Our Team
Our Team
The THI team brings decades of experience and expertise in the healthcare system and in ensuring patients have access to what they need to be healthy, including healthy food, safe housing, and jobs that enable self-sufficiency.
We have led and worked in federal healthcare agencies, health policy organizations, local clinics, healthcare delivery systems, and quality improvement organizations. THI is committed to working with partners to achieve the aim of ensuring access to healthy food and other drivers of health.
Rebecca Onie,
Co-Founder
Rebecca Onie is Co-Founder of The Health Initiative (THI), a nationwide effort to catalyze a new conversation about and investments in health, including access to healthy food, safe housing, and jobs that create self-sufficiency. Previously, Onie co-founded Health Leads to enable physicians and other healthcare providers and caregivers across the country to address these fundamental drivers of patients’ health. Health Leads provided thousands of healthcare institutions with the tools, technology, analytics, and best practices to ensure that patients have access to healthy food and other resources they need to take control of their health. Onie is a MacArthur “Genius” awardee, a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and an Aspen Institute Health Innovators Fellow. She has received the APHA Avedis Donabedian Quality Award; Network for Excellence in Health Innovation “Innovator in Health” Award; and Forbes’ Impact 30 Award for leading social entrepreneurs. She received her J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Rocco Perla,
co-founder
Rocco Perla is Co-Founder of The Health Initiative, a nationwide effort to catalyze a new conversation about and investments in health, including access to healthy food, safe housing, and jobs that create self-sufficiency. Perla previously served as President of Health Leads, which enables physicians and other healthcare providers across the country to address the fundamental drivers of patients’ health, such as healthy food and safe housing. Prior to this, he was part of the leadership team that established the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, where he was responsible for developing the national learning system to test new ways to pay for and deliver health care and oversaw the $1 Billion Partnership for Patients and the Million Hearts Campaign. Perla received the Impact Article of the Year Award from the National Association for Health Care Quality; the Federal Executive Board Award for Outstanding Creativity and Innovation; and the Deming Medal by the American Society for Quality. He previously served as Assistant Professor at the UMass Chan Medical School in Population and Quantitative Health Sciences. He received his Ed.D. from the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
Christina Gunther-Murphy, Chief Campaign Officer
Christina Gunther-Murphy oversees THI’s evolving work to achieve its aim of investments in health. Gunther-Murphy began her career directing a national initiative focused on preventing, identifying, and treating children with unhealthy weight at NICHQ. Subsequently, she served as a Vice President at the Institute for Health Care Improvement, which uses improvement science to advance and sustain better outcomes in health and healthcare. She has expertise in leveraging a wide variety of methods to achieve large-scale change, including managing the 5 Million Lives campaign—a patient safety movement which engaged 4,000 hospitals in implementing evidence-based practices to reduce mortality and unnecessary harm. She holds an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.
Polly MacIsaac is the Chief Operating Officer at THI, where she leads efforts to improve operational systems and processes, cultivate a high-performing team, and build the infrastructure to support THI’s work. Polly brings deep experience in fast-paced, high-growth, and professional service organizations. Before joining THI, Polly served as Global COO of C Space, a $100M insights and innovation firm, where she led global teams and built the systems that enabled innovation, efficiency, and scale. Her cross-sector experience spans technology, consumer products, financial services, and retail—offering her a broad lens which she brings to tackling challenges. She holds a BA from DePauw University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.