Sharice Smith-Lewis | VA Tennessee Valley Health Care

Ms. Smith-Lewis serves as the Interim Deputy Executive Director of VA Tennessee Valley Healthcare System.

Ms. Smith-Lewis has over 20 years of federal service and brings abundant experience in leadership and management. Ms. Smith-Lewis began her federal career at the nation’s premier medical research agency, the National Institutes of Health. She first served at its National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and later at the Clinical Center, the nation’s largest hospital completely devoted to clinical research. As the administrative leader for the inpatient acute and critical care units, Ms. Smith-Lewis implemented their first unit-based budgets, supported operational needs, and participated in the capital budget planning process. 

In addition to her federal career, she has held appointments at Fidelity Investments and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. 

Prior to her assignment at TVHS, Ms. Smith-Lewis was the Chief of Staff for the PACT Act Enterprise Program Management Office (EPMO), where she is responsible for overall operations and fully addressing all aspects of PACT Act implementation including budget, schedule, technical, analytics, policies, process, quality, and Knowledge Management. The EPMO is responsible for ensuring a unified, VA-wide approach to efficient and timely implementation of the PACT Act to enable an integrated Veteran experience while maintaining transparency and accountability at the senior-most levels of the Department. She previously served as the Executive Officer within the VHA Office of Organizational Excellence, where she was responsible for all administrative activities for an organization of more than 500 full-time equivalent staff. Another notable role was as Financial Manager for the VHA Homeless Programs, where she stewarded $1.6 billion in resources for the agency’s number one priority goal of ending Veteran homelessness. Other VA appointments were held in the VHA Chief Strategy Office and VHA’s Office of Operations and Management. 

As a leader who values continuous learning, Ms. Smith-Lewis sought out stretch assignments, first in fiscal year (FY) 2015 as the Acting Executive Assistant to the Deputy Network Director in Veterans Integrated Service Network 5 and next in fiscal year 2021 as the Acting Assistant Director at the Fayetteville North Carolina VA Coastal Health Care System. She was awarded the Director’s Coin of Excellence upon completion of her assignment in Fayetteville in recognition of her stellar service overseeing multiple service lines. She recently completed an assignment with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, where she established a wildly successful community of practice for more than 250 data analytics stakeholders vested in improving human capital capabilities and information exchange across the federal government. 

Ms. Smith-Lewis holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Simmons College, a master’s degree in health care administration from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and a Master’s Certificate in Project Management from ESI International/George Washington University. In addition, she completed a two-year health care administrative fellowship at the University of Virginia Medical Center, is a 2015 graduate of the Federal Executive Institute, and is a 2020 graduate of the White House Leadership Development Program. In May 2023 she completed the SECVA Leadership Forum and subsequently accompanied the Secretary in August 2023 as his travel companion to New York and Maine.