Alicia D. Smith, MHA, is Director of Policy and Implementation and leads the Clear Pathways initiative at Peg’s Foundation, the largest mental health funder in Ohio. In her role, Alicia advances the foundation’s strategic priorities to improve systems, programs, and policies in service to persons with mental illness. She supports the foundation’s work to identify sustainable solutions for the financing and delivery of crisis response services.

Alicia has over 27 years of experience with Medicaid and other public assistance programs and has worked extensively with national and state mental health and substance use disorder payment and regulatory systems and providers. She provided policy and program development and analysis consultation to numerous state Medicaid agencies. Alicia has also led several large-scale, multi-stakeholder projects on behalf of Medicaid managed care organizations, community behavioral health providers, hospital and health systems, and state and national trade associations.

Alicia began her career in 1995 working at the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (now the Ohio Department of Medicaid) as a policy and program developer. She has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, and a master’s degree in health administration from The Ohio State University. Alicia is the current President of the Board of the College for Behavioral Health Leadership. She also serves as a member of Governor DeWine’s RecoveryOhio Advisory Council.