VCU Health System Authority Board of Directors

The Honorable Lamont Bagby has served the community that raised him as an elected official for the past sixteen years, including eight years on the Henrico County School Board and eight years in the House of Delegates. He is currently the chair of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus.

Prior to serving in the General Assembly, Senator Bagby was a teacher, administrator, school board member at his alma mater Henrico High School and served on the leadership team at the Peter Paul Development Center. There, Senator Bagby worked to create resources and programs to educate the child, engage the family and empower the community.

As a member of the House and Chair of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, Senator Bagby has worked across the aisle and championed legislation focused on stopping the school-to-prison pipeline, creating affordable housing and championing criminal justice reforms, voting rights, environmental justice, consumer protections and more.

Delegate Bagby earned his bachelor's degree from Norfolk State University and Master of Education from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Dr. Bhardwaj calls Virginia home. She completed her undergraduate training at the College of William and Mary. She pursued her medical education and Internal Medicine residency at the University of Virginia and her Cardiovascular Fellowship here at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Dr. Bhardwaj is an Associate Professor of Medicine. She wears many hats at VCU. Notably, she is the Director of the Cardiology Inpatient and Consultation Services, Director of Adult Echocardiography, and Director of Cardiovascular Quality Improvement and Safety. Understanding the importance and necessity of continued growth in one's career, she is currently enrolled in the Grace E. Harris Leadership Institute here at VCU. Her clinical work includes attending on the general Cardiology inpatient services and in the Coronary Intensive Care Unit, as well as participating in several outpatient clinics. Additionally, she supervises and reads echocardiograms, stress tests, and cardiac MRIs. Her priorities, in her leadership roles, include optimizing clinical operations, ensuring patient centered care, and ensuring focus on quality improvement and safety here at VCU. Dr. Bhardwaj enjoys teaching residents and fellows, as well as M2 students and was recently awarded Best Teacher in the M2 Cardiovascular course.

Joel Bieber, Esq. is the founder of The Joel Bieber Firm, a personal injury and pharmaceutical law firm based in Richmond and Virginia Beach, Virginia; with additional offices in Maryland, South Carolina, West Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. Mr. Bieber notes that one side of his family are farmers and the other side is filled with preachers.

That is why he describes his upbringing as, “I know how to milk a cow and am comfortable in a church or a barn. Joel also notes that he enjoys playing ping pong outside on windy days.

During college he served both as a Congressional aide and a legislative aide in the Virginia General Assembly. He then received his undergraduate degree in Political Science from Old Dominion University, his Law degree from Oklahoma City University. He is admitted to practice in Virginia and South Carolina, the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia, South US District Court of South Carolina, the 4th Circuit US Court of Appeals, and has waived into several other states to handle cases across the United States. Charity work is near and dear to Mr. Bieber’s heart.

He has served as Advisory Board member for Crossover Ministries and has been a Spokesman for United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) and Richmond Hero, an animal protection organization. He is also active with Caritas, the National Kidney Foundation of the Virginia’s, and the Brain Injury Association of Virginia. He also is a member of the North American Brain Injury Society (NABIS) and received the organization’s Founders Award (now known as the Robert Voogt Founders Award) for his dedication to advancement in the field of brain injury.

He has been appointed by the Governor of Virginia to serve on the VCU Health System Authority Board of Directors. The Authority operates hospitals and related health care facilities including five Health Sciences Schools of Virginia Commonwealth University.

Some of Joel’s hobbies include golf, reading, chess, exercise and watching lots of sports; that includes the Orioles, Wizards and Colts, and continues to work to not be an embarrassment on the golf course. Joel’s mom was an avid Washington Football Team fan, which also causes Joel to root for Washington, in memory of his mom. He and his wife, Jackey, were married in Williamsburg, Virginia. They are passionate about organizations that focus on organ donation and transplantation. In 2008, Joel had a kidney transplant. His donor was … his wife.

Diana Cantor's vast and diverse career experiences span the investment, financial and business management, and legal arenas. She is a member of the Investment Committee and the Board of Managers of Alternative Investment Management, LLC, an independent, privately held investment management firm. She also serves as a Senior Adviser with AKF Consulting Group, focusing on the areas of governance, fiduciary duties and oversight of state-run investment programs.

Previously, she was a Managing Director of New York Private Bank & Trust and served for over a decade as the founding Chief Executive Officer of the Virginia College Savings Plan, the state agency that administers Virginia's Section 529 college savings plans. She held the position of Vice President at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in New York, serving as chief administrator of the firm's leveraged buyout and internal investment funds and merchant banking/principal investment operations and practiced law in the real estate department of the New York office of Kaye Scholer (now Arnold & Porter). In addition, Ms. Cantor is a Past Chairman of the Board and served for over ten years as a Trustee of the Virginia Retirement System.

Ms. Cantor is currently a director of three public companies: Domino's Pizza, Inc., VICI Properties, Inc., and Universal Corporation. She also serves on the private company boards of Mauser Packaging Solutions and SCP Retirement Services.

Ms. Cantor is a past director of the public company boards of Revlon, Inc., Media General, Inc., and The Edelman Financial Group Inc., and a past director of the private company boards of Edelman Financial Services, Knowledge Universe, Service King Collision Centers, Vistage International, and Adore Me.

Ms. Cantor is an Advisory Board member of Stone Canyon Industries and Cerity Partners. She also serves on the non-profit governing Boards of the YMCA of Greater Richmond, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, and the Virginia Commonwealth University Health System Authority.

Ms. Cantor is a Certified Public Accountant and member of the State Bar in Virginia, Florida, and New York. She has an undergraduate degree from the University of Florida's School of Accounting, a Master's in Business Administration from the University of Miami, and a law degree from New York University.

Richard Grinnan is Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary at Markel Group Inc., a diverse family of companies that includes everything from bakery equipment, building supplies, houseplants and more, with its specialty insurance business sitting at the core of the company.

In his role, Mr. Grinnan is a strategic leader and advisor who oversees the legal affairs of a global holding company with business operations in over 30 countries and over $15 billion in annual revenue. He is a collaborative and effective communicator who works closely with senior management teams, boards of directors, regulators, and external stakeholders to achieve business objectives, meet compliance requirements, and mitigate risks.

Previously, Mr. Grinnan served as Vice President, Deputy General Counsel and Assistant Secretary at Alpha Natural Resources, Inc. and prior to that as Vice President and Corporate Secretary at Massey Energy Company. He started his legal career as an Associate at McGuireWoods LLP.

Mr. Grinnan earned a bachelors of arts degree from the University of Virginia in 1990, having graduated with distinction, majoring in History and minoring in Religious Studies. In 2000, he graduated from the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business with a masters in business administration and from the University of Virginia's School of Law with a juris doctorate.

Fay Manolios is Managing Vice President, Head of Total Rewards for Capital One Financial Corporation. The Total Rewards organization includes Compensation, Recognition, Benefits, and Global Mobility for more than 50,000 associates. A champion of empowering associates to live their best lives, Fay leads a team focused on the design and delivery of programs and experiences that work together to support associates' total well-being.

With over 25 years of experience in Human Resources, Fay has built a career driven by a passion to create value for the associates she serves and the businesses she supports. During her time at Capital One, Fay has championed the effort to raise the minimum wage for hourly workers, helped the company achieve dollar-for-dollar pay equity across gender and race, harnessed the power of analytics to assess front line associate health outcomes and set the vision for reimagining benefits experiences for Capital One associates around the globe.

Fay serves on the Board of Directors of the Neighborhood Resource Center of Greater Fulton and is a mentor with Startup Virginia. Fay served on the Advisory Board of Fringe, a Richmond-based startup working to put benefits choices in the hands of the consumer. She attended St. John's University in New York before she moved to Greece where she received her Bachelor of Arts from The American College of Greece.

Prior to joining Capital One, Fay held a number of Human Resources roles at organizations including Citibank, Accenture and SunTrust. She grew up in New York and now resides in Richmond, VA with her husband, Paul, and enjoy spending time exploring local restaurants, cycling on the Capital Trail and visiting local wineries.

Mr. Nied has been advising companies and entrepreneurs for nearly thirty years. He has provided guidance to a full range of companies throughout the United States and abroad, including multinational manufacturers, technology startups, consumer packaged goods companies and heavy industry predictive analytics firms. He has guided companies from formation, through financing rounds, mergers and acquisitions, and liquidity events.

Mr. Nied regularly lectures and writes about corporate and securities, mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity financings and intellectual property matters. His law practice includes representing clients in contract negotiations, securities regulation, Blue Sky law, and private placements. Mr. Nied also has extensive experience handling transactions involving debt financings, joint ventures, fund formation, licensing agreements, engineering services contracts, development agreements and supply agreements.

He serves as general outside counsel to a variety of companies by drafting and negotiating contracts, providing litigation oversight and strategy advice, intellectual property protection guidance, employment advice and coordinating the services of other legal, accounting and tax advisors.

Education
Emory University School of Law, J.D., with distinction, 1995
University of Pennsylvania, B.A., 1990

Mark Oley is the founder of Westwood Pharmacy, one of the largest providers of pharmacy services to correctional facilities in the United States. He has a long and distinguished record of accomplishments in many areas of pharmacy practice, including retail, assisted living, long-term care, behavioral health, and corrections.

Mr. Oley was appointed to Virginia Board of Pharmacy for eight years (1998-2006), including a term as Chair. Oley was also a founding member of the Virginia Medicaid Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee and served on the board of the American Heart Association.

Mr. Oley received his pharmacy degree from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science (now St. Joseph’s University). At his alma mater, Mr. Oley served as both a clinical assistant professor and a member of the Board of Trustees.

Michael Rao, Ph.D., became the fifth president of Virginia Commonwealth University in 2009.

VCU educates more than 31,000 students from 101 countries in more than 220 degree and certificate programs. As the largest employer in the Richmond area and sixth largest in the commonwealth, VCU's economic impact on Virginia exceeds $6 billion annually. Additionally, VCUarts Qatar — located in Doha's Education City — is internationally recognized for excellence in art and design.

Guided by its current strategic plan, Quest 2025: Together We Transform, the university will refocus the undergraduate student experience, strengthen educator and researcher compensation, increase national prominence through research, improve the patient experience, and meet the goal set for our largest capital campaign in university history.

Under President Rao's leadership, VCU's place among national research universities continues to rise. U.S. News & World Report ranks 22 graduate programs in the top 50. Consistently recognized for excellence, VCUart's sculpture program and the College of Health Profession's nurse anesthesia program are the best in the nation at No.1. The university is ranked no. 20 and no. 38, respectively, by the National Institutes of Health for addiction studies and neuroscience research. VCU is designated as being “Community Engaged” with “Very High Research Activity” by the Carnegie Foundation.

Classified as a Tier III institution with the highest level of financial authority by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, VCU educates and graduates more Pell-eligible and first-generation college-going students than its Tier III counterparts in the commonwealth combined.
With the addition of over 5.3 million square feet, President Rao has overseen one of the largest-ever expansions of VCU's footprint through the construction of living-learning environments, academic meeting spaces and state-of-the-art clinical and laboratory facilities. With guidance from the university's master facility plan, ONE VCU, improved transit access to VCU and VCU Health for students and employees has been implemented. A soon-to-be constructed STEM facility will expand existing lab space and support innovative teaching methods.

President Rao serves as chair of the Virginia Council of Presidents and the Virginia Bio+Tech Partnership Authority. He also serves as chair of the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities and he is its representative for the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities. He is a senior advisory board member of the Northern Virginia Technology Council and is the board secretary for the American Council on Education.

President Rao has been in higher education administration for more than 25 years, beginning in California in 1992, when he became president of Mission College. At the time, he was the youngest college president in the nation. He went on to serve as chancellor of Montana State University - Northern and president of Central Michigan University.

President Rao holds a bachelor's degree from the University of South Florida and a Ph.D. from the University of Florida. He and his wife, Monica — a watercolorist and graphic designer — have two sons.

Randolph N. Reynolds, Jr. is Founding Partner of Reynolds Development Company, a private real estate management and development company which he co-founded in 2001.  The company specializes in commercial real estate investing, management, and development.  

After graduating from the College of William & Mary with a BA in economics in 1988, Mr. Reynolds moved to Zug, Switzerland to work for Marc Rich & Co AG, a major mining and trading company. Later, he accepted a job as a project manager for Reynolds Metals Development Company in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Mr. Reynolds assisted in the financial restructuring and operational turn-around of Drew Gardens, and ACLF in Clearwater, FL. Next, he ran the Crossroads Park of Commerce in Ft. Pierce, FL, and assisted with various residential projects all around the state of Florida.

In 1995, Mr. Reynolds moved back to Richmond, VA and joined the Construction Products Division of Reynolds Metals Company as its Export Sales Manager. A few years later, Mr. Reynolds joined the Bauxite & Alumina Division of Reynolds Metals Company heading up the export sales of Reynolds Chemical and High Purity Alumina products. Mr. Reynolds handled key Japanese accounts like Sony, Kyocera, and NEC. In addition, he serviced several major European lighting and medical ceramic hip joint companies including Philips, Ceramtec, Metoxic, and Osram Sylvania. Mr. Reynolds earned a Six Sigma Green Belt status at GE Lighting’s Supplier training program in Cleveland, OH.

In 2000, Mr. Reynolds co-founded an internet market for aluminum products called OnlineAluminum.com . It later merged with a New York city based company, Aluminium.com

Mr. Reynolds served as Chairman of the Foreign Trade Zone Subcommittee of the St. Lucie County, Florida Economic Development Council and also previously served as a member of the Board of Trustees for Collegiate School in Richmond, VA. He was a member of the Real Estate Foundation Board of the College of William & Mary in 2007, and was the Chairman of VCU Health’s Trauma Violence Prevention Ball in 2019. In addition, he was selected to be the Chairman of the Boy Scouts Gala in downtown Richmond in 2022.

Mr. Reynolds graduated from the LEAD Virginia program in 2010, completed the mini MBA Course at the University of Richmond in 2016.

Mr. Reynolds currently serves on the boards of Blue Ridge Bank, 1-800-Got-Junk Virginia Advisory Board, and the Henrico County Police Foundation Board. He previously served on the Board of the Bank of Lancaster, then later Virginia Commonwealth Bank (VCB), and the holding company Bay Banks, Inc.

Mr. Reynolds was the Founding Chairman of the Richmond Community Board, and is a current member. 

Born March 2, 1965 in Madrid, Spain Mr. Reynolds is a native of Richmond, Virginia. He is married to Mary Clay Caperton. They have one son together, and three sons from Mr. Reynolds' first marriage.

Dr. Saavedra served as dean of the VCU School of Medicine and executive vice president for medical affairs for the VCU Health System from April 2023 through January 2026.  He currently serves as the executive vice president and provost for Virginia Commonwealth University.

He came to VCU from the University of Virginia School of Medicine, where he was the Kenneth E. Greer Endowed Professor and chair in dermatology and the president and interim chief executive officer for the University Physicians’ Group. 

Prior to UVA, Dr. Saavedra was quality chair for the Dermatology Department at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and was later asked to serve as the vice chair for Clinical Affairs and medical director in the Department of Dermatology at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. 

He specializes in the diagnosis and care of complex medical dermatology and is considered one of the national experts in the care, management and immunopathology of Graft-versus-host disease. 

After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard College with a degree in Biological Sciences, Dr. Saavedra received a combined medical and doctoral degree from the University of Pennsylvania, with specialized training in pharmacology. He completed his residency training in internal medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he was also chief resident. He graduated from the Harvard Combined Dermatology Residency Training Program and completed his fellowship in dermatopathology. He also earned an M.B.A. in entrepreneurial finance from the Babson College Graduate School of Business.

Dr. Saavedra is an editor of Fitzpatrick’s Color Atlas and Synopsis of Clinical Dermatology, one of the most widely read dermatology atlases for diagnosis and treatment of skin conditions nationally and abroad. He has performed funded research, and he is the past president (and inaugural president) for the Virginia Dermatology Society. He is currently the president of the Board of the Medical Dermatology Society and the treasurer of the American Professors of Dermatology.  He is also the president-elect for the Medical Society of Virginia.

Wally R. Smith, M.D. is the Florence Neal Cooper Smith Professor of Sickle Cell Disease at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). He also serves as the Vice-Chairman for Research of the Division of General Internal Medicine and is the former Scientific Director of the Center on Health Disparities at VCU. Dr. Smith is an experienced implementation scientist and an expert in clinical and health services research in sickle cell disease. He has authored over 100 publications, and served as an investigator on over 50 externally funded grants and contracts. Dr. Smith has been associated with the development of two potential lead compounds for sickle cell disease at VCU.

Romesh Wijesooriya is an Assistant Professor of General Pediatrics at CHoR. He has served as the Division Chair of General Pediatrics since 2014. Additionally, he serves as the Medical Director for the Pediatric Primary Care Clinic at CHoR, he is an Assistant Medical Director for Telehealth at VCUHS and is a founding Board Member of the Virginia Children's Care Network (VCCN).

Romesh received his BA in Religious Studies with a minor in Biology in 1999 from The University of Virginia where he was an Echol's Scholar and a Jefferson Scholar. After graduating, he spent one year working at a hospital and orphanage in Jos, Nigeria before returning to The University of Virginia for Medical School. He received his MD from UVA in 2004 and he completed his pediatric residency training at VCUHS in 2007. He served as Chief Resident for one year and subsequently joined the faculty of VCUHS in 2008. He has been board certified by the American Board of Pediatrics since 2007. Due to his interest in pediatric obesity, he pursued and received his certification from the American Board of Obesity Medicine in 2015. In 2016 he attended the Harvard Leadership Development Program for Physicians in Academic Health Centers.

During his time as the Division Chair, the Division of General Pediatrics has expanded from 14 pediatric providers (MDs and NPs) in 2014 to 22 providers (MDs and NPs) in 2020. Additionally, since 2014, the division has seen steady and clear year over year growth in patient volumes (76% increase in patient volumes over 7 years), profit margins, new program development, program expansion, research funding and activity, and educational activity. This clear growth in clinical, educational and research activity and productivity within the division has led to many members of the division Wijesooriya, Niran Romesh 11 of 13 being appointed to leadership roles and responsibilities at the institutional, local, regional and national levels.

Romesh maintains a primary focus on clinical care of patients in both the outpatient and inpatient settings. His special interests include medical education of residents and medical students, family-centered care, access to quality health care for patients and families who exist in lower socioeconomic environments, obesity in the pediatric population, and telehealth.

As a general pediatrician who has practiced medicine (and lives) in an urban, low-income, and under-resourced community since 2004, Romesh has had to grapple with the reality and challenges of health disparities for low-income communities. He has come to recognize that these disparities are generational and systemic in nature. Romesh is committed to improving health outcomes by changing the systems (medical, financial, educational, social, law enforcement, etc.) that have created and perpetuate these disparities.

Romesh has also developed a niche interest in Telehealth. In 2019 he was appointed as the Assistant Medical Director of Telehealth at VCUHS and has been part of the team that helped to manage a 5000% growth in telehealth volumes at VCUHS during the COVID-19 crisis. Romesh believes that telehealth if managed and appropriated and wisely, has a unique opportunity to enable health care to be more patient-centered, cost-effective, collaborative and accessible.

Romesh is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, The Obesity Society, and Alpha Omega Alpha. He has been recognized for his excellence as a medical educator on numerous occasions including being voted the "Best Teacher" in the Pediatric Clerkship on 2 separate occasions. He has received a number of different accolades for his clinical work including being named to Richmond Magazine's "Top Docs" list annually since 2012. While Romesh has primarily been recognized for his work as a clinician, a medical educator and a physician leader, he has also been able to partner with leading researchers on numerous research projects. He has been invited to collaborate on grant-funded research projects evaluating topics including pediatric obesity, medical education, telehealth, and maternal and infant microbiomes. The findings of these various research projects have been presented at national conferences and published in highly regarded peer review journals including Nature Medicine.

Throughout his career, Romesh has been actively involved in serving the Department of Pediatrics, the VCU School of Medicine, the VCU Health System and the University. He has served on a number of different committees since joining the VCUHS faculty in 2008. He has also repeatedly been invited to join strategic planning initiatives for the Department and the Health System. Most recently, he participated in CHoR Pediatric Clinically Integrated Network (CIN) Taskforce that resulted in the formation of the Virginia Children's Care Network (VCCN) in 2020. The VCCN is the first pediatric-focused CIN in central Virginia and the first CIN involving the VCU Health System. Romesh is currently serving as a founding board member for the VCCN.

Romesh is joyfully married to Lawson and they are the proud parents of 2 energetic Wijesooriya, Niran Romesh 12 of 13 boys. He lives in Church Hill in downtown Richmond. He has been and continues to be deeply committed to his neighborhood and the City of Richmond. He has participated and led a number of different community-based initiatives seeking to address economic and health disparities. From 2005 - 2015 he served as president of Urban Hope, an affordable housing non-profit in the city of Richmond committed to preserving affordable housing for economically challenged urban families in the City of Richmond. From 2011 - 2017 he served on the PTA committee overseeing the application and implementation of the International Baccalaureate (IB) program at the neighborhood elementary school (Chimborazo Elementary) that his children attended and recently graduated from. He is a founding member of East End Fellowship, a multi-ethnic, economically diverse Christian church located in the east end of Richmond that is committed to "seeking the welfare of the city".

Delegate Rodney Willett represents Virginia’s 58th House District, serving western Henrico County. First elected in 2019 and re-elected in 2021 and 2023, he has established himself as a leader on health care, education, and environmental policy. Rodney chairs the Compensation and Retirement Subcommittee, the Behavioral Health Subcommittee, and the Joint Commission on Health Care. He also leads the Virginia Health Workforce Development Authority and the House Select Committee on Advancing Rural and Small Town Health Care. In addition, he serves on the Agriculture, Chesapeake Bay, and Natural Resources Committee. Throughout his tenure, Rodney has been instrumental in advancing legislation to expand access to health care, strengthen early childhood education, improve mental health services, protect the environment, and promote voting rights and gun violence prevention.