Amanda Higgins is vice president, Communications for the Kaiser Permanente Northern California region. As the area’s largest nonprofit integrated health care system, Kaiser Permanente provides care for more than 4.5 million members through its 21 hospitals and 257 medical offices in Northern California. In this role, she provides leadership for the communications strategy, policies and performance across the region and co-leads the development and evolution of the organization’s brand and reputation management strategy. She has oversight of public relations, media relations, internal communications, executive communications, issues management functions, as well as an in-house, full service creative and multi-media agency.
Prior to this role, Higgins served as executive director, issues and reputation management at Kaiser Permanente, where she worked closely with organizational, operational and communication leaders to provide strategic counsel and program leadership to promote and protect Kaiser Permanente’s reputation.
Higgins joined Kaiser Permanente as executive director of IT communications in 2008. As a member of both the IT executive committee and the Public Relations and Communications senior leadership team, Higgins led the communication efforts for the 6,000 member IT organization of Kaiser Permanente.
Higgins completed Kaiser Permanente’s Executive Leadership Program at Harvard Business School in 2012, has served as a communication cohort for the Research Board, a member of the Public Relations Society of America, International Association of Business Communicators, and the Issue Management Council.
Prior to joining Kaiser Permanente, Higgins served in public relations, corporate communications and brand communication leadership roles at top technology and consumer experience companies such as Magellan GPS, OmniSky, The Walt Disney Company, Infoseek, and Logitech. In her various roles, she specialized in building public relations, communications and marketing teams; executive communications, mergers and acquisitions, organizational change, consumer product launches, and investor relations.
Higgins holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from San Jose State University.