Therese R. Rodriguez

Therese R. Rodriguez is the Chief Executive Officer of Apicha Community Health Center. She has led the organization since 1997. Under Therese’s leadership, Apicha transformed from a community-based AIDS Service Organization and now to a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) that has served the immigrant and LGBTQ communities by expanding access to equitable healthcare and amplifying the voices of marginalized communities.

Therese believes that policy rooted in community contribution is the most important role that community leaders, in partnership with policy makers, can undertake. She was appointed by Governor Andrew Cuomo to the New York State End of AIDS Task Force, was appointed by Governor David Paterson and is a longstanding member of the NYS AIDS Advisory Council, which provides policy, program and budgetary recommendations to the Governor and the State Legislature and by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to the Commission for Runaway and Homeless LGBT Youth. She is on the board of the NMAC.

Therese’s transformational leadership was recognized by Crain’s New York Business when she was named one of the most Notable Women in Health Care in 2019 and one of the most Notable Asian Leaders in 2022.

Beyond healthcare, Therese is a poet and storyteller. Her book of poetry Parañaque to New York City: Fifty Poems, published in 2023, explores the immigrant experience, reflecting on identity, displacement, and resilience.

Excerpt from A Gift for the Ages

With loving arms Apicha reaches out
Far on the margins and on the edges,
In desolate, desperate places
Bringing battered souls to the lap of a gentle mother earth.
To be reared and nurtured in the beauty of self,
Bath in the power of one’s own truth.
To grow, to illuminate, explain,
Educate a world on the beauty and brilliance of
Inclusion and matters of the soul