PQA’s talented staff is dedicated to improving medication safety, adherence and appropriate use. As experts in measure development, research, education and convening, they lead the implementation of PQA’s quality initiatives support better medication use and high-quality care. This blog is one in a series profiling PQA's staff. 

Jackie Green is PQA’s Chief Operating Officer. She is an experienced association management leader with expertise in financial oversight, organization growth and strategy. 

What is your role at PQA?  

I am Chief Operating Officer and manage the finances and operations of the organization. 

What are the problems you work to solve for PQA members?  

Members are our top priority at PQA, and my job is to ensure that the benefits of membership are continually evolving and meeting member needs.  Our four pillars of research, convening, measure development and education are geared towards helping our members be successful.  One aspect of my job is ensuring we have a top-notch team that is highly responsive, creative and growing in their skills to provide products and services that help our members. I am proud to say that the PQA team is an extremely talented group of people. 

What is your background and what drew you to PQA?  

I am an entrepreneur at heart and love helping to shape a product or, in this case, a new company.  I was employee No. 2, so I wore many different hats, from business development, sales, marketing, accounting and meetings manager. I had started my own company and sold it two years later. I also worked for large companies like P&G and with two start-ups with former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop.  I met Laura Cranston, PQA’s founding CEO, when we worked together at NACDS before she recruited me to work with her at Mirixa and then at PQA. 

What do you most enjoy about working at PQA?  

The financials and the people!  I love brainstorming with members of the team, finding ways to help grow PQA and identifying ways to help our members be successful.  If our members are successful, we are successful.   

You are PQA’s longest serving staff member. What stands out to you about the organization in your 12 years of service?   

The way people come together at PQA. Here competitors and rivals, friends and acquaintances, all from our multistakeholder membership put their differences aside and work together to support PQA’s mission.  

As PQA’s chief operating officer, what has been most challenging for PQA during the pandemic and how has the organization adapted?  

The most challenging was not being able to have “live” meetings and events.  People love to network. PQA’s Annual Meeting is one of the few meetings where people from health plans, community pharmacies, life sciences, technology and government come together and build business relationships and friendships.  PQA has done an amazing job at adapting to the virtual world.  Last year, in less than five weeks, the PQA team turned the live Annual Meeting to virtual with outstanding results and did it again for the Leadership Summit last fall and again this May.  They found creative ways to connect people for that “networking experience.” Our team is really amazing!  

PQA experienced its first leadership transition this year with founding CEO Laura Cranston stepping down after 15 years. How did you manage that change and did anything surprise you during the process?   

It was an amazingly smooth transition.  Over 70 calls had been set up in the first two weeks, with Laura introducing Micah to key contacts within the membership.  Another 50 plus calls followed over the next few months, with Micah quickly getting to know the members and how PQA supports their efforts.  Micah also prioritized getting to get to know the staff and has done an amazing job in quickly gaining their trust and managing through the continuing challenges of COVID. 

As an association representing 250 diverse health care organizations, what do you see as the key to PQA’s continued success?   

It takes the commitment of PQA’s multistakeholder Board and members to guide the organization, PQA’s leadership team to provide direction and inspiration and the full team to execute the plan.  And, of course, the ability to pivot when thrown a curveball like COVID. 

What do you enjoy doing when you are not working?  

I love to read mystery and thriller novels and sometimes biographies like “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt” by Edmund Morris, which is my favorite book.