Season 2, Episode 6: Be the Business Leader our BIPOC Youth Deserve ft. Frederick Bw'Ombongi, Vice President of Operations, Clinical and Support Services with Allina Health

*The music you hear on the podcast is provided by Blue Dot Sessions and is used here under a Creative Commons License.

* Telbee in a new way for listeners to connect with the podcast! Send us a voice note on what you want to hear or questions you may have. If you are a youth listener, let us know what adults are doing right and what adults can do better!  

References:  

• St. Paul Youth Services: spys.org 

• About St. Paul Youth Services’ partnership with Allina Health 

• About Kenya  

• The Effect of Losing a Parent on Teenagers’ Mental Health  

• Allina’s Whole Way to Better Health  

• Allina Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging 

• Allina Health’s Backyard Initiative 

• About Peter Drucker’s “Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast” quote.  

• About “It takes a Village” 

• Re-imagining Corporate-Nonprofit Partnerships in times of Crisis 

 
 Further Reading:  

• Cure International appoints Fred Bw’Ombongi to its board 

• How Nonprofit Hospitals Can Support Communities and Advance Public Health 

• Starting your career as the only BIPOC on your Team  

• Transforming Institutional Practices with SPYS 

For our sixth episode of Rewriting the Rules℠ Season 2, we’re continuing our focus on being the adult we wished we had as a child and teen from the perspectives of our business leaders. This is how we continue Creating a Community That Wraps Its Arms Around Our Youth. For today’s episode, we welcome Frederick Bw’Ombongi, a leader in the health care field who is committed to ensuring health care access around the globe. Fred talks with host Dr. Tracine Asberry, Executive Director of St. Paul Youth Services, about the people, experiences, and messages that have helped to shape him as the person, the husband, the father, and the business leader he is today. We hope that this conversation can offer fertile ground to continue to think about how we're going to transform cultures and practices towards a new vision of society. 

About Fred:  

Frederick Bw’Ombongi is originally from Kenya and serves as vice president of operations at Minnesota-based Allina Health. Before that, he was interim Vice President for operations at KentuckyOne Health (now called CommonSpirit), providing leadership in the delivery of strategic, financial, quality, and operations results. He also worked at Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in various leadership roles.  

Fred cofounded two nonprofits, Opening Village Doors Foundation, which fights poverty in Kenya through entrepreneurship and student scholarships, and the Refugee Education Center in West Michigan. He’s also on the board of directors at Cure International and the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota.  

Fred is the recipient of the Henry Dunant Global Impact Award by the American Red Cross of Greater West Michigan and the Community Champion Award by the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce. He was featured on the 40 Under 40 list by the Grand Rapids Business Journal in 2014. 

Fred earned an MHA in health administration from Grand Valley State University in Allendale, MI and a BS in international business from Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI. He’s currently pursuing his PhD at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches as an adjunct faculty member.