Leadership change marks next chapter for Mosaic Family Health

Heather Graves

Staff

January 22, 2026

APPLETON – Mosaic Family Health is turning the page on leadership – naming a new executive director from outside both the organization and the Fox Cities.

Outgoing leader, Lee Vogel, said the change marks a new chapter for the downtown Appleton clinic that has served the Fox Cities for more than three decades.

The transition, Vogel said, comes as the organization – which is owned by ThedaCare-Froedtert Health and Ascension – continues its dual mission of providing comprehensive family medicine services, while training future physicians through the Fox Valley Family Medicine Residency Program, an affiliate of the Medical College of Wisconsin.

As Vogel steps back into a part-time faculty and family physician role – after serving as executive director for more than a decade – she will be succeeded by Milwaukee native Leif (rhymes with “safe”) Elsmo.

Vogel

Growing up in Minnesota, Vogel – who said she always imagined some type of career in health care – remained in the state of 1,000 lakes for college, followed by medical school, graduating from the University of Minnesota Medical School.

From there, Vogel said her studies took her to California, where she completed her family medicine residency and a geriatrics fellowship at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

After starting her medical career and serving faculty for two years at UCSD, Vogel said she and her husband made the move back to the Midwest, thus starting her tenure at Mosaic.

Joining the health organization in 1990 as a family physician and member of the faculty, Vogel said she served as the residency program director of the Fox Valley Family Medicine Residency Program from 1995 to 2002 – before assuming the role of Mosaic executive director in 2015.

“[Over the years], I had a series of leadership roles in this organization, including when it became Mosaic Family Health in 2015 and had been in the role of executive director since then,” she said.

Vogel said her career has been guided by a focus on relationship-centered care and on training family medicine residents to combine scientific knowledge with shared decision-making.

“One of the things I’m proudest of [about my work with Mosaic] is the sense of relationship [we have] with patients, honoring them and respecting that we have to meet people where they’re at,” she said. “In my career, I’ve watched health care become more and more business- and transaction-oriented. While understanding we have to be a functional, solid, strong business, we also have to be sure that we are caring for people in humanistic ways.”

Another throughline in her career, Vogel said, has been the opportunity to help lead Mosaic in ways that increasingly and intentionally commit to welcoming people of all backgrounds.

“Helping people know this is a place of belonging and we will work through whatever their health concerns are together [has been very rewarding],” she said. “We say only 20% of our health care is addressed in a doctor’s office behind the exam room door. The other 80% has to do with all the unique barriers or privileges we encounter as any one of us – I use the phrase – ‘navigate the modern hazards of life.’”

Being a part of and helping guide the Fox Valley Family Medicine Residency Program, Vogel said, has been a proud privilege of her career.

“The importance of the residency program in this area is that we create doctors for our community,” she said. “We know from the science and the literature looking at this, that if a physician is trained in a residency program in a community, they’re much more likely to stay in that community.”

Though numbers fluctuate from year to year, Vogel said with each graduating class of around seven, 70% of them have remained practicing in the State of Wisconsin, more than 50% of them stay in the 18-county New North region and 25-30% have remained in the Fox Cities region.

“That’s a good track record,” she said. “If you take the 264 graduates [the program has had] since 1980, and you calculate 70% [remaining] in the State of Wisconsin, and multiply that by 1,800 – which is the new patient panel for a family physician – we touch a lot of lives.”

By stepping away from the administrative responsibilities of the executive director role, Vogel said she will have more opportunity to focus on strengthening the program’s curriculum, particularly around community engagement for resident physicians.

As she concludes her tenure as executive director, Vogel said she is proud to have guided Mosaic through the design, construction and launch of its new clinic, which opened a little more than a year ago at 100 N. Oneida St. in Appleton.

The clinic, she said, was specifically designed to combine patient-centered care with efficient workspaces for staff.

Designed in partnership with Hoffman Planning, Design & Construction, Inc., Vogel said the clinic’s first floor includes a waiting area, nurses’ station, exam and procedure rooms, as well as imaging and staff spaces.

The second floor, she said, houses offices, conference rooms, employee work and lounge areas and multiple classrooms for the Fox Valley Family Medicine Residency Program.

“It wasn’t easy to do,” she said. “We’re a small organization with a very small team, so to actually design, create and keep construction moving while trying to lead an organization, be a family doctor and a geriatrician and be a teacher – there’s no doubt I was stretched in many ways I hadn’t anticipated. But we have a good team that rose to the occasion, and the finished product is a colorful, warm, welcoming, efficiently built space that takes into consideration the usual family medicine care, but also the teaching component as well.”

Elsmo

Growing up in southeast Wisconsin, Elsmo said he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

He has since served in a number of leadership positions, most recently as CEO of the Center for Independence in Milwaukee, and as executive director of community and external affairs at UChicago Medicine, where he led the Urban Health Initiative, before that.

“The bulk of my career was spent in health equity work and academic medicine,” he said.

He said his experience in those fields inspired him to pursue the executive director role at Mosaic.

“Mosaic Family Health’s mission and values align deeply with mine,” he said.

Elsmo said his more than 20 years of work in academic medicine at UChicago Medicine mirrors the focus on community and patient-centered care at Mosaic Family Health and its residency program.

“[Mosaic’s] commitment to community relationships and whole person care strongly aligns with my own values as a leader,” he said. “The organization leads with compassion and trust and is accountable to the community. I’m excited to continue that – their mission and practice align really closely with what has the work I love to do.”

Elsmo said he thinks the selection committee appreciated his experience building connections across community, civic organizations and health care, as well as his experience in academic medicine and health equity.

He said he sees his role as a continuation of the work Vogel, the board, ThedaCare-Froedtert Health, Ascension and the Medical College of Wisconsin have already been doing.

“Because I’ve looked at and done this work for so long, I think I’m bringing that kind of competency around collective work and health improvement to the Appleton area,” he said. “This is exciting. It’s a continuation of some of the best things that have happened there, and I’m hoping I can add even more to that picture and help it thrive.”

Elsmo said Mosaic Family Health already has significant strengths, including long-standing community partnerships that benefit the Fox Valley area.

He said he looks forward to learning from patients, faculty, partners and the broader community.

“I start asset-based thinking – that ‘glass half-full’ mindset,” he said. “There are a lot of gifts and strengths in place, and I want to learn from that first before we make any significant changes. Build from [that] strength, and do it together.”

Elsmo said he’s a firm believer in his leadership style – “that sort of bi-directional nature of the work” – which includes getting to know the leaders, the processes, the operations, the partnerships and the community.

From there, he said he focuses on designing things that will last, be sustainable and make a difference in health improvement.

“That’s what Mosaic Family Health and the partnership exist to do,” he said. “Understanding that deeply first is the way – so that’s my approach. I’ve done that at each and every place I’ve been, and I find that helps us integrate more seamlessly into the community, and that’s what we’re all about.”

Beyond the Mosaic community itself, Elsmo said he’s excited to integrate himself into the Fox Valley community.

“I’m deeply excited to come to the area,” he said. “I’ve only heard incredible buzz about the Fox Valley, about Appleton and the area.”

The right fit

Though the announcement comes just days before Elsmo assumes the executive director role, Vogel said planning for the transition began months ago.

“We have thoughtfully planned an overlap, so there’s a continuity of strengths, mission and values,” she said. “The dance, if you will, between new and old leadership, I think, is carefully thought about and orchestrated, and we’ve had the right conversations around that.”

During that “dance,” Vogel said the plan – as the organization’s outgoing leader – is to help introduce Elsmo to Mosaic’s community partners, share institutional knowledge and ease the transition through warm handoffs.

That continuity, Vogel said, begins with the choice of the new leader, and as a member of the search committee, she said Elsmo’s decades of experience make him well-suited to lead Mosaic into the future.

“He has more than two decades of experience in executive leadership across health care, including academic medicine and nonprofit organizations,” she said. “He is a community collaborator, someone who believes in the community collective and facilitative leadership. He has lots of experience in creating programs of health equity.”

In addition, Vogel said Elsmo has the financial and business acumen expected of an executive leader, complemented by experience in philanthropic outreach.

“It’s really important for us as a higher education institution to consider all revenue streams,” she said.

Furthermore, Vogel said Elsmo’s leadership style is grounded in listening and relationship-building, noting that he takes time to understand organizations with multiple stakeholders – which Mosaic is.

Mosaic’s structure, she said, is complex, with two health system owners and resident physicians employed through the Wisconsin Northeast Graduate Medical Education Consortium.

“Then we have faculty who are employed by the Medical College of Wisconsin,” she said. “So, integrating those organizations is important. And when you combine the community, it takes somebody with the kind of leadership style that is inclusive.”

Vogel said Elsmo’s leadership approach emphasizes listening first.

“He has a history of integrating perspectives in a respectful, thoughtful, passionate and mission-driven way,” she said.

Elsmo said he and Vogel have had a “great chance to connect through this process” and is excited to learn everything he can from her.

“Lee is a very impressive individual,” he said. “I’ve learned a great deal about her commitment to the Fox Valley, to the residency, to Mosaic Family Health – so, absorbing that knowledge and understanding of what she’s helped to build here, I welcome it.”

Building on that knowledge, Elsmo said, will help the organization collaboratively shape its future and reinforce its ties to the community.

“Lee has been an exceptional leader,” he said. “We’ll spend some time together. This is a very well-designed, intentional process that the board and Lee have designed. I’m proud that she’s excited to hand [the leadership of Mosaic] over to me as we continue making a positive difference in the Fox Valley.”

And though this Wisconsin native spent much of his career in Chicago Bears territory, Elsmo said he’s very proudly a Green Bay Packers fan.

“My wife and I go to many games per year, so we’re excited to be even closer to the hub where greatness happens,” he said.

More on Mosaic

Mosaic Family Health serves more than 6,000 patients at its downtown Appleton clinic, providing comprehensive clinical care for individuals and families across the lifespan.

Per mosaicfamilyhealth.org, the clinic provides a variety of services, including maternity care, pediatrics, acute and chronic illness management, geriatrics, mental health care and hospital-based care.

Additional services, per the site, include care coordination and patient liaison support, hospital and nursing home care, home visits, caregiver support services and advanced care planning classes and resources.

Diagnostic services available on site include laboratory testing, X-ray imaging and obstetric ultrasound.