Organizer. Innovator. Optimist.
Jessica Halem is a wildly sought out public speaker and communications strategist.
By day, she leads an Ivy League innovation lab that advises start-ups, non-profits, policy makers, and business leaders to be successful in the health and wellness space.
Previously, she led groundbreaking work at Harvard Medical School that knit together the health system to raise the bar in medicine for LGBTQ+ people and energize the next generation of physicians.
As a young leader in Chicago, she organized the nation's first cultural competency trainings for the CDC and served on then candidate Obama's first LGBTQ Advisory Committee. There she studied at Second City and made a name for herself as a stand-up comic. She is sometimes still funny.
Jessica has led impactful programs and community engagement, helping rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Grand Central Terminal in New York City. She has worked in policy and philanthropy, including her first job as Bella Abzug’s Executive Assistant and currently as a Board member of the Tegan and Sara Foundation.
Jessica has a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MBA from Simmons University. She is married to Jen Manion, PhD, Professor of History at Amherst College, and hails from Kent, Ohio where her parents are still working artists and active Democrats.
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