Welcoming Our New Chief Program Officer

I am very pleased to announce Suzanne Smith as Tapestry Health’s new Chief Program Officer. Suzanne holds expertise in both reproductive health and HIV/AIDS and has played a leading role in community health organizations locally and around the world, including most recently at the Holyoke Health Center. Suzanne is an expert in Tapestry Health’s programs—she was previously with Tapestry for 12 years, working in our clinics and eventually becoming Director of Health Services. We are thrilled to have her back!

Filling the role of Chief Program Officer is a crucial step that will help position Tapestry to thrive in the long term. As a member of the senior executive team, Suzanne will be responsible for overseeing all programs. By directly supervising senior program managers and clinical site managers, she will help build communication, cohesion and efficiency across all our services. Her expert leadership of programs will allow my efforts to be even more focused on the financial management and fundraising that is needed to keep the agency strong.

Suzanne Smith

“I first connected with Tapestry when my family moved to this area from England. I was ready to go back to work after having my baby, and I learned about something called The Family Planning Council of Western Massachusetts. I was instantly interested, because their mission was exactly my field of work. One of my earliest jobs had been with a reproductive health clinic in San Francisco. Later when living in London, I oversaw HIV/AIDS services and also led an HIV/AIDS research project that was published in the British Medical Journal. So when I returned to the States, I was eager to apply to this organization doing cutting-edge work in my fields. Right around that time they changed their name to Tapestry Health.

This is my second time around at Tapestry, and it’s an exciting time to be back. There is a lot of opportunity to improve the quality of our services and to think creatively about the organization’s future. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with some of our wonderful community partners, and to learning more about community needs. Tapestry really is an organization that listens. We are always talking to people in the community to find out about emerging health needs. Then we try to figure out how we can best address them – whether that means shifting how we deliver a service, or launching a new program.

Most of all, I’m happy to be here because our staff. It really all comes down to them. I have so much respect for their dedication to this work. They do an amazing job of delivering high quality services in many different settings and of making clients their priority. Their work is not always easy; I consider it my job to invest in them and to support them. We would not be able to provide such caring, quality services without their commitment.”