Eight SJ Women of Color Named to 2023 New Jersey Women’s ‘Power List’
AC JosepH Media
PATERSON — Robin Walton, one of the highest-ranking African American women in healthcare in New Jersey, as a senior vice president at the Inspira Health Network, said she was humbled to make a new “Women’s Power List” released by Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter this week.
Walton was one of eight women of color from South Jersey named to the list. The annual power list is a resumption of a Power List by former NJ Senate Leader Senator Loretta Weinberg, which she last posted on Insider NJ on Jan. 25. Sumter’s list was first posted on Insider NJ as well.
“I’ve been part of the list by Ms. Weinberg in recent year and I was pleased to see I was included in this one,” Walton, who is in charge of governmental and external affairs with Inspira, one of the largest healthcare networks in New Jersey, told Front Runner New Jersey this week.
“It’s always an honor to be included with so many outstanding women in our state.”
Sumter, the current chair of the New Jersey Legislative Black Caucus, has been a member of the General Assembly since 2012. She paid homage to late Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver, the first Black woman to serve in that position, as a lead-in to naming her honorees.
“When I entered the legislature, Sheila Y. Oliver was the Speaker of the House,” Sumter wrote in comments that first appeared in Insider NJ. “In the caucus room, I had the privilege of a front-row seat to her commanding presence and conviction.
“Public service for her centered on making New Jersey fairer and safer for women in politics, the workplace, schools, and their homes. It was an honor to be brought in under her tutelage.”
Sumter, a Democrat from Paterson in the 35th Legislative District, said her “power list” is made up of “women of New Jersey who have a chisel in hand and continue to strike that ancient glass ceiling.”
South Jersey’s women of color who made Sumter’s power list included:
- Stephenine Dixon, Atlantic City-based national political operative
- Reva Foster, Willingboro-based chair of the New Jersey Black Issues Convention
- Phoebe Haddon, chancellor-emeritus, Rutgers University-Camden
- Fatima Heyward, director of national group partnerships, Teach for America
- Antoinette Miles, Willingboro-based interim director, Working Families Party
- Lovell Pugh-Bassett, president, of Camden County College
- Dana Redd, CEO of Camden Community Partnership
- Robin Walton, vice president of government and external affairs, Inspira Health Network
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