Crossing paths, changing lives
By Alina Dizik
Last June, marketing executive Ricki Fairley ’81 MBA struck up a conversation with a fellow commuter at New York’s Penn Station. By chance, she recognized the logo on the stranger’s t-shirt.
The shirt referenced The Breasties, a nonprofit that builds community among those impacted by breast and gynecological cancer. For Fairley, herself a breast cancer survivor, that was enough to introduce herself right then and there in the station. Coincidently, both women were headed to Washington D.C., and they bumped into each other again at the train platform. Within a few minutes they learned their commonalities went far beyond a simple travel itinerary.
They discovered so many parallels: That they are both Kellogg alumnae. That they had both survived the same kind of aggressive, triple-negative breast cancer. And that they have both have used the leadership skills they learned in business school to launch initiatives that will help other women facing this terrible disease.
“It felt like a meant-to-be moment,” says Lindsey Baker ’15 MBA, a consultant to nonprofits and the commuter who Fairley met that day. As fate would have it, Baker’s t-shirt ended up sparking a friendship of kindred spirits that continues to this day. We recently caught up with both women to learn about how they’re advocating for other patients, how their Kellogg experience propels their work and how the alumni community has supported them along the way.
‘I quit my life and started a new one’
Fairley, who lives in Annapolis, Maryland, first learned 13 years ago that she had metastatic cancer that had spread to her chest wall. Even though she regularly went in for mammograms, the cancer was discovered at a later stage. She remembers telling her doctor: “I can’t die right now because I have a daughter at Dartmouth. I have to pay tuition, so what have you got for me?”
It served as a turning point — not only in her health but in all areas of her life. She got divorced, split from her longtime business partner and relocated from Atlanta to her roots in Annapolis and now lives in Highland Beach, overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. After undergoing a double mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation, Fairley realized she had new professional goals too. “When I got sick, I had to learn that my peace is non-negotiable so I quit my life and started a new one,” she says.
Closing the disparities
Those seeds of a new life sprouted just as she was completing chemo. When Fairley learned about the devastating odds that Black women in particular face when it comes to breast cancer, she took up the mission of shedding light on those disparities. In 2020, Fairley co-founded TOUCH, the Black Breast Cancer Alliance, a nonprofit whose purpose is to eradicate breast cancer among Black women.
The numbers are startling: Black women facing breast cancer have a 41% higher mortality rate than white women, according to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Among Black women younger than 50, the incidence of aggressive forms like the one Fairley had is double that of young white women, says the BCRF. And, Black women have a 39% higher recurrence rate than white women, according to research covered in the Oncology Times.
Part of the problem, Fairley says, is that drugs that were developed decades ago and are still in use today were rarely studied on Black women. In fact, the BCRF points out that patients of color are still underrepresented in clinical trials of potentially life-saving treatments today, making up less than 10-15 percent of participants. “Some of the drugs just aren’t working because they were not tested on our bodies,” Fairley says. Luckily, early in her diagnosis, her oncologist put her on experimental drugs that have since become the standard of care, she adds.
Fairley is determined to change those grim statistics. In 2022, she launched TOUCH’s When We Tri(al) campaign, with pharma giants including Genentech supporting the initiative. Since then, the nonprofit has directed more than 22,000 women of color into clinical trial portals devoted to cancer research. “The pharma companies are all talking the talk, but they don't know how to recruit these groups of patients,” says Fairley, who serves as TOUCH’s CEO. “We figured out how to crack that nut and do it.”
Another TOUCH campaign, For the Love of My Gurls, targets younger black women. The initiative has educated more than 1,000,000 women about the risks of breast cancer and the need for self-exams to catch cancer early. “We've created a change in how they think about breast health,” she adds.
She has also taken TOUCH on the road, hosting more than 110 events in 2024 alone. The idea is to reach women in social settings, where they might feel more comfortable learning new information about their health. At a recent event in upscale Martha’s Vineyard, the nonprofit conducted 54 breast scans using a portable imaging device, thanks to a partnership with a provider, Bexa Alliance. The scans found early breast cancer in three of the women. “We go into the community, the sororities, the urban centers, hair shows and churches and we talk to women where they are,” she says. “I want to look women in the eye and explain the science to them. We go where Black women live, work, play, pray and slay.”
A Scientific Approach
Reflecting on the more than 10 years she has spent in breast cancer advocacy including over four years at the helm of TOUCH, Fairley says her career path naturally led her to the kind advocacy work she’s doing now. Earlier in her professional life, she owned a marketing agency; completed stints at Coca-Cola, Nabisco and Johnson & Johnson; and developed the Black radio ads for Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign. To her, the shift towards more mission-driven advocacy from traditional marketing felt natural. “I've been using my marketing acumen to do advocacy, and it really is very similar because it’s trying to create a behavior change,” she says.
Looking back, it was her time at Kellogg that set her up to tap into the power of marketing. Many of her courses were taught by pioneers in the field, and the approach to her current work also grew out of her business education. “I take a very marketing, scientific approach to how we do advocacy, and I also measure results,” she says. “I am grateful for all of those things that are in my DNA from business school.”
Taking on a new mission
For Baker, finding out that she had breast cancer at age 35 came as a shock. Though the Tucson, Arizona, native knew she carried a mutation for the BRCA gene, which increased her chances of developing the disease, Baker was vigilant about her health. She got screened several times per year, and she had already had six biopsies before. Still, she felt a lump in her left breast in-between scheduled imaging. She was diagnosed with stage 2B triple-negative breast cancer in 2020. Much of what she read online about this specific type of cancer mentioned its higher mortality and recurrence rate. Two weeks after receiving the news, she started the first of 16 rounds of chemotherapy.
“Getting a diagnosis like aggressive breast cancer at 35 was really a moment where I felt like I played the Monopoly game wrong,” she says. “I had focused so much on school and work, and I was like: Oh my god, I'm going to die in my 30s for what?”
But, with the diagnosis came a shift in how she saw her own life and career. She recalled taking class with Harry M. Kraemer, clinical professor of management and organizations, who would often remind his MBA students that everyone only had 24 hours in the day, even the most successful Olympians or CEOs. “I knew that I needed to switch up my path,” says Baker.
Having spent her career until that point as a nonprofit executive, Baker realized she needed a pivot and sought autonomy to focus on multiple issue areas about which she was passionate and support diverse nonprofits thrive. She launched her own consulting practice, LR Baker Consulting, drawing on what she learned from years spent in-house with Feeding America, Hands On Atlanta and the Jewish Philanthropies of Southern Arizona. Today, she focuses on meaningful, project-based work with clients who are addressing social inequities, including hunger and healthcare. She also started writing about her experiences as a cancer survivor, and she serves as a board member of the Tucson Medical Center Health Foundation. Those fulfilling new pursuits “allow me to really follow my North Star,” she adds.
Most recently, Baker joined Camp Breastie’s leadership committee. The nonprofit’s annual retreat has all the hallmarks of the classic summer camp: cabins and campfires and s’mores. But more importantly, it brings together 600 people of all ages impacted by breast and gynecologic cancer to learn from experts in the field and find support in community. Baker has personally raised $25,000 in financial aid for participants to attend camp for free, and she does much of her consulting work about breast cancer and women’s health pro bono. “I feel like it's critical to me as a person, as a nonprofit professional and as a survivor, to be advocating for advancement, treatment and access,” she explains.
Next year, she hopes to start working with the legislature in her home state of Arizona. “My goal is to get a bill introduced at the state level that would make it mandatory for health insurance companies to cover fertility preservation for those facing treatment that threatens fertility,” says Baker. Currently, 18 states have legislation supporting onco-fertility services, according to Chick Mission, a nonprofit that she is collaborating with. For Baker, who feels immense gratitude that she froze her own eggs prior to her cancer diagnosis, the chance to make a difference in this way feels deeply personal. She’s currently meeting with healthcare practitioners, cancer survivors and researchers to focus on building a state-wide coalition.
Classmates turned cheerleaders
Baker enrolled in the Evening & Weekend MBA Program at Kellogg while working full-time at Feeding America because she was drawn to the school’s offerings in social impact. During orientation, many of her future classmates expressed their aspirations to do good for the world, a focus that resonated with her, too. The part-time program allowed her to apply much of what she was learning at Kellogg to her role overseeing national strategies to address child and senior hunger. She also came to value the importance of collaborating with people who have diverse skill sets. Years later, those formative experiences and confidence in her abilities empowered her to launch her own nonprofit consulting practice.
However, it wasn’t just her Kellogg education that became invaluable in the years ahead — it was the community of classmates-turned-friends who showed up to support her in her most difficult moments. She recalls fondly that several former classmates sent her a care package while she was going through treatment, with multiple handwritten cards. Other classmates make sure to reach out on the anniversary dates of her diagnosis or mastectomy, the day she was deemed cancer free. “They were really good and really present, and have been my cheerleaders,” she says of the alumni network. “My friends really carried me through breast cancer.”
The support is mutual, she adds. The tight-knit network of classmates continues to be present in each other’s lives in meaningful ways. “We’ve celebrated each other. I've been in their weddings as a bridesmaid, and I’ve been there to hold their hands in moments of loss,” she says.
Getting a seat at the table
Fairley says her mission — even when she’s not physically behind a desk — is never done. She’s always ready to strike up a chat about her experience, and she continues to keep in touch with Baker. “I wear a lot of pink shoes and booby crowns, and I talk to people,” she says unashamedly. “I try to start the conversation.”
She’s also now more involved in drug development goals, emphasizing the need to bridge healthcare disparities by bringing Black women into the conversation earlier. By all measures, her mission to change the odds for Black women facing breast cancer is working. She currently sits on advisory boards for some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Daichi Sankyo and Merck. “I really feel like they’ve given me a seat at the table,” she adds.
Baker, who just passed her three-year cancer-free milestone, adds that she’s living proof to diligently seek screenings based on your own risk factors. She’s also adamant in making sure that women don’t need to face the challenges of a startling diagnosis alone. And with an estimated 42,000 people who will die of breast cancer in the U.S. this year, there’s one message Baker tells anyone who will listen: “Early detection saves lives, and it saved mine.”