As part of its ongoing efforts to improve health and well-being by addressing root causes, Vitalyst Health Foundation has announced two new hires and two new promotions for the company. All are at the manager or director level and will cover a diverse range of roles, from community engagement to learning and evaluation.

Kelsey Otten will be moving from her previous role as a project management associate into an elevated role as the assistant director of partner engagement. Kelsey will work more closely with community-based leaders, organizations, and coalitions and leverage Vitalyst capacity building resources, or Technical Assistance Partnership (TAP) Tools, to support their efforts. This includes managing the intake of prospective partners through the TAP Discovery process and connecting partners with appropriate TAP Tools like fiscal sponsorship, workshops and trainings, consulting and coaching support, and advocacy & public policy capacity building support.

David Martinez III will also be moving into a new role within Vitalyst as the director of community engagement. In addition to overseeing Vitalyst’s capacity building and civic health efforts, he will now lead Vitalyst’s grants including the Systems Change, Spark, and Medical Assistance Grants. He will oversee the application, evaluation, and post-award engagement processes for grant-funded projects supporting transformative work throughout Arizona.

Joining the Vitalyst team is Gabriel Jaramillo, who will take on the role of director of healthy communities. After working with Habitat for Humanity for the past eight years, Gabriel will now work in collaboration with other Vitalyst Directors and staff to advance placed-based policies and practices that result in healthy communities that are accessible to all. He will also focus on collaborating with diverse stakeholders to advocate for policy, systems and environmental changes that impact the social determinants of health.

The second new member of Vitalyst is Virginia Bezerra De Menezes, who will be the program manager of learning and evaluation. Moving to the valley from Washington D.C., Virginia will be responsible for evaluative, analytical, and learning initiatives for the foundation. In her role, she’ll manage regular and annual evaluation processes of Vitalyst’s programmatic and overall work. She will also lead organizational learning and development efforts.