Board of Directors
Joy Burkhard, MBA - Executive Director
Joy is the founder and executive director of 2020 Mom a non-profit social change organization aggressively working to close gaps in maternal mental health through education, awareness and advocacy.
2020 Mom’s projects include the brand’s “Mom Congress” and TheBlueDotProject. Mom Congress is a coalition of non-profit organizations and individual members working to improve birth and support of early motherhood, and he TheBlueDotProject a national awareness movement for maternal mental health which hosts the U.S.’s maternal mental health awareness week social media campaign.
In addition to running 2020 Mom, Joy also works part-time for the insurer Cigna where she has spent nearly 25 years. She serves as a regulatory affairs leader and has a passion for quality improvement and innovation.
Joy is a member of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology expert workgroup on Maternal Mental Health and the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative, the nation’s first agency working to solve the U.S.’s maternal mortality crisis.
She has been recognized for her leadership and vision with several awards, including receiving The American Public Health Association’s Maternal Child Health Leadership and Advocacy Award, California's American Mother of Achievement Award, the "Emerging Leader" award in women's health from the federal Health and Human Services Agency, Office of Women's Health and Cigna's Volunteer of the Year award.
Joy lives with her husband and two elementary school-age children in Los Angeles, California.
Aviril (Apple) Sepulveda, OTD, MS, OTR/L, BCP, SCFES - Board Chair
Apple is a board-certified pediatric occupational therapist with 20 years experience in the field. She received her undergraduate degree in occupational therapy in the Philippines and master’s degree in OT as San Jose State University as well as a doctorate in OT at University of Southern California. She is a fellow of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program (Cohort 1- 2016-2019).
Her areas of expertise include occupational therapy interventions for infant development and feeding, pediatric feeding and swallowing in medically complex children, sensory processing and integration, lactation support, dysphagia, and maternal-infant mental health. Apple recognizes the value of mental health in fostering families through advocacy and program development and is involved working on decreasing mental health stigma in immigrant Filipino communities.
Apple’s interests include promoting child-parent relationships, infant mental health, and maternal mental health, and mental health in diverse communities. Apple resides in Sherman Oaks with husband, George and dog, Gigi. She enjoys traveling, the arts, and being outdoors. Read her “My Why” story here.
John M. Smith - Vice-Chair
John is a corporate executive responsible for strategic innovation and new product development. John often negotiates multi-million dollar contracts and has led significant merger integrations. He understands that in the end consumer engagement and corporate social responsibility are critical to next generation solutions. John was the first in his family to attend college. He resides in St. Louis, MO and is a father of 5.
Carole Mendoza - Treasurer
Carole is an executive in the IBM Human Resources group. She leads the global health and wellness benefits team, and her responsibilities include the strategic development, analysis and implementation of IBM’s global health and wellness benefits programs.
Carole has held employee benefit leadership positions in the high tech, biotech, and oil & gas industries, as well as a health care benefits consulting role. Carole is a Certified Employee Benefit Specialist (CEBS) and earned her MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Kate DeStefano-Torres, MA, NCC, ACS, LPC - Secretary
Kate is the Founder and Executive Director of The Artemis Center for Guidance, in Gloucester County, New Jersey. Her areas of expertise include maternal mental health, trauma and recovery, EMDR, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and issues related to law enforcement personnel and their families. Read her “My Why” story here.
Lisa Bacus - Member at Large
Cigna Corporation Lisa Bacus is an accomplished executive, advisor and strategic leader. For over 30 years, Lisa has served in key corporate roles and helped Fortune 500 companies become industry-trend leaders with a keen focus on driving customer centricity and business results. She currently serves on several boards in both the public and private sectors.
Lisa served as Executive Vice President and Global Chief Marketing Officer at Cigna, a global health services company, where she was responsible for Cigna's global marketing and communications capabilities including operations, marketing research and insights, customer experience, branding, advertising, media, digital marketing and public relations. She also served as President, and later Chairman, of the Cigna Foundation.
Prior to joining Cigna, Bacus enjoyed a successful 22-year career with the Ford Motor Company, followed by five years at American Family Insurance where she served as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketer, overseeing all marketing, public relations, communications and actuarial functions.
Bacus has won numerous marketing awards, including multiple Cannes Lion and Effie awards, for innovative and growth-oriented business and marketing efforts. She has also been recognized with numerous leadership and civic awards. In 2019 she was named to the Wall Street Journal Network’s 50 Most Influential CMOs, Top 100 Brand Innovators, Top Women in Marketing and Diversity Magazine’s Most Powerful Women in Corporate America. She served as the executive sponsor for Cigna’s Hispanic/Latino Colleague Resource Group, which serves as a way to enhance diversity across multiple stakeholders, including customers, clients and employees.
Bacus earned two bachelor’s degrees from Northern Arizona University and an MBA from Duke University.
She, along with her husband and children, runs the Bacus Family Foundation, which provides scholarships to college-bound Hispanic youth. She is based in her home state of Arizona where she is building an equine therapy business to help children with autism.
Alinne Barrera, PhD - Member at Large
Alinne is a licensed Clinical Psychologist and Associate Professor at Palo Alto University. Her scholarly work is focused on depression prevention, intervention adaptations, and the use of technology to deliver maternal mental health services and resources. As a byproduct of her cultural experiences, she is drawn to working with Spanish-speaking and Latinx communities. Alinne aims to integrate technology as a tool to meet the needs of perinatal women, especially women with limited resources. She is currently examining the use of simple technologies (e.g., text-messaging) as an adjunct to prenatal care and as an enhancement to a home visitation program.
Britt Newton - Member at Large
With several years of sales experience in both healthcare and technology, Britt takes pride in being a “dot connector”. Her personal story involves infertility and mild complications at birth so she understands the need to have access to resources. In addition, she has heard so many stories since being involved with Junior League Los Angeles on the impact of initiatives involving maternal mental health. She believes that the intersection of advocacy, assessments and accessibility in a proactive approach will make a monumental difference.
Melanie Thomas, MD, MS - Member at Large
Melanie has held various roles at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and as faculty within the University of California, San Francisco Department of Psychiatry. Her primary focus is health services research and programmatic development in the area of perinatal mental health as a mechanism to interrupt the inter-generational transmission of stress and reduce health inequities. In addition to her current role as Director of the Solid Start Initiative, she has served as the Principal Investigator for several community-engaged research projects related to the development, implementation, and evaluation of mental health and other psychosocial services for pregnant women and families with children 0-3.
Dr. Thomas has been recognized as an expert in perinatal mental health through presentations at a variety of national conferences including the American Public Health Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the World Congress on Developmental Origins of Health and Disease. Dr. Thomas is the Principal Investigator on a recent Research Engagement Award proposal to the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute.
Kobi Ajayi - Board Assistant
Kobi is studying for her Masters in Public Health at Texas A&M University. When she is not studying or spending time with her daughters, Debare and Ebun, she volunteers her time with 2020 Mom. She is passionate about women’s health and well-being and hopes one day to lend her voice in health policy formulation and healthcare system management in Africa.