DENVER, CO (May 17, 2018) — Nurse-Family Partnership ® (NFP) – a national program serving first-time moms and their children living in poverty – announced today that Benilda (Benny) Samuels has been promoted to chief operating officer. Samuels has served as acting COO since September, and was previously the chief marketing communications officer.
“Benny is a strategic leader that has been a guiding voice to Nurse-Family Partnership to be smarter, more innovative and always dedicated to our number one metric of success – being better able to reach moms in poverty,” said Frank Daidone, president and CEO of Nurse-Family Partnership. “Her vision to drive our business operations with a deep understanding of our nurses’ needs will be crucial to our ability to dramatically serve more families in poverty.”
In her interim role as COO, Samuels led the business strategy and guided executives to ensure their operations achieved Nurse-Family Partnership’s expansion goals. As chief marketing communications officer – in just over three years – she dramatically grew the marketing and communications department’s capacity to increase brand awareness and client referrals. Samuels launched the first consumer enrollment campaign to reach first-time moms in poverty.
Now as COO, Samuels will lead operations and growth enrollment initiatives to double the number of first-time moms and babies served by Nurse-Family Partnership. She will advance Nurse-Family Partnership’s business development strategy and oversee program implementation, nursing, information technology, marketing and communications, planning and analytics, and regional expansion. In addition, Samuels will strengthen partnerships and promote efficiencies to increase Nurse-Family Partnership’s capacity to reach more moms and babies.
Samuels is a seasoned bilingual integrated marketing communications executive with 25 years of experience driving enrollment into publicly sponsored health programs (such as Medicaid, CHP+ and sliding scale health programs). She has developed and implemented communications campaigns that engage the hardest to reach populations including teens, poor men of color, the underserved, Native Americas and the working poor. Samuels has extensive experience directing operations and strategy to grow capacity and achieve organizational goals that always keep the mission first. Before joining Nurse-Family Partnership, she was the administrator of the Denver Health Family Planning Project, which is credited with contributing to the statewide reduction of unintended pregnancy in Colorado by 40%. In addition, Samuels ran communications at the Denver Department of Human Services where she increased the number of foster parents serving children in the child welfare system, as well as increased the number of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) families with access to child care assistance in Denver.
She holds a master’s degree in mass communications and journalism from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a bachelor’s degree in graphic design from the University of Denver.
Samuels is a native of Panama, and is married to a retired firefighter and paramedic, John Watson. They live in Denver with their mutt, Oreo. Samuels and Watson have one son, Sergio, a rising sophomore at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix.
Over 40 years of research show that Nurse-Family Partnership is successful in improving maternal health and birth outcomes, preventing child abuse, reducing childhood injuries, increasing children’s school readiness and reducing juvenile crime. Nurse-Family Partnership serves over 33,500 low-income, first-time moms in 42 states, U.S. Virgin Islands and many Tribal communities.
In Colorado, Nurse-Family Partnership serves families in all 64 counties.