On the Move: People in roles shaping the debate in Washington | CQ Weekly

Massachusetts native Elizabeth Lee first found her passion for the health care industry during her freshman year of high school when she lost one of her teachers to AIDS.

“It just didn’t make sense. Why isn’t there health care that can save this person’s life?” she says, recalling how she felt at the time. “That’s what sort of set me off on that path.” Now, more than 20 years later, Lee has joined government and public affairs firm Venn Strategies as a principal.

She will be helping the company’s health care clients with changing policies under the new health care law, legislation on Capitol Hill and guidelines from the Food and Drug Administration.”I’ve always been a big access person, just to make sure that everybody has equal access to health care,” she says. “Venn has a set of clients that I think are also really invested in that topic, which I think is a good fit for me.”

Prior to joining Venn Strategies, Lee was at the Department of Health and Human Services working on legislative affairs in the public health sphere. In 2011, she became a senior policy adviser for the Health Resources and Services Administration. Before joining HHS, Lee spent time on Capitol Hill as a David A. Winston Health Policy Fellow after graduating with a master’s degree in public administration from New York University. During the fellowship, Lee worked for former Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and later joined the staff of then-Rep. Tammy
Baldwin, D-Wis., as a legislative assistant for health care in 2008.

Lee says a defining characteristic of her career has been working for women in leadership roles focused on health care, starting with Clinton and now with Venn Strategies CEO Stephanie Silverman. “All of my jobs in Washington have been for amazing female bosses,” she says. “I just think health care is such a rich field for female leaders.”