PGA TOUR Q&A – Partner Spotlight with Ascension’s Nick Ragone

Name: Nick Ragone
Title: Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer
Time with company: 8 years

What do you enjoy most about your partnership with the PGA TOUR? 
NR: What I enjoy most about partnering with the PGA TOUR is the commitment to giving back. Ascension's Mission is to care for and give back to underserved communities, and the PGA TOUR shares that commitment to giving back, investing in, and strengthening local communities. There's a wonderful alignment between the PGA TOUR and Ascension when it comes to investing in communities and making a difference.

What are some key initiatives that are important to your company and how are they being executed? 
NR: Ascension is really focused on eliminating the inequities in the nation’s healthcare system and making sure that everyone has accessible and affordable healthcare. The pandemic has reminded us that the disparities in our healthcare system disproportionately impact underserved and under-resourced communities. We believe that tackling the social determinants of health, creating greater access to care, and investing in underserved communities will lead to more equitable health outcomes.

Your nomination included the impact you have made around bringing professional golf back to the St. Louis area after being hit hard by economic downturn and social justice conflicts. Can you speak to some of those efforts, your vision, and what is to come?
NR: We really believe that it's important to make long-term and sustainable investments in underserved communities. Being headquartered in north St. Louis County – an area that has faced various struggles – we believe that investment and commitment begins at home. We brought the Ascension Charity Classic to north St. Louis County because we believe the economic and charitable investment will greatly benefit the community -- which it has – and that it would spur additional investment from other companies in our region, which it also has.
And we want to model this type of investment in underserved and overlooked communities for the rest of the country, for other companies and institutions to do likewise in their communities. We recently announced the creation of an APGA event – the APGA Ascension Classic – to be played the week of the Ascension Charity Classic at a neighboring course in north St. Louis County so that we could lean into our commitment to help make golf more diverse and inclusive at the highest levels of the game.

What are you most proud of that your company has accomplished this year?
NR: We’re proud of our extraordinary and selfless caregivers who, over the past two years, have gone above and beyond to care for the people and communities we are privileged to serve. The past two years have been challenging for our caregivers - and caregivers everywhere - and I'm so honored and inspired to call them colleagues.

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