Denise Smith | Inaugural Executive Director
National Association of Community Health Workers

Denise Octavia Smith, MBA, CHW, PN is the inaugural Executive Director of the National Association of Community Health Workers, Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care Program in Global Primary Care and Social Change, Aspen Institute Healthy Communities Fellow, and a Robert Wood Johnson Culture of Health Leader. As a woman of African descent, a Community Health Worker, certified patient navigator and survivor of a rare chronic disease, Denise envisions a culture of health where individuals have self-determination and dignity, where communities meaningfully contribute to system design and governance and where societies eliminate structural barriers to well-being. Denise is the strategic lead for NACHW, an organization of CHWs (including Promotoras, Community Health Representatives from tribes and more than 90 different work titles) and ally members in all 50 states, over 30 tribes and territories. Mrs. Smith has developed the first National CHW Policy Platform, first National CHW Hill Day and National CHW Awareness Week, recognized by Congress in 2023. She co-founded the Community Based Workforce Alliance and the Vaccine Equity Cooperative to advocate for national racial equity principles and policies that affirm and sustain community expertise and capacity in COVID-19 response and community recovery. Ms. Smith is currently focused on building U.S. and global CHW Networks and Associations, organizational and leadership capacity, advancing racial and health equity, and realizing a framework, tools and approaches for CHW sustainability.