GOLD Speakers
Rachelle Lessen, MS, RD, IBCLC
Sara Lake, J.D., CAE
- Country: U.S.A.
Biography:
Rachelle is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant® and a Registered Dietitian with a Masters of Science degree in health education. She has worked as a lactation consultant at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia since 1996 when she established the Lactation Support Program. Rachelle provides lactation consults for families of patients admitted to the hospital and assists mothers and babies with breastfeeding. She counsels families in the Fetal Heart Program prenatally to offer support and guidance related to breastfeeding an infant with congenital heart disease. She also has an outpatient clinic to help mothers with breastfeeding challenges. She specializes in nutrition-related problems including food allergies and poor growth. Rachelle is the co-author of the ILCA publication “Risks of Not Breastfeeding” and the ADA Position Statement on Breastfeeding. Rachelle has served on the Board for the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners® (IBLCE®) since 2009 and currently serves as Chair. She breastfed four children and has five grandchildren, all of whom were breastfed.
Sara Blair Lake, J.D., CAE serves as Executive Director of the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners® (IBLCE®), a global certification program with over twenty-six thousand certificants in ninety-six countries. She also serves as an ex officio Board member to the Monetary Investment for Lactation Consultant Certification (MILCC), an affiliated charitable organization which provides scholarships to individuals in need of financial support to pursue careers in lactation consulting.
Sara also currently serves on the International Section Council of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) and Chair of the 2014 Program Committee for the Annual Conference of the Institute for Credentialing Excellence. She has held senior positions with credentialing and association organizations for the past fifteen years and previously served as Chair for her own certification governing body, the Certified Association Executive (CAE) Commission of ASAE. Sara presents extensively regarding credentialing and association management, particularly in the international arena.