Dr. Christina Ghaly, Director of LA County Health Services, Skye Patrick, Director of LA County Library, Jack Dangermond, President and CEO of Esri, and Rich Pierson/Andy Puddicombe, Co-Founders of Headspace to receive Innovate@UCLA Distinguished Executive Leadership Awards

Photo Caption: LA County Health Services Director Dr. Christina Ghaly discusses the use of technology and innovation to tackle the COVID-19 challenges in LA County with Innovate@UCLA Board Members Thomas Phelps, CIO of Laserfiche; Debbie Simkins, VP of IT of Molina Healthcare and Theresa Miller, CIO of Lionsgate.

LOS ANGELES, NOV. 11, 2020 — Innovate@UCLA, a member-based executive IT leadership organization, announced four honorees today for its annual Executive Leadership Awards in the Public Sector, Community Impact, Corporate Enterprise, and Emerging Tech categories.

Awardees include Dr. Christina Ghaly, director of LA County Health Services; Skye Patrick, director of LA County Library; Jack Dangermond, president and founder of Esri; and Rich Pierson/Andy Puddicombe co-founders of Headspace.

The awards celebration will open with a keynote speaker, Guy Kawasaki (MBA ’79), author, speaker and chief evangelist of Canva.

“Innovate@UCLA has responded to unprecedented times with a virtual Executive Leadership Awards celebration,” said Jim Davis, vice provost of Information Technology and chief academic technology officer at UCLA. “COVID-19 has caused a dramatic shift in how technology is used by companies to not only survive, but create new business models.”

“We are recognizing leaders across industries and government who are innovators — and especially how they served others in the middle of a pandemic,” said Jim Rinaldi, executive director of Innovate@UCLA and former CIO of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Our Executive Leadership Awards event will highlight the award recipients and their contributions. It promises to entertain, inform and provide insight into how leaders think and act.”

During the event, the four awardees will discuss their personal journeys to leadership positions, their viewpoints on emerging technology disruptions, and tackling the challenges faced by their organizations during the pandemic. Frank Mottek, the voice of business news in Los Angeles, will moderate a fireside chat with Dr. Anne Rimoin, professor of Epidemiology at UCLA, regarding the COVID-19 research conducted at UCLA.

Dr. Christina Ghaly will receive the Public Sector award along with Kevin Lynch, CIO. Dr. Ghaly has served as the director of the Department of Health Services (DHS) since October 2017. Dr. Ghaly leads strategic, operational, and clinical/financial initiatives critical to the department’s role in serving the health needs of vulnerable populations across the county and its continued transformation in an era of health reform.

DHS is being honored for its daily COVID-19 briefings to the LA County community, establishing guidelines for safer work environments and availability of testing at locations with the heaviest concentration of infections.

Dr. Ghaly previously served as chief operations officer for DHS from 2016 until her
appointment as director. Her previous roles within DHS also include serving as the
deputy director for strategy and operations and as the interim chief executive officer at
Olive View – UCLA Medical Center and LAC+USC Medical Center.

Dr. Ghaly attended Harvard Medical School and completed a residency in internal
medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She continues to see patients in
the urgent care facility at LAC+USC Medical Center.

Skye Patrick will receive the Community Impact award along with Binh Le, CIO. Patrick was appointed LA County Library director in 2016. She has held leadership roles at Broward County, Queens Public Library, and San Francisco Public Library. Patrick manages the library’s $201 million annual budget and is responsible for the operation of the library’s 86 locations and a 12-vehicle mobile fleet, serving 3.4 million residents in a 3,000-mile area. In January 2019, Patrick was named Librarian of the Year by Library Journal.

LA County Library is being honored for partnering with a third-party company to produce over 3,000 face mask coverings for senior homes, hospitals and UCLA Medical Centers; and leveraging library parking lots to distribute food, serve as test centers, and provide Wi-Fi for individuals who come to park and use the libraries’ gigabit connectivity. Patrick is committed to breaking down barriers and increasing access for all. As the library director, Patrick continues to reinforce the library’s role in the community as a civic and cultural center, a hub for public information and services, and an institution of literacy, innovation and lifelong learning.

Jack Dangermond will receive the Enterprise Award along with Dan Abushanab, CIO. Dangermond is the founder and president of Esri. He and his wife, Laura, founded Esri in 1969 on the idea that computer-based mapping and analysis could make significant contributions to geographic planning and environmental science. Esri is being honored for being the platform that has enabled Johns Hopkins University to provide the COVID-19 tracking dashboard worldwide; modifying its Disaster Response Program (DRP) to provide a COVID-19 Response Package (data, templates, solutions) for free to all nonprofit organizations; and launching location intelligence tools that businesses can leverage to understand the impact of the crisis and make data-driven decisions to enhance recovery efforts.

Esri has become the global market leader in GIS and location intelligence, with 49 offices worldwide, 11 dedicated research centers, and a strong user base of about 350,000 organizations around the world. Dangermond has received many acknowledgements and awards for his contributions to the fields of geography, environmental science, planning, and GIS, including 13 honorary degrees.

Rich Pierson and Andy Puddicombe will receive the Emerging Tech Award. While still in his 20s, Pierson was already a highly successful advertising industry executive in the U.K., serving as the head of business development for powerhouse creative agency BBH.

The unrelenting stress and pressure of the ad business, however, caused Pierson to abandon his lucrative, yet anxiety-producing career trajectory to study acupuncture. This new life journey led to a chance meeting with co-founder Andy Puddicombe, an ordained Buddhist monk who had recently returned from 10 years in meditative retreat, studying the ancient Buddhist traditions of Southeast Asia and Tibet.

Headspace launched in 2010 as an events company, and the now-popular meditation app followed two years later. Headspace is being honored for making their products available for free to all US healthcare providers working in a public health setting.

In 2017, Fast Company identified Headspace as being among the “World’s Most Innovative Companies” and today, with nearly 54 million users in 190 countries, Puddicombe, Pierson and the dedicated team at Headspace are delivering on their mission to improve happiness and health around the world.