Hudson Valley Woman Named To Forbes '50 Over 50 Impact List'

CROTON-ON-HUDSON, NY— The third-annual Forbes 50 over 50 Impact List came out last week, and Catholic Medical Mission Board President and CEO Mary Beth Powers is on it.

The list celebrates 50 trailblazing female leaders who are building a better world. Making the list highlights the Croton resident's 30-year career at the helm of innovative global health programs, throughout which she served as an expert and policy advocate for maternal and child health.

Powers spent much of her career at Save the Children, serving as Chief of the Child Survival Campaign and Founding Chair of the Frontline Health Workers Coalition. Prior to joining CMMB, Powers served as vice president of programs at Dalio Philanthropies.

"The common threads among the organizations with whom I have worked really have to do with seeking to make the world a better place," Powers told Patch. "CMMB and Save the Children share a mission to help children affected by gaps in adequate health care around the world, while Dalio Philanthropies focused more on supporting people who lacked opportunities, often much closer to home.

"The truth is, there is plenty of work to be done to alleviate the suffering caused by poverty while we seek to help families become more economically secure and healthy," she said.

Powers is the first woman to lead CMMB, a faith-inspired global health nonprofit, in its over 110-year history. She leads the organization’s distribution of an annual $400 million worth of medicines and medical supplies around the world.

Using her development experience, she also supports CMMB’s community-led programs that strengthen access to health in places around the world where resources are scarce. Partnering with other Catholic organizations, she served on the steering committee of the Catholic Cares Coalition which campaigned for vaccine equity.

Powers credited her passion for service and social justice with her parents’ desire to make a difference through civil and community service, and her training at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, a Rotary Fellowship at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica where she studied development economics, and public health studies at the University of Michigan.

"I have never really found my work to cause 'burn out' because I have been fortunate to see the amazing progress that is being made," she said.

When she started her career in public health some 30 years ago, about 14 million sets of parents lost a child each year.

"Now, even though the world population is bigger, that number has declined to just 5 million child deaths per year," she said. "That means more healthy mothers have been able to bring a healthy newborn into the world, and that is pretty inspiring and makes me hopeful that progress is possible."

"And it makes me realize that the goal of ending preventable child deaths is in sight," she told Patch, "so this is no time to let up the effort!"