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ABOUT THE FOUNDER
MEET ELENA CAVALLO
Elena Cavallo, Founder of Quilting Health, is a seasoned healthcare leader, ICF-credentialed coach, and strategy and innovation consultant who believes that meaningful insights and possibilities emerge through connection – across people, perspectives, disciplines, and systems.
Her experience spans hospital, community health, and global CRO settings. Elena has designed, launched, and grown programs, services, and technologies in healthcare and clinical research, enabling human-centered, data-informed solutions through cross-functional and multidisciplinary collaboration. She has also partnered with local and multinational organizations to advance strategic goals and coached integrated healthcare system teams in clinical process improvement and leadership.
In parallel, drawn to traditional medicine and healing wisdom practices from different cultures, Elena studied with integrative health pioneers such as Herbert Benson, MD, and volunteered in holistic health programs at Boston hospitals. Today, she weaves these perspectives into her systems thinking approach.
EXPERIENCE & CREDENTIAL HIGHLIGHTS
Elena Cavallo, ALM, PCC, Founder
20+ years of experience in
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Healthcare improvement, innovation, clinical research, strategy and change management across local and global settings
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Cross-functional team leadership and multidisciplinary collaboration
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Individual, group, and team coaching through transitions, innovation, and leadership growth
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Facilitated training, workshops and masterminds to support learning and solution co-design
underpinned by
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Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience, Brandeis University
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Master's in Management, Harvard Extension School (with OR/MS courses)
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Certifications in Consulting, Health Care Economics, Clinical Process Improvement Leadership, and Healthcare Innovation
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ICF-accredited certifications in Leadership and Performance Coaching, Leadership Coaching for Healthcare Professionals, and Team Coaching
Beyond her own expertise, Elena may draw on a trusted network of professionals and thought leaders spanning industries, disciplines, roles, and geographies to best serve your unique needs.
A PERSONAL STORY:
THE THREADS OF QUILTING HEALTH
Since childhood, I've been fascinated by the mind-body connection and its dual expression: one that transforms our inner worlds and supports internal healing, and another that shapes our external reality, enabling us to engineer novel solutions and systems that influence the health of organizations, communities, and the broader society.
I first followed the inner thread through neuroscience and clinical research across neurology and other specialties, learning how the mind, brain, and body interact in health and healing. Over time, my focus expanded outward into healthcare operations and systems-level work, inspiring the study of management and data science to guide design of better solutions at scale.
This opened me to service in community health and hospital settings, including a senior leadership role in strategy implementation and system transformation at a leading U.S. academic healthcare system. I experienced even more deeply how the power of communication, shared purpose, collaborative change and innovation can connect mindsets to action and impact for the entire living body of an organization and well beyond its walls.
In parallel, I dedicated more of my personal time to learning about multicultural healing wisdom traditions and began to apply some of these insights as a volunteer Reiki practitioner in Harvard-affiliated Boston hospitals. While there, across some 500 sessions with patients and staff, I witnessed firsthand how integrative approaches can complement conventional care and support wellbeing. Around the same time, I also began coaching other leaders and teams in spearheading healthcare innovation initiatives, later building on this skillset through formal training in professional coaching.
By 2018, with one thread firmly in mainstream healthcare and another undeniably in complementary healing, I knew they were no longer meant to be separate. This realization gave rise to Quilting Health, a space where the spirit of science and the science of spirit can be woven into one fabric of insights and possibilities, in service of a more holistically healthy world. Since I stepped full-time into Quilting Health in 2024, this weaving has grown stronger, thread by thread – helping individuals, teams, and diverse groups activate more of their extraordinary potential and advance healthcare innovation, healing, and healthier systems.
and explore what's possible together!
