LOS ANGELES, CA – August 22, 2022 – InStride, the premier global provider of Strategic Enterprise EducationTM programs, announced the addition of Mark Laret and Nancy Schlichting to the InStride Advisory Board. Both have decades of experience in the healthcare sector, with Laret being the former President and CEO of UCSF Health and Schlichting the former CEO of the Henry Ford Health System. Laret and Schlichting join George Barrett, former Chair and CEO of Cardinal Health, as healthcare leaders on the InStride Advisory Board. This added expertise will amplify InStride’s leading capability to provide strategic education programs to healthcare partners, including for high-demand clinical roles.

“With disruption from both the pandemic and shifting care models, the healthcare sector is facing unprecedented challenges in talent attraction, retention, and readiness,” said Vivek Sharma, CEO of InStride. “The first-hand experience Mark Laret and Nancy Schlichting bring as leaders of major healthcare systems will be invaluable as InStride partners with healthcare organizations to help them build the pipeline needed for improved employee, business, and patient outcomes.”

The addition of two healthcare leaders to the InStride Advisory Board will bolster InStride’s position as the top choice in strategic workforce education among healthcare systems. Already, InStride serves the most healthcare learners of any workforce education provider, delivering programs to 445,000 healthcare professionals – more than three times as many as the next leading competitor.

These InStride healthcare learners also enjoy the broadest array of clinical and non-clinical offerings available in the sector, with options from high school completion, English Language Learning, medical Spanish and credit-bearing stackable industry certifications to associate degrees, bachelor's degrees and even graduate degrees. Learners also benefit from InStride’s innovative approach to building clinical and non-clinical pathways, from allied health, nursing and post-licensure nursing, to health administration, medical billing and coding and much more. Taken together, these pathways and the volume of learners InStride serves have lent the company a wealth of experience in building clinical workforces at scale across multiple geographies.

Mark Laret joins InStride after 21 years at the helm of UCSF Health, long regarded as one of the best healthcare systems in the country thanks to its cutting edge biomedical research and rigorous education programs. His leadership has been characterized by a focus on high-quality patient care, employee engagement and driving health equity in the communities UCSF Health serves across the San Francisco Bay Area.

Prior to joining UCSF in 2000, Laret served as CEO of UC Irvine Medical Center, after spending 15 years at UCLA Medical Group. He has served on the boards of Nuance Communications and Varian Medical Systems and has chaired the Board of Directors of the Association of American Medical Colleges and the California Hospital Association. He currently serves on various boards including Collective Health, Viz.ai, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona and Regard, Inc.

Nancy Schlichting is the former President and CEO of the Henry Ford Health System, a $5 billion healthcare organization based in Detroit. She is credited with leading it through a dramatic financial turnaround and for award-winning patient safety, customer service and diversity initiatives. In 2015 she chaired President Obama’s Commission on Care to improve how the Veterans Health Administration delivered care to veterans.

Schlichting began her career in healthcare as a Fellow at the American Hospital Association, then took on leadership roles with Summa Health, Riverside Methodist Hospital and Catholic Health Initiatives before joining Henry Ford Health System in 1998. She is now a corporate director of Walgreens Boots Alliance, Baxter International, Encompass Health, and Pear Therapeutics; a trustee of Duke University; and vice-chair of the Duke University Health System Board.

InStride Advisory Board Members as of August 22, 2022 include: