Hi, my name is Adrian Ashkenazy. I am the current Vice President of the Ohana One Board of Directors. I view my role on the board as helping to provide the perspective of a non-medical professional into the daily operations and mission statement of our charity in the hopes that as we continue to develop our mission we will be more effective in communicating our ideas to folks that come from outside the medical profession.
What aspect of Ohana One are you most proud of?
I am most proud of the fact that a very small group of people with just a shadow of an idea, three years ago, were able to marshal their resources — matched with their determination — to create a charitable organization that is living and breathing and making a substantial contribution to global health. I think it’s astounding that in only three years we have a full platform, full team, 100 mentee/mentor surgeons, and the interest of so many well-established players in the NGO space who are impressed with what we’re doing.
What do you hope to see Ohana One accomplish this year?
This year I hope Ohana One can build upon it’s existing foundation to create more scale. For example, our partner with InterSurgeon is particularly promising in that it has the ability to generate a countless number of mentor/mentee surgeons and so my hope is that Ohana One can fulfill the promise of what relationships like that represent.
What special skills of passion do you bring to Ohana One?
Well, my passion for Ohana One stems from my love of David Kulber. The fact that he has been willing to give so much of himself to Ohana One makes me want to match his contribution with my own as a way of showing how much I appreciate him.
What do you wish people knew about Ohana One?
I wish people understood what an outsized contribution Ohana One is making to the global health marketplace. I think that there are a lot of other organizations that have been around for a very long time and have done extremely good work in the space of global health. Whether it’s Doctors without Borders, Operations Smile, etc., there are many organizations that have made an incredible impact on the space. What I think is a little-known fact to most people is what an amplifying force Ohana One is for organizations that have already plowed such substantial resources into global health. It is my hope that the people that inhabit the NGO space of global health come to realize how impactful Ohana One’s mission is as a part of their own mission statements.
Who of the Ohana One board should we interview next?
So, I think Sharon Oreck has a ton of new board member enthusiasm and an unparalleled personality and I think it would be really interesting to get the perspective of somebody who is brand new and really understands what it is that drives their enthusiasm. She may have the ability to see things that we don’t see because we’ve been involved as long as we have been.
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