Becoming a Fellow
Becoming a Fellow
The Fellowship offers high-performing health care leaders a unique experience—the ability to connect with and learn from a diverse group of peers with whom they wouldn’t ordinarily interact while refining their own values and charting a course that enables them to have an even greater impact in society. Explore candidate criteria and frequently asked questions.
Note: We hope to open nominations for our 7th class in 2024. Please fill out this form if you would like us to notify you when nominations open. We are currently looking for sponsors to support the launch of Class 7. If you are interested in supporting the Fellowship, reach out to Tanya Harris, Executive Director, Health Innovators Fellowship at Tanya.Harris@aspeninstitute.org.
Level of Experience
We seek senior health care executives, not emerging leaders, including founders and/or executive directors, CEOs and C-suite executives, and senior leaders in government or academia who have created and/or oversee sizable, impactful programs. We define health care broadly and look for leaders from a wide range of sectors within health care.
Accomplishments
Candidates must demonstrate that they have developed and implemented cutting-edge businesses, programs, or approaches that have improved the health and well-being of Americans. We also value candidates who have weathered professional or personal challenges including failure.
Timing
Candidates should be at an inflection point in their personal or professional lives—ready to pause, re-evaluate their values, and reflect deeply on how they can have an even greater impact addressing U.S. health care challenges.
Age
Candidates must be at least 35 and no older than 50 by the end of the year the class launches.
Commitment
Candidates must commit to full participation in all aspects of the Fellowship.
- 100% Seminar Attendance: We expect Fellows to participate fully in all four seminars; seminar dates are non-negotiable.
- Develop a Leadership Venture: Each Fellow must create a leadership venture that leverages their energies, skills, and resources to address a U.S. health care challenge.
- Full Engagement: Fellows must be willing to be fully present at seminars and welcome different points of view with an open mind and heart.
Note: We seek candidates who represent the diversity of the U.S. and health care with respect to race, ethnicity, gender/sexual orientation, disability, geography, health care sector, political beliefs, and life experiences..
Frequently Asked Questions
The Fellowship is designed for senior executives in U.S. health care—entrepreneurs and innovators who have reached a point in their lives and careers when they are ready to pause and reflect on their leadership and explore how to use their skills, experiences, and resources to advance justice in the U.S. health care system.
Fellows who have committed their time to the Fellowship tell us that their participation was one of the best investments they've ever made. The Fellowship provides a rare opportunity to step back, think with and draw inspiration from other successful leaders who are facing similar life and professional challenges also looking to have greater impact.
We seek highly successful entrepreneurs and innovators in U.S. health care who have reached a point in their lives when they are ready to pause and reflect on how to use their skills and experiences to advance justice in the U.S. health care system.
We seek senior executives, not emerging leaders, who are founders and/or executive directors; CEOs or C-suite executives; and senior leaders in government or academia who have created and/or oversee sizable, impactful programs. The key is that they are leaders and true innovators who have already made a difference in the health care field and are ready to have an even greater impact.
Broadly. We are looking for Fellows from a variety of industries and sectors throughout the health care ecosystem—including medicine, the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, the life sciences, mental and behavioral health, government, public health, health care systems, medical equipment and supplies, veterans’ health, and more.
Unfortunately, we do not.
No. Eligible candidates must be at least 35 and no more than 50 on Dec 31 of the year the class launches.
Fellows are not expected to arrive at the first seminar with a venture plan. Rather, the Fellowship experience and the other members of their class can inspire them to discover what they are best suited to do. We do, however, expect Fellows to identify and commit to an idea within the first six months and to begin implementing the initiative during the two-year active Fellowship period.
The Health Innovators Fellowship aims to connect health care leaders with a diverse group of peers and inspire and challenge them to create new approaches to tackling what ails U.S. health care. Given this mission, we require that all Health Innovators Fellows focus on a U.S. health care challenge as one expression of their commitment to moving the needle on the Fellowship's ultimate goal.
The Fellowship defines U.S. health care broadly—a venture will fulfill this requirement as long as it aims to improve the health and well-being of Americans. Most Fellows don't have a problem designing a venture that fits our parameters, but our team is always available to talk through ideas if a Fellow is unsure if their idea meets our requirements.
After the first seminar, the Health Innovators Fellowship Executive Director and program associate will discuss each Fellow's venture concept with them and work with them to ensure that their venture is positioned to be successful. After their concept is approved, Fellows will have regularly scheduled check-in calls between seminars with the Fellowship team, though the team is always available to provide assistance and support outside of these calls.
No. Ventures can be for-profit, nonprofit, or government initiatives and can be programs, products, or organizations. The key is for the venture to make an explicit and positive impact on the health and well-being of Americans.
Fellows do not need to start a new organization, although some choose to do so. Ventures can take many forms, from launching a new organization to creating a new program or service within an organization to scaling an existing program so that it impacts more people.
We believe that Fellows are innovative, mission-driven leaders who have the potential to devise breakthrough ideas. While some Fellows have an original idea for their venture, others build on existing ideas to make them more effective or to move them in a new, more fruitful direction. Whatever they ultimately end up doing, we strongly encourage all Fellows to learn about successful models that address the challenges they aim to tackle, if and where they exist, in order to not duplicate existing, effective programs. This includes models already launched within and outside of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. Fellows can build on these efforts as long as their contributions are additive rather than duplicative.
Many Fellows are already social entrepreneurs in the nonprofit or government sector. In these cases, they are challenged to step back and see with a fresh perspective how they might augment their leadership in areas they are concerned about. Are there other approaches they have wanted to try? An experiment they’d like to test? Fellows should use their ventures as an opportunity to creatively engage in a different approach to the challenge they are addressing or as an opportunity to do something that they would not have started or done if not for the Fellowship.
Each venture is unique and has its own timeline, but Fellows need to demonstrate significant progress toward their goal by the fourth seminar, as well as a clear plan for the future. We expect that the venture will live long past the two-year active Fellowship period, and will continue to reach out for updates and be available to provide support far beyond the fourth seminar.