Jeff Willett, is Vice President of Strategic Engagement with Global Action To End Smoking. In this role, he oversees Global Action’s strategic engagement portfolio and is responsible for partner, stakeholder and donor engagement efforts as well as the organization’s communications and marketing strategies.
Jeff has over 20 years of experience directing national and state tobacco efforts in the United States. As National VP, Integrated Strategy with the American Heart Association (AHA), Jeff led aspects of AHA’s comprehensive strategies to protect the public from the harmful effects of tobacco. In various capacities, he supported AHA’s fundraising, communication, public policy, research and cessation efforts related to tobacco and nicotine. Among these, he championed AHA’s “endgame” position of “first ending the use of all combustible tobacco products.”
Jeff also served as Vice President with Truth Initiative’s Schroeder Institute, Vice President for Programs and Policy with Kansas Health Foundation, Director of the New York Tobacco Control Bureau, and Director of Evaluation and Research with the Ohio Tobacco Prevention Foundation. Jeff is an accomplished nonprofit, philanthropic and government leader who is an alumnus of the Grant makers in Health’s Terrance Keenan Institute for Emerging Leaders in Health Philanthropy.
Jeff holds a Ph.D. in Sociology, with a focus on health and medicine, and a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
