Leadership

Andrew Spiegel has more than two decades of experience in the patient advocacy arena. Mr. Spiegel is in his eleventh year as CEO of the Global Colon Cancer Association. Mr. Spiegel has a personal history with colorectal cancer. In 1998, Spiegel’s mother was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer. She exhibited numerous symptoms that were ignored by her physicians, and she died nine months later. It was then that Mr. Spiegel co-founded the Colorectal Cancer Alliance, now the leading United States based national patient advocacy organization dedicated to colorectal cancer. Mr. Spiegel, an attorney, served on the CCA board, and was CEO of the Colorectal Cancer Alliance for nearly 5 years before co-founding GCCA.

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In addition to his work in the colorectal cancer community, Mr. Spiegel is an active advocate for healthcare policies both in the US and worldwide. He served a three-year term on the Board of Directors of the International Alliance of Patient Organizations (IAPO) where he chaired the fundraising committee. Mr. Spiegel then co-founded the World Patients Alliance, the largest patient organization in the world working across all diseases. He is a co-founder and currently serves on the steering committee of the Alliance for Safe Biologic Medicines (ASBM). He is also on the Board of Directors and past chair of the Digestive Disease National Coalition (DDNC). Mr. Spiegel has won multiple awards for his work in patient advocacy.

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Mr. Spiegel is a 1986 graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science with minors in English and philosophy. He is a 1989 graduate of the Widener University School of Law. After working for a Philadelphia litigation firm, Mr. Spiegel opened his own law firm in 1995.

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Nicole Sheahan is President of the Global Colon Cancer Association (GCCA), where she leads the organization’s global strategy to advance equitable access to colorectal cancer screening, diagnosis, treatment, and care. She provides executive leadership across GCCA’s programs, partnerships, and global advocacy efforts, with a focus on reducing disparities and strengthening patient-centered health systems worldwide.

Under Ms. Sheahan’s leadership, GCCA has launched and expanded several high-impact global initiatives. These include Know Your Biomarker, an awareness, education, and advocacy campaign promoting access to colorectal cancer biomarker testing, the CRC Health Equity Grants program, which provides timely financial support to member organizations addressing urgent equity gaps in their communities, and GCCA’s Patient Advocacy Mentorship Program, designed to build advocacy capacity and leadership across the global colorectal cancer community.

Ms. Sheahan brings extensive nonprofit leadership experience to her role, having previously served in senior leadership positions at the Colorectal Cancer Alliance, including Chief Development Officer and Chief Operating Officer. Earlier in her career, she led corporate giving initiatives and large-scale events for a nonprofit organization serving individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Advocacy has been a defining thread throughout Ms. Sheahan’s career, shaped early by her family’s experience with cancer and her involvement in the formation of the Greater Washington Coalition for Cancer Survivors.

Ms. Sheahan serves on the Executive Committee of From Testing to Targeted Treatments (FT3) and is Co-Chair of the Global Cancer Coalitions Network. She also volunteers with the World Patients Alliance and is a frequent speaker on precision medicine, patient-centered policy, and cross-sector partnerships.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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Candace Henley serves as the Director of Equity and Partnerships for the Global Colon Cancer Association and is the Chief Surviving Officer of the Blue Hat Foundation, Inc. Ms. Henley’s own battle with colon cancer and the devastation it caused in her and her children’s lives inspired her to create The Blue Hat Foundation. She has spent over 17 years tirelessly advocating for colorectal cancer prevention and support.  

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Ms. Henley developed a strong understanding of healthcare inequities while pursuing her master’s in public health, which expanded her advocacy to include healthcare equity, health equality, and research. As a speaker on community engagement, Ms. Henley often lectures on understanding the history of ethical breaches in human experimentation on minorities, genomic paternalism, and strategies for healthcare providers and academic researchers to apply community engagement and equity lenses to their work.

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As a commitment to health equity, Ms. Henley serves on multiple community and patient advisory boards. She is also an Adjunct Lecturer at Northwestern University Graduate Program in Genetic Counseling, where she teaches courses on Psychosocial Issues in Genetic Counseling II and Master of Science in Clinical Investigation, focusing on Anti-Racism in Clinical and Translational Science. Ms. Henley has contributed to numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles on health disparities and health equity research. She serves as a patient advocate for Cancer Research UK (CRUK) and guest lecturer for the WELLCOME Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford, reaching an international audience.

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Ms. Henley holds a Master of Public Health from Capella University and a Bachelor of Science in Healthcare Management from Walden University. She earned her Patient Navigation Certificate from the Harold P. Freeman Institute.

Tumi Ramasodi is GCCA’s first Regional Director for Southern Africa. In 2020, a colon cancer diagnosis changed her course of action and her life path. Ms. Ramasodi’s diagnosis inspired her to want more for others like herself. As a survivor, she wanted more done for patients at the grassroots level and this prompted her to become a colon cancer advocate and patient navigator. Her passion and love for helping others connected her to the Global Colon Cancer Association.

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Ms. Ramasodi’s experience in the non-profit industry and passion for community work began when she joined Wits Health Consortium to provide a service for the Reproductive Health and HIV Research Unit (RHRU) based in Soweto’s Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. She then joined the Nelson Mandela Aventis project for combating tuberculosis (TBFree), working with communities in 9 South African provinces to create awareness around TB as a disease.

In 2011 she started the Boys & Girls Clubs of South Africa as a Youth Development Professional. She represented South Africa at an international conference held in San Francisco. In 2015, she was selected to represent South Africa for the Boys & Girls club, participating in a project at the Virginia Commonwealth University called Project Push.

Additionally, Ms. Ramasodi has 14 years of experience in Human Resources Management. She has had repeated success in implementing best practices, building HR departments from the ground up, and transforming disorganized HR departments into efficiently run units.

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Ms. Ramasodi brought her great skill in developing and maintaining stakeholder relationships to the Global Colon Cancer Association in 2023.