Risa Simon is a fierce advocate who is elevating kidney transplant opportunities at every turn. As a preemptive (live-donor) transplant recipient, Risa understands the importance of proactive patient engagement and self-advocacy.
Repurposing her own health journey to find her best-life’s work, she’s revolutionizing patient education with “tell-it-like-it-is” motivation programs to highlight proactive engagement and inspire “best-life” mindsets.
You can find Risa’s creative thumbprint on innovative brands of champion patient programs and “self-help” books—and her advocacy efforts can be seen behind ground-breaking organ donor proclamations and Senate Bills. Risa’s mission is fairly simple: to empower kidney patients to seek a better and longer life—the life she, and many of her followers now live.
Whether Risa is speaking, coaching, mentoring—or paying-it-forward as an advocate or peer mentor for the National Kidney Foundation (NKF), American Association of Kidney Patients (AAKP), or the Polycystic Kidney Disease Foundation (PKD)—she’s touching the hearts and minds of both patient and professional audiences alike.
A Passion Driven Purpose
Risa thought the success of her 30-year dental practice management and speaking career was set for life until a force bolder than her master plan came into play. The shift occurred when the same genetic kidney disease that took her father’s life in his early 40’s—Polycystic Kidney Disease—started to creep into her life, despite her optimistic vision and passion for wellness.
While exploring this new territory, she uncovered critical “blind spots” and provider reluctance to encourage proactive opportunities to avoid dialysis. These insights compelled Risa to morph her talents from the dental industry into the renal community to create a more powerful engagement platform that promised better outcomes for kidney patients.
Today, you can find Risa paying it forward with her heart strapped to her sleeves. As the founder and CEO of the TransplantFirst Academy, The Proactive Path and Simon Says Seminars, inc—she’s leading the way to better outcomes by redefining true patient empowerment. Her motivational programs and books In Pursuit of a Better Life and Shift Your Fate continue to inspire her fellow kidney patients to be relentless and fight for their best life possible.
For more information, contact Risa@transplantFirst.org
Seminars & Webinars: “How to Become A Donor Magnet-Pro!” and “The TransplantFirst Advantage!
Books/Publications: In Pursuit of a Better Life: The Ultimate Guide For Finding Living Kidney Donors, and Shift Your Fate: Life-Changing Wisdom for Proactive Kidney Patients continue to inspire her book fans and followers to become their own best advocate and bring their dreams to life.
Awards: NKF’s 2018 Patient Engagement Award, AAKP’s 2014 Samuel J. Orenstein Award – and the pioneer and driving force behind Arizona’s Living Kidney Donors Day and 2019’s new Senate Bill (SB 1100) for Living Organ Donor Insurance Protections.
Give-Back: Risa serves as an advocate and peer mentor for organizations like the National Kidney Foundation, Polycystic Kidney Foundation, American Association of Kidney Patients — and the American Transplant Foundation.