Kim Callinan has served on the Compassion & Choices leadership team for eight years, first as chief program officer and for the past five years as the organization’s president and chief executive officer. During her combined tenure at Compassion & Choices, Kim has played a leadership role in authorizing and implementing medical aid in dying in six new jurisdictions, including the recent passage of New Mexico’s End of Life Options Act. She was instrumental in drafting Compassion & Choices’ current five-year strategic plan, implemented in 2018, which prioritized the creation of a diverse, equitable and inclusive movement. She also launched our Finish Strong initiative designed to empower patients to take charge of the final chapter of their lives, with a specific focus on helping people plan for a possible dementia diagnosis and closing the disparities in end-of-life care and planning that exist for communities of color. Kim frequently speaks at conferences, testifies before state legislatures, conducts policy briefings and serves on committees as a subject-matter expert on end-of-life care options.
Prior to joining Compassion & Choices, Kim spent two decades creating integrated campaigns to engineer social change, including campaigns to reduce the number of uninsured Americans and improve children’s health, and political campaigns at the federal, state and local levels.
Kim holds a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University, a Master of Business Administration from the University of Maryland Global Campus, a bachelor’s degree in government from Oberlin College and a certificate in the fundamentals of gerontology through a joint program offered by the American Society on Aging and the University of Southern California Davis School of Gerontology. She also recently received an end-of-life doula certificate from the University of Vermont.
