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Tonga Yvonne Turner
Listen to this articleTonga Yvonne Turner
Senior Director Community Relations
Kaiser Permanente
Tonga Yvonne Turner is passionate about service to her community. That’s why she works as a mentor, volunteer and became the youngest and first Black mayor in Upper Marlboro in 2018.
“The town had never had a person of color hold any public office in its 300-year history,” says Turner, who currently is the senior director of community relations at Kaiser Permanente.
Turner previously worked as a principal consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton and as a senior policy adviser for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid and Federal Coordinated Health Office.
“It should go without saying that as a mentor your job is to encourage your mentee to reach for the stars,” she says. “They are in a mentoring relationship with you because you have knowledge or connections or experiences that they don’t have. You were in their shoes once: starting out in your career or learning a new skill.”
She has a bachelor’s degree from Howard University and a master’s degree in health administration and business administration from the University of Maryland. She is originally from Cameroon in Africa.
