Toyin Ajayi

Toyin Ajayi is a CEO of Cityblock Health.

Toyin Ajayi is a physician, co-founder, and CEO of Cityblock Health,a primary health care provider that focuses on underserved populations who rely on Medicare and Medicaid in the United States.

Ajayi was the Chief Medical Officer at Commonwealth Care Alliance, a health and service provider. In this role, Ajayi oversaw clinical services and delivery while continuing to see patients as a practicing physician.

In 2017, Ajayi co-founded Cityblock Health with Iyah Romm, with Ajayi serving as company president and Romm as the CEO.[5] Cityblock Health was spun out of Sidewalk Labs, a Google backed business incubator. In 2022, Ajayi took over as CEO when Romm stepped down. Ajayi was cited for helping Cityblock grow from a startup company to being valued close to $6 billion.

Ajayi references the COVID-19 pandemic as a driver for the need for community-based healthcare: “It’s unacceptable in 2022 that we’re looking at exactly the same data that we were looking at 15 years ago about healthcare disparities, healthcare outcomes, all exacerbated by COVID."

Ajayi cites patient interaction as providing key insight into developing the best procedures to help with patient problems. Ajayi also cites trust-building as important when working with disadvantaged communities: "[Trust] is disproportionately lower amongst communities of color, low-income folks, folks with mental health needs. We knew that we had to start with building trust, because that's the only way you get people to engage with you in order to change behaviors.