I started my career as a genetic counselor, sitting with people through some of the hardest moments of their lives — helping them understand what was happening, what their options were, and what mattered most to them. That's where I learned how to actually connect with people, not persuade them. It's a skill you can't fake, and it's shaped everything I've done since.
 

Over more than 25 years, that skill carried me into rooms I never expected: leading the Office of Minority Health and Disparities Elimination for the State of Tennessee, where I helped shape statewide equity infrastructure and funding strategies that still influence practice today. Later, as Vice President of Health Equity & Stakeholder Engagement and eventually Executive Director for the Southeast Region at Health Leads USA, I co-authored Bringing Light & Heat: A Health Equity Guide for Healthcare Transformation & Accountability. Most recently, I served as Fractional Chief Strategy Officer for the Tennessee Justice Center, where I led organizational health advocacy strategy, key performance metrics, and fund development — advancing a cultural approach to Medicaid protection across Tennessee.
 

Different rooms, different roles, but a consistent challenge: organizations often know what they want to accomplish before they have the relationships, processes, structures, or capacity needed to make it happen. My work has repeatedly been about seeing those gaps and helping leaders build what is missing.

​

I founded Hamilton Franklin Strategies to bring that experience to leaders navigating consequential work—especially when the challenge crosses organizational, community, governance, or sector boundaries and the path forward is not obvious.

​

Current Leadership & Affiliations:

• Chair, Metropolitan Nashville–Davidson County Board of Health

• Executive Committee Member, National Association of Local Boards of Health (NALBOH)

• Health Committee Chair, Tennessee State Conference NAACP 

• Co-Chair Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center Community Advisory Board

• Advisor, Vanderbilt University Medical Center Program for Health Equity Research

• Health Equity Community Collaborative Child Health Equity Working Group

• Board Vice-Chair, Nashville General Hospital Foundation

Nashville is home, and staying embedded here — not just consulting from a distance — matters to how I work.
 

While I lead every engagement personally as Principal and Founder, I also collaborate with a trusted network of strategists, facilitators, and subject-matter experts who join projects as needed — so clients get both the depth of a dedicated partner and the capacity to take on larger, more complex scopes when the work calls for it.
 

I was raised to let the work speak for itself, so a page like this doesn't come naturally to me — but I'd rather you hear it in my own words than guess.