Leadership

To Find Your Role, Keep Inspiration Close | Leadership Lessons

August 25, 2021  • Aspen Global Leadership Network

As the pandemic took hold of the world around her, Aviva Nassimi (Civil Society Fellowship: A Partnership of ADL and the Aspen Institute Fellow) felt a deep urgency to find her role in helping communities who were being disproportionally impacted.

After recentering on her unique skills and talents that could be leveraged to fight the pandemic, Aviva turned that urgent feeling into action earlier this year when she made the decision to leave the company where she began her career to join Pfizer as a senior communications manager.

This new role allows her to lead communications reaching multicultural audiences in order to address health disparities and advance Pfizer’s commitment to patient-centricity and health equity. After making this transition, we asked Aviva:

How did you find your role in this crisis; What have you learned about yourself and your leadership?; And, after 16+ months of living through the pandemic, what keeps you going?

Watch to hear her reflections and #LeadershipLessons.


Aviva Nassimi is the Senior Manager of Communications at Pfizer where she supports a communications strategy that strengthens and upholds Pfizer’s mission of delivering breakthroughs that change patients’ lives, while promoting health equity and patient-centricity throughout. Aviva began her career as a storyteller and content creator at TED.Com, where she helped grow the TEDx and TED Translators programs into two of the largest crowdsourced projects in the world, reaching over 30,000 volunteers, across 160 countries. Aviva is a Fellow of the inaugural class of the Civil Society Fellowship, A Partnership of ADL and The Aspen Institute, and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

The Civil Society Fellowship, a Partnership of ADL and the Aspen Institute, is a leadership development program preparing the next generation of community and civic leaders, activists, and problem solvers from across the political spectrum.


Leadership Lessons – a Video Series from the Aspen Global Leadership Network

The impacts of COVID-19 continue to challenge our communities. However, through these challenges, there’s a lot to be learned. In “Leadership Lessons” hear from leaders who have stepped up in new ways and remained steadfast in their values through this crisis. How did they make the tough decisions? How have they changed as leaders? Tune in and gain top insights from values-driven leaders – Fellows in the Aspen Global Leadership Network – who are battling trade-offs, creating rapid responses to community needs, sharpening new skills, and more. Watch all past interviews here.