U.S. Senator Bill Frist, M.D.

Founder & Chairman

Senator William Frist, M.D. is a nationally-acclaimed heart and lung transplant surgeon, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, and chairman of the Executive Board of the health service private equity firm Cressey & Company. He is actively engaged in the business as well as the medical, humanitarian, and philanthropic communities.

Senator Frist graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Frist completed surgical training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Stanford. As the founder and director of the Vanderbilt Multi-Organ Transplant Center, he performed over 150 heart and lung transplants, authored over 100 peer-reviewed medical articles, and published seven books on topics such as bioterrorism, transplantation, and leadership. He is board certified in both general and heart surgery.

Dr. Frist annually has led medical mission trips to Africa and Haiti, and emergency response teams to disasters around the globe, including to Sri Lanka after the Indian Ocean Tsunami, Bangladesh, Sudan, New Orleans after Katrina, Haiti after the earthquake, and the horn of Africa. He is chairman of both Hope Through Healing Hands, which focuses on maternal and child health and global poverty, and SCORE, a statewide collaborative education reform organization that has helped propel Tennessee to prominence as a K12 education reform state. Most recently he launched NashvilleHealth, a community wide initiative that creates a culture of health and wellbeing by serving as a convener to open dialogue, align resources and build smart strategic partnerships to forge a dynamic plan to improve the health of all Nashvillians.

His current board service includes the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, Kaiser Family Foundation, Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, Bipartisan Policy Center, and Nashville Health Care Council. He is a member of the advisory committees for global health at Duke, Harvard, and the Massachusetts General Hospital. His previous board service includes Princeton University and the Smithsonian Institution.

In the private sector, he serves on three public company boards, Select Medical, Teladoc and AECOM, (the largest engineering/architectural company in the world). In addition he is a board member of Unitek (nursing and information technology), Aegis (lab), Aspire (palliative care), MDSave (health consumerism), Cognosante (information technology in health) and Accolade (patient navigation). Past board service includes Third National SunTrust Bank in Tennessee.

Currently Dr. Frist serves as an adjunct professor of Cardiac Surgery at Vanderbilt University and clinical professor of Surgery at Meharry Medical College. As a leading authority on healthcare, Senator Frist speaks nationally on health reform, government policy, global health, education reform, and volunteerism.

Dr. Frist is married and has three sons and lives in Franklin, Tennessee.

Mark H. Yancy

CEO

Mark is a lifelong Tennessean, having spent most of his life in Memphis before relocating his family to Nashville in 2022. Mark has intentionally devoted his career to the underserved and those most impacted by lack of access to care and resources. Mark is an accomplished healthcare administrator, business planner, public speaker, and fundraiser. He has an extensive track record engaging public and private sector businesses to partner with healthcare institutions.

Mark became a healthcare leader at Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare hospital system in Memphis. He intentionally worked at urban hospitals, allowing him to focus on conditions impacted by nonmedical determinants of health such as hypertension and Sickle Cell Disease.

Mark then joined Anthem (now Elevance) via its subsidiary CareMore. As Director of Health Services, he ran operational point for a multi-site value-based attributed panel of over 15,000 Medicaid patients, focusing on assertive preventive care for chronic and behavioral health. From there, he was recruited by DaVita Kidney Care to oversee care and all operations for what he perceived to be “hidden” end-stage kidney disease patients in Memphis and eastern Arkansas.

Mark chose to acquire a Master of Public Health so he could better understand and engage the chronic medical and social dynamics that lead to acute and emergency presentations in hospitals or clinics. It’s that passion that led him to Nashville Health, an organization founded by former Senator Bill Frist that is totally focused on improving population health and promoting wellness for all Middle Tennesseans.

In less than a year, Mark has led NashvilleHealth to build and manage an equity coalition of over 20 public and private organizations across data, academic, health services, food and nutrition, housing, and
transit sectors (among others). This coalition is aligned with the purpose of identifying areas in Middle Tennessee where health disparities exist, designing projects and demonstrations to reduce disparities and improve public health and wellness. Under Mark’s leadership, NashvilleHealth has achieved an unprecedented partnership with the Mayor’s office and Metro Public Health Department to establish a functioning collaborative impact framework that engages chronic illnesses at the neighborhood level.

Ultimately, NashvilleHealth links these activities as a business case that addresses the need to create stronger and healthier workforces for our region.

Mark is married to his soulmate, Shaherah, a leading healthcare researcher directing life sciences research for a variety of medical devices. They have a daughter, Akiyana, and a son, Christopher. Rounding out the family is their four-legged son, a Boston Terrier named Zyg.

Gretchen Funk

COO

Gretchen Funk is the Chief Operating Officer for NashvilleHealth. In this role, she oversees and manages the implementation of community health programs and initiatives that work to move the needle on some of Nashville’s most challenging health disparities. She has been with the organization since July 2024.

Before joining NashvilleHealth, Gretchen led service provision for older adults as Chief Program Officer at the Nashville nonprofit, FiftyForward. She was also the Principal Investigator for FiftyForward’s seven-year National Institutes of Health All of Us Research Program National Community Engagement Partner award.

Gretchen’s professional career began in New York City where she specialized in housing and program development at Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens, including developing and then directing an innovative community residence for 80 individuals experiencing homelessness and mental illness. Her professional experience also includes directing client services at the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation, the primary HIV/AIDS service organization in southern Arizona. Her leadership has been dedicated to service on behalf of those experiencing chronic illness and health disparities.

Gretchen is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame with Bachelor of Arts degrees in Government and Spanish. She obtained her M.S.W. from the Hunter College School of Social Work, City University of New York. In 2024, she earned her Executive Scholar Certificate in Nonprofit Management from the Kellogg School of Management – Northwestern University.