Hi, I’m Jenn Garofolo, MPH, MBA.
Access is not theoretical. It is personal.
For more than twenty years, I built and led U.S. commercialization and market access strategy across rare disease, oncology, hematology, and gene therapy at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline, and Johnson and Johnson. At Vertex, I led U.S. market access for the first CRISPR based gene therapy approved for sickle cell disease, securing more than 80% national payer coverage across two indications within ten months. My work centered on one question: can patients actually access the innovation we develop?
Mental health advocacy has shaped my life since my son Daniel was very young. What began as a mother learning to read early warning signs grew into years of advocating inside schools, healthcare systems, and insurance structures.
My LGBTQIA+ advocacy runs just as long, through board service, community leadership, and rights work. When Daniel came out as transgender at eleven, it came home. I fought for him to be recognized in the rooms where decisions about him were made.
They are separate. They intersect. Neither one explains the other.
In 2025, I stepped away from my professional life to concentrate on my personal one. As the primary income earner, it was a defining decision. I wrote the book I needed when I was in it: Fighting for Their Lives, a memoir about resilience, identity, mental health systems, and what it means to fight for your child when institutions fail. I have since returned to the industry I know, carrying everything that year taught me.
Long before any of this, I played Division I basketball at Brown University, part of three consecutive Ivy League championship teams and a starter my junior and senior years. Winning the Ivy League in 1994 sent us to the NCAA tournament, the first year the women’s field expanded to 64 teams. The court taught me how to pivot when the play breaks down, how to lose without losing myself, and how to move a team forward when the game gets hard. I’m still doing all of those things. Just on a different court now.
Advocacy, Leadership, and Recognition
Selected Speaking Engagements
- Collaboration Conference, 2026, 2020, and 2018
- The Dr. James Show, 2021
- Mind Share Partners, 2018
- Johnson and Johnson World Mental Health Day, 2016
Board and Community
- Boston Gay Men’s Chorus, Board of Directors
- Brown University Sports Foundation, Board of Directors
- Brown University SPARK Program, mentor to student-athletes
- Christ Lutheran Church, Council member
- Athletes in Action, mission and basketball tour to Russia, 1994
- Academy of the Holy Angels Athletic Hall of Fame, inductee
Education
- BS, Psychology and Pre-Med, Brown University
- MPH, Rutgers University, formerly UMDNJ, School of Public Health
- Executive MBA, Rutgers Business School
Leadership Recognition
- Champion of Hope Award, Attitudes In Reverse, 2019
- President’s Circle, back-to-back at all three levels of field leadership, plus multiple Chairman’s Circles and Infinity Cups, Johnson and Johnson
- Propel Leadership and VOCAP Awards, Vertex
- Accelerated Differences and Spirit Awards, GSK
- Vice President’s Club, Merck
Leadership and Inclusion
Founder and builder of employee resource networks across three companies. At Vertex, co-founded and co-chaired ENABLE, the company’s first globally launched Employee Resource Network, and served as a leader on the North America Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Council. At GSK, co-founded the Oncology Culture Committee. At Johnson and Johnson, joined the leadership team of the Mental Health Diplomats, an initiative founded by Craig Kramer and Geralyn Giorgio, and helped evolve and grow it into the Alliance for Diverse Abilities.
Let’s start a conversation.
Whether you’re a parent, a clinician or educator, a healthcare organization, or an employer, there’s a seat at this table for you.