Leseliey Welch, MPH, MBA, is co-founder of Birth Detroit. She leads a team of birth workers, birth advocates, and public health workers planning Detroit’s first freestanding birth center. She has over a decade of leadership experience in city, state, and national health organizations. She served as interim executive director of Birthing Project USA and deputy director of Public Health for the city of Detroit, where she started SisterFriends Detroit. She provided concept development and community engagement consulting in the start-up of Corktown Health Center, Michigan’s first comprehensive LGBT health center. Leseliey is on faculty in Public Health at Wayne State University and lectures in Women’s Studies at University of Michigan. She is passionate about health equity as a daily practice, a tool for systems transformation, and a policy imperative. She earned her undergraduate degree in Women’s Studies, Masters in Public Health with a certificate in Women’s and Reproductive Health, and Masters in Business Administration from the University of Michigan. Leseliey resides in Ypsilanti, Michigan, with her partner and two kids. ([email protected])