and federal policy change. 

“Arnold Ventures continues to make tremendous investments in data driven policy research to improve health care delivery, lower costs, and improve access and I am excited to join the team to advance and advocate for the important work we do,” Weiss said. ​“Our mission-driven focus on maximizing opportunity and minimizing injustice has meaningful impacts on people’s lives. I look forward to collaborating with the AV team and our stakeholders across the country to advance real policy change that improves our health care system.” 

Weiss brings a tremendous wealth of experience leading successful public affairs campaigns to shape public opinion and advance policy change across the health care ecosystem – both in the public and private sectors. Most recently, she served as Director of Communications at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the Office of Intergovernmental and External Affairs. In that role, she led all stakeholder communications and outreach efforts, including a slate of COVID-19 initiatives, addressing the infant formula shortage, confronting our national mental health crisis, and working through the unprecedented resettlement of refugees. She is an alum of UnitedHealth Group’s External Affairs team, Leavitt Partners, Underwriters Laboratories, and Deloitte.

Weiss began her new role on July 11 and is based in AV’s Washington, D.C., office. 

“Rachel brings exceptional depth and breadth of experience in health care and strategic advocacy to this new role,” Kevin Madden, Executive Vice President of Advocacy said. ​“We are building Arnold Ventures’ advocacy team to serve our grantees and mission because we know integrated advocacy and communications capabilities are critical to advancing policy reforms. Rachel’s experience advancing the ball on some of the most complex health care policy issues over the past dozen years makes her a key asset across Arnold Ventures’ signature initiatives and grantee partnerships.”

About Arnold Ventures

Arnold Ventures is a philanthropy dedicated to tackling some of the most pressing problems in the United States. Driven by a mission to maximize opportunity and minimize injustice, it invests in sustainable change, building it from the ground up based on research, deep thinking, and a strong foundation of evidence. Arnold Ventures is headquartered in Houston, with offices in Washington, D.C., and New York City.