Who is Kody Kinsley, Gov. Cooper’s next pick to lead the NC health department?
After nearly five years with Dr. Mandy Cohen at the helm, the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services will soon have a new secretary leading the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and other public health challenges, including the burgeoning opioid epidemic.
On Tuesday, Gov. Roy Cooper announced Cohen, who has led DHHS since the start of his first term in January 2017, and has been the face of North Carolina’s efforts to curb COVID-19, will step down at the end of the year.
“It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve this state at such an important moment in history,” Cohen said in a news release. “I am grateful for Governor Cooper’s leadership, and I am so proud of what we have accomplished to improve the health and well-being of the state over the last five years.”
Cooper said Cohen has exhibited “extraordinary leadership” and that he is “enormously grateful for her service.”
New DHHS secretary appointed
Kody Kinsley, chief deputy secretary for health at DHHS, will succeed Cohen as secretary beginning Jan. 1.
Cooper praised Kinsley, saying he was part of a “remarkable team of talented people” Cohen had assembled at the department.
During a news conference on Tuesday, Cooper said he chose Kinsley because he “is the most qualified and experienced person for the job.”
Asked about the fact that unlike Cohen, Kinsley is not a trained physician, and does not have an education in medicine or public health, both Cooper and Cohen reiterated their support for Kinsley. They noted that DHHS, in its pandemic response, has been aided by a team of doctors and medical advisors.
“This response, yes, is about making sure we can understand the science and data, and we have plenty of public health experts and doctors, and the team will continue to support that, but so much is about the execution and the operations, and this is where Kody Kinsley really shines,” Cohen said.
Kinsley will become the first openly gay person to serve as a cabinet secretary in the state’s history when he takes over in January, according to Cooper’s office. He’ll be able to begin serving as soon as he is appointed, but will still face a confirmation vote in the N.C. Senate.
In a post on Twitter, Kinsley said he was grateful for Cohen’s leadership and felt honored by Cooper’s confidence in him to lead DHHS and “improve the health, safety & well-being of all North Carolinians.”
Portfolio at DHHS included COVID response
A former policy analyst with experience working in the White House and U.S. Department of the Treasury, Kinsley has been working at DHHS since March 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile.
For his first three years at the agency, Kinsley served as deputy secretary for behavioral health and intellectual and developmental disabilities, a role in which he led “statewide public policy and regulation” of issues like mental health and substance abuse, which included the state’s response to the opioid epidemic, his LinkedIn profile states.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, Kinsley has served as operations lead for the agency’s pandemic response.
Kinsley has reported to Cohen and Cooper in that role, and was responsible for implementing and scaling major facets of DHHS’s efforts to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, including “medical surge, PPE, testing, contact tracing, data and technology, finance, staffing, response of state facilities, and vaccine administration,” according to his LinkedIn profile.
In April, Kinsley was promoted to serve as chief deputy secretary for health, overseeing four of the agency’s divisions: the Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Abuse Services; the Division of State Operated Healthcare Facilities; the Division of Public Health; and the Division of Health Service Regulation.
He also leads the agency’s recently created Office of Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Recovery, according to a biography of Kinsley on the DHHS website.
Several roles in federal government
A Wilmington native, Kinsley earned his bachelor’s degree in health science, math and chemistry from Brevard University in Brevard and a master’s degree in public policy from the University of California, Berkeley. According to his LinkedIn profile, he also completed a summer research program in quantitative science from the T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University.
He spent seven years in Washington working for the federal government before returning to North Carolina in 2018.
Kinsley began his career in D.C. in 2011 at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where he was a health program IT analyst.
That was followed by roles as a policy analyst for the White House’s Domestic Policy Council between December 2013 and June 2014, and nearly three and a half years at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he advised officials overseeing the agency’s management and budget.
After eight months serving in the D.C. Department of Human Services, a local agency that oversees the city’s response to homelessness and financially insecure residents, Kinsley was appointed by then-President Barack Obama in June 2016 to serve as the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary of management.
Kinsley handled a “broad scope of responsibility for the agency, its $15.5 billion discretionary budget, and 100,000 employees,” his DHHS biography states.
He continued in that position until March 2018, more than a year into the first term of then-President Donald Trump.
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This story was originally published November 30, 2021 at 2:23 PM.
