Dr. Keita Franklin has spent her career at the intersection of public health, behavioral health, and systems leadership — focused on how we build the conditions that help people, organizations, and communities reach their full potential. Her work has spanned suicide prevention, behavioral health transformation, and large-scale policy change across federal and healthcare sectors.

Keita spent the majority of her career in senior executive roles at the United States Marine Corps, Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs. In those roles she led multidisciplinary teams responsible for evidence-based prevention strategies affecting more than three million active-duty service members, 20 million veterans, and their families. She is widely credited with leading the shift of the VA’s suicide prevention efforts from a primarily medical model toward a comprehensive public health approach grounded in prevention, community engagement, and upstream risk reduction.

Throughout her federal service, Keita represented the Department of Defense and the VA in testimony before both chambers of Congress and advised senior leaders across the federal government, including the White House Domestic Policy Council and the National Security Council. She played a key role in shaping and executing a presidential executive order focused on closing critical gaps in care during high-risk transition periods for service members and veterans.

Dr. Franklin seres as the Vice President of Health Care Strategy at TriWest Healthcare Alliance. She is also the Co-Director of the Columbia Lighthouse Project at Columbia University. She has served on the numerous boards including Wounded Warrior Project and the American Association of Suicidology, leading national and international efforts to implement evidence-based suicide risk screening across healthcare, community, and organizational settings.

Keita holds a PhD in Social Work from Virginia Commonwealth University and has completed executive leadership education at Harvard Kennedy School, UNC Kenan-Flagler, and Harvard’s Global Public Health Leadership program.

Her debut nonfiction book, The Humanity Cure: How Small Acts Can Change the World, will be released in May 2026 by Manuscripts. She is also the author of the children’s book Emma’s Perfect Seashells, a story about kindness, belonging, and celebrating differences. She is co-editor, with Dr. Adam Walsh, of A Field Practitioner’s Guide to Public Health Approaches for Suicide Prevention, forthcoming from Springer Nature in 2026. Her scholarly work has appeared in the Journal of Alcohol Studies and the Journal of Social Work and Social Welfare Policy, and she has contributed chapters to the Handbook of Military Social Work and Social Work Around the Globe.