Meet our Founders
Dr. Columbus Batiste & Danette Batiste
The Co-Founders of Healthy Heart Nation bring their collective talents and passions together to educate and inform the African American community on disparities and how to overcome them.
These Co-Founders understood that in order to service this community it would take a team of passionate experts in the areas of Health, Justice, Education and Business to fully make the necessary impact on our community for incremental and sustainable change. Through their collective networks, The Healthy Heart Nation utilizes Black professionals to educate and inform the African American community through publications, campaigns, documentaries, lectures, social media, workshops, and community outreach.
Dr. Columbus Batiste
Dr. Columbus D. Batiste is a board-certified Interventional Cardiologist and Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of California Riverside School of Medicine. From 2008 until 2020 he served as Chief of Cardiology. Over the years Dr. Batiste has been recognized for his work in the community and abroad by multiple organizations.
In 2010, Dr. Batiste sought to break-the-cycle of prescriptions and procedures as the sole management of chronic disease and began promoting a long-term solution for his patients through nutrition, stress reduction, and exercise. As a result, in 2011 Dr. Batiste established the Integrative Cardiovascular Disease Program (based at Kaiser Permanente). This program sought to prevent the re-occurrence of major adverse cardiac events in patients who were diagnosed with a cardiovascular disease by focusing on lifestyle modification. In 2016 Dr. Batiste led a group that collaborated with Samsung Technologies and developed a virtual cardiac rehabilitation program utilizing a Samsung wearable. Since its launch the program, which applies the principles of lifestyle, has treated nearly 10,000 patients.
Dr. Batiste’s mission is to share information so that “each-one can teach-one” about the benefits of plant-based nutrition, daily exercise, and stress reduction and therefore, provide everyone with the opportunity to take control of their health. This mission and his passion for the community has led to the formation of a non-profit organization called the Healthy Heart Nation, which provides education through lectures, newsletters, social and digital media.
Danette Batiste
Danette Batiste currently serves as the Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Manager for Softchoice a multi-billion-dollar IT company that services clients in the US and Canada. In this role, Danette is tasked with helping Softchoice reach the goal of building the most vibrant and high-performing organization in the IT sector by embedding diversity, equity and inclusion into everything we do. As a member of the Softchoice’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) team, she supports the development and implementation of Softchoice's DE&I strategy.
Danette Batiste brings her 25 + years of experience serving in various C-Suite positions in the IT industry. Danette previously served as Vice President of Operations for CC-OPS (a small, minority, and women-owned business located in Culver City, CA) for 17 years. Batiste was responsible for a team that at one time consisted of more than 300 employees and subcontractors in 40 states. In her spare time, she volunteers as CEO / Executive Director of Healthy Heart Nation a nonprofit organization that is committed to reducing disparities in the Black community.
Danette is an experienced and dynamic leader, with a strong reputation for managing multiple resources to achieve optimum results for her clients and has served as a Project Manager at Softchoice since December 2016. In this role, she was able to be effective in the engagement of projects, and orchestrating implementations and transitions in multiple client engagements. Danette received her undergraduate degree from Oakwood College and attended the University of Phoenix for classes toward her MBA. Danette has received several sales and services certifications including ITIL v.3. Danette currently serves as a member of the Softchoice Executive Board of TheBERG (Black Employee Resource Group) as one of the organization’s founding members.
