The board of Dartmouth Health, which provides governance oversight of the Dartmouth Health system, has elected a new member to their Board. The boards of Dartmouth-Hitchcock, which provides governance oversight for Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) and Dartmouth Hitchcock Clinics (DHC), has elected three new members. The newly elected trustees, all of whom were elected at the end-of-year 2024 meetings, began their terms this month.
The new members are:
Dartmouth Health:
- Kathleen M. Fisher, MBA, a 44-year veteran of Wall Street investment banking and asset management
Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and Dartmouth Hitchcock Clinics (“Dartmouth-Hitchcock” boards):
- Jason T. Garbarino, DNP, RN, GERO-BC, CNL, a nurse leader, educator, and clinician
- Laurel J. Richie, former president of the WNBA
- Emily P. Zeitler, MD, MHS, FACC, FHRS, a cardiologist at DHMC
Fisher, who joins the Dartmouth Health board, retired from Wall Street in 2020. In her career, she served as chief investment officer of AllianceBernstein’s private client business and president of the Sanford C. Bernstein mutual fund complex, and as managing director in the financial institutions investment banking group at JP Morgan. Fisher, who is passionate about healthcare and health policy, joined the board of Dartmouth Health member Southwestern Vermont Health Care in 2015, serving as chair from 2021 to 2024. She also serves as president of the Loxahatchee Club Educational Foundation in Jupiter, FL, and is a former trustee of Hildene, The Lincoln Family Home in Manchester, VT; the Aloha Foundation in Fairlee, Vermont; Bates College in Lewiston, ME; and the Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service in Brooklyn, NY.
Garbarino, who joins the Dartmouth-Hitchcock boards, has an extensive background in nursing education and leadership. He spent eleven years at the University of Vermont (UVM), serving as vice chair and program director of undergraduate nursing. He co-developed and taught UVM’s clinical nurse leader program curriculum, significantly contributing to both undergraduate and graduate nursing education. In 2022, Garbarino was the recipient of the Kroepsch-Maurice Excellence in Teaching Award, UVM’s highest award for teaching excellence. In his current role as healthcare talent director at inSpring, Garbarino leads the growth and establishment, nationally, of new, academic-practice pipelines for international nursing students. He serves as executive director and co-founder of the Nursing is STEM Coalition, seeking to ensure proper designation of professional nursing as a science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) field, unlocking millions in funding for K-12 workforce initiatives and scholarships to grow and diversify the professional nursing workforce. Garbarino also serves as an advisory member to the Green Mountain Care Board, and is an advisory board member/contributor for Forbes Education and Forbes Health.
Richie, who joins the Dartmouth-Hitchcock boards, has more than three decades of experience in leadership, corporate governance, branding, marketing, and communications. During her time leading the WNBA from 2011 to 2015, she was responsible for setting the vision for the league and leading the day-to-day business and basketball operations for the WNBA and its 12 teams. Her “Path to Profitability” initiative led to a significant increase in the league’s operating income and increased the number of WNBA franchises operating profitably from one to five. A former trustee of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and chair emerita of the Dartmouth College board of trustees, she currently serves as director of Synchrony Financial, Hasbro, Bright Horizons and SeatGeek; chair of the advisory board of the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth; and mentor to Fortune 100 C-suite executives with The ExCo Group. A frequent keynote speaker and panelist on leadership, diversity and inclusion, Richie is a recipient of BET’s Black Girls Rock Shot Caller Award, Sports Business Journal’s Game Changer Award, the YMCA’s Black Achiever's Award, and Ebony’s Outstanding Women in Marketing and Communications. Black Enterprise named her one of the Most Influential African Americans in Sports, and Savoy named her one of the Most Influential Black Corporate Directors.
Zeitler, who joins the Dartmouth-Hitchcock boards, is a clinical cardiac electrophysiologist at DHMC and a researcher in cardiovascular outcomes, with a particular interest in outcome and treatment disparities related to implantable medical devices and atrial fibrillation; medical device regulatory policy; and health policy in general. Zeitler’s policy work has included collaboration with broad stakeholder groups, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory entities, medical device industry partners, and American cardiology and electrophysiology professional societies. Zeitler has been with DHMC since 2018. She is board-certified in internal medicine, cardiovascular disease, and clinical cardiac electrophysiology. Zeitler is an associate professor of medicine at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine a and associate professor of health care policy at The Dartmouth Institute (TDI).
About Dartmouth Health
Dartmouth Health, New Hampshire’s only academic health system and the state’s largest private employer, serves patients across northern New England. Dartmouth Health provides access to more than 2,000 providers in almost every area of medicine, delivering care at its flagship hospital, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in Lebanon, NH, as well as across its wide network of hospitals, clinics and care facilities. DHMC is consistently named the #1 hospital in New Hampshire by U.S. News & World Report, and is recognized for high performance in numerous clinical specialties and procedures. Dartmouth Health includes Dartmouth Cancer Center, one of only 57 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the nation, and the only such center in northern New England; Dartmouth Health Children’s, which includes the state’s only children’s hospital and multiple locations around the region; member hospitals in Lebanon, Keene, Claremont and New London, NH, and Windsor and Bennington, VT; Visiting Nurse and Hospice for Vermont and New Hampshire; and more than 24 clinics that provide ambulatory and specialty services across New Hampshire and Vermont. Through its historical partnership with Dartmouth and the Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth Health trains nearly 400 medical residents and fellows annually, and performs cutting-edge research and clinical trials recognized across the globe with Geisel and the White River Junction VA Medical Center in White River Junction, VT. Dartmouth Health and its more than 13,000 employees are deeply committed to serving the healthcare needs of everyone in our communities, and to providing each of our patients with exceptional, personal care.