Brenda Sharpe is President and CEO of the REACH Healthcare Foundation, having served in that capacity since 2004. The foundation’s mission is to advance health equity through coverage and care for underserved people in the Kansas City region. With more than 30 years’ experience in the nonprofit sector, and a master’s degree in Counselor Education, Brenda enjoys using her skills to strengthen the leadership and governance capacity of organizations, institutions, and systems to support resilient people and communities. Believing that the business sector engagement is essential to advancing health equity and sound public policy, Brenda currently sits on the Kansas City Federal Reserve Community Development Advisory Board, the Johnson County Community College Foundation Board, and recently concluded her Board service with the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce. Brenda previously served on the Board of Directors of Grantmakers in Health, a national organization dedicated to helping foundations and corporate giving programs improve the health of all people. She is a former Trustee of the Board of Mosaic Life Care, a rural regional nonprofit health system, the United Way of Greater Kansas City, and the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts.
Civic engagement has always been important to Brenda, and she has accepted numerous appointments over her career, including a current appointment to the Kansas State Board of Nursing. Other appointments include Healthy Kansans 2020 Steering Committee, Kansas Health Insurance Exchange Steering Committee, and the Kansas Attorney General’s Crime Victims’ Rights and Human Trafficking Grants Review Boards. She has been recognized by the Kansas City Business Journal as one of the area’s Power 100 in 2015-19 and was included in that publication’s Women of Influence Class of 2020. Brenda was presented the Ben Craig Vision Award by the Overland Park Economic Development Council in 2025 and the Urban League’s Difference Maker Award for leadership in Health Equity and Philanthropy in 2015.
In 2021 Brenda served her community as an appointee to the Johnson County Charter Commission, charged with reviewing Johnson County government operations and presenting its findings and recommendations to the Johnson County Board of County Commissioners and voters every ten years. As co-chair of ForwardOP, Brenda assisted her city of nearly 200,000 as they engaged in a 20-year community visioning process for Overland Park, Kansas, where she resides with her husband, Mike Sharpe.