Frances G Padilla, JD

Executive Vice President

Universal Healthcare Foundation of Connecticut

Frances G. Padilla, in her capacity as Executive Vice President at Universal Health Care Foundation, provides strategic direction and leadership across all foundation operations including innovative policy, research, and grant making strategies. 

In her 7-year tenure, the Foundation has employed an activist philanthropy approach to achieving universal access to quality and affordable care for Connecticut residents.  Under Ms. Padilla’s direction, the Foundation’s research and policy initiatives led to the design of the historic SustiNet health care reform policy.  She designed and facilitated the process of stakeholder input and feedback and coordinated the research team from the Urban Institute in Washington D.C. and MIT in Boston in designing the policy.  Two implementation planning laws have subsequently been enacted.  Ms. Padilla serves on the Governor’s SustiNet health reform board overseeing the next stage of realizing the SustiNet policy.  Under her leadership, the Foundation also created an innovative funding program to build a movement for universal health care through results-oriented partnerships in education, outreach, and mobilization. 

For 10 years before joining the Foundation, Ms. Padilla was President of New Paradigms Consulting, a business, which she founded and grew into a nationally recognized organization serving philanthropic foundations, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies.  Driven by a belief in holistic approaches to improving communities and outcomes for children and families, New Paradigms specialized in program and policy evaluation, strategic planning and organizational capacity building.  New Paradigms worked with clients in education, workforce development, housing, and neighborhood development.  As owner of a small business herself, Ms. Padilla has first-hand experience with the challenges of securing affordable and quality health coverage.

Ms. Padilla began her career in philanthropy in 1981 with the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving and later moved into positions of increasing responsibility at the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, ending her tenure there as Associate Director for Special Projects and Planning.  Ms. Padilla is a co-founder of the Progreso Latino Fund of the Community Foundation, an endowment fund created to encourage Latino giving and to promote the educational, economic, and social well-being of Latinos in the communities of Greater New Haven.

Ms. Padilla has a long history of community service, having served on the boards of the New Haven Board of Education, The Hospital of Saint Raphael, and the Community Loan Fund of Greater New Haven.  She currently serves on the board of the Center for Assessment and Policy Development, a national social policy think tank.  She has recently been named to the National Partnership for Action Region I Health Equity Council, an initiative of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The New York City native is a graduate of Wesleyan University and holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  She lives in New Haven with her husband John.  They are the proud parents of Ivonne and Alex, as well as grandparents of Cami.