API Summit 2023 Speakers

Robert Phillips

President & Chief Executive Officer, West Oakland Health

Robert Phillips is President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of West Oakland Health, a federally qualified community health center founded in 1967 to improve the health and socioeconomic status of the Bay Area’s Black and low-income communities; and managing partner of Griffin McKenzie LLC, a strategic consultancy that provides strategy development, executive coaching, and interim CEO services to non-profit organizations, health conversion foundations, and health care agencies who are addressing racial, gender, and economic injustice.

In the years before West Oakland Health and Griffin McKenzie LLC, Robert held a few positions that have provided him with a wealth of relationships, experiences, perspectives, and working knowledge. Robert was President, CEO, and Founding Board Member of Alluma, a non-profit technology social enterprise. He was Senior Director, Community Benefits and Corporate Strategy for Kaiser Permanente, where he managed national external affairs and communications, implementing numerous strategies for Kaiser Permanente’s national program office. He was the Managing Director of Health Programs for the Sierra Health Foundation, leading a philanthropic intermediary program providing programmatic and capacity-building support to the safety net health programs throughout Northern and Central California. He was a Managing Director and Senior Fellow, among other positions, for The California Endowment, where he managed its health and human services program and boys and men of color initiatives. Robert spent the early part of his career in the labor movement as a political director and capital strategies representative for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and a health policy analyst for the AFL-CIO.

In addition to his professional experience, Robert is ABD in Health Policy from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, possesses a Master of Public Health (MPH) in health policy and management from Harvard University, an MPA in Social Policy-Public/Non-profit Management from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, and dual bachelors degrees in political science and economics from Morehouse College. Robert has Certificates of Business Excellence in Executive Education from UC Berkeley and Investment Stewardship from the Commonfund Endowment Institute at Yale University.