Young Sheila Phicil co-hosting a radio show, headphones on at the mic

About

Before I ever stepped into a boardroom, I was amplifying voices.

At 8 years old, I was co-hosting a youth radio show. At 14, I founded my first nonprofit, Children In Action, serving and mobilizing the Haitian community across Florida. I am a first-generation Haitian American, and I learned early that the voices systems fail are present, powerful, and waiting to be heard. They were designed out. I design them back in.

Then I went inside. Nearly two decades across the institutions that decide who gets to be well: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the Veterans Health Administration, and Boston Medical Center, where I served as Director of Innovation for the Health Equity Accelerator. I was rewarded for dashboards. I kept asking who was healed.

So I built my own architecture: the SEEDS Innovation Framework, Listen Phirst, and Phicil-itate Change. Systems designed to scale without moral debt, underpinned by ancestral wisdom, sacred practice, and the operational rigor those institutions taught me. I hold both worlds. That is the work.

~20 years

of healthcare innovation leadership inside the nation’s most influential institutions

MPH + MS · PMP · FACHE

Dual master’s degrees from Boston University in Public Health and Financial Economics

10 publications

Including JAMA Oncology and the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health

Off the stage · real life

Sheila Phicil at the 6th Annual Haitian American Young Professional Awards Gala in Boston

6th Annual Haitian American Young Professional Awards Gala, Boston, MA. Where I was named 2025 Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist.

Sheila Phicil in the Fanal Forest, Madeira, Portugal

The Fanal Forest, Madeira, Portugal. Where I fell in love with trees.

Sheila Phicil at a sunrise ceremony in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Sunrise ceremony for my 39th birthday, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Where I remembered how to be still.

What I build

One mission, two vessels. Each carries a different part of the work.

Phicil-itate Change logo

Phicil-itate Change

Building sovereign systems in healthcare AI so every decision that shapes care works for every individual. Home of the SEEDS of Innovation framework.

Visit phicil-itatechange.com

Listen Phirst logo

Listen Phirst

Your sovereign identity belongs to you, permanently, and your story shapes the future of care. Sovereignty-grade listening infrastructure for healthcare.

Connect with Listen Phirst

The story continues in the book.

Remembering How to Care arrives September 2026.

Join the waitlist