The Policy Architect: Alexis Solis on Building Health Equity from the Inside Out
For more than 15 years, Alexis Solis has been doing the unglamorous, essential work of equity — navigating bureaucracies, rewriting rules, and refusing to accept that the systems meant to serve marginalized communities must stay broken. Now she is bringing that same tenacity to the halls of Congress.
15+ YEARS OF ADVOCACY · $12B FEDERAL PORTFOLIO · MD-5 CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT · 3 THE STATE OF WOMEN PILLARS ADVANCED
The Bridge Builder
Alexis Solis does not fit neatly into any one category — and she has learned to lean into that.
The daughter of a Nicaraguan and white father and a Black mother, she grew up navigating multiple worlds, learning early that identity is not a limitation but a lens. Today, as a book author, youth volleyball coach, Vice President of Government Relations at Tryfacta, CEO of Empress Consulting International, and congressional candidate for Maryland's 5th District, she brings that same multidimensional perspective to everything she touches: from healthcare policy to mental health advocacy to the youth volleyball court.
"I've always believed that leadership isn't about fitting into one lane — it's about building bridges across many," she says. "Whether it's healthcare policy, mental health advocacy, or mentoring young athletes, showing up fully and doing the work for my community — that's the job."
That perspective has shaped a career spanning three decades of advocacy — more than 15 of them focused on consulting, policy, and community leadership in Prince George's County, one of Maryland's most politically complex and historically underserved counties. Long before health equity became a national conversation, Solis was in the rooms where it was being neglected — making sure someone in those rooms was paying attention.
"Policy is health. If we want stronger communities, we have to write laws that treat health as a priority, not a privilege." — Alexis Solis
From Federal Corridors to Community Roots
Before joining Tryfacta, Solis founded Empress Consulting International (ECI), a firm dedicated to supporting small businesses from formation and certification through scaling, contracting, and long-term sustainability — both domestically and internationally. Prior to launching ECI, she managed a federal, state, and local portfolio exceeding $12 billion at 22nd Century Technologies, where she gained an intimate understanding of how federal resources flow, where they stall, and who bears the cost when they fail to reach the communities they were designed to serve.
She witnessed firsthand how federal health and social programs could be transformative in theory yet inequitable in practice, when implementation overlooked the realities on the ground.
That experience became the foundation of Empress Consulting International, where she works with small businesses, government agencies, nonprofits, and health systems to bridge the gap between federal intent and community reality. In addition to advisory and strategic consulting services, ECI also provides staffing support, connecting organizations with qualified professionals to ensure operational continuity and mission success.
Today, as vice president of government relations at Tryfacta — a California-based technology and staffing partner with 185 government contracts across the country — her work is focused on driving strategic growth, strengthening public-sector partnerships, and expanding national impact, while ensuring that policy, procurement, and community outcomes remain aligned.
When Health Policy Is Personal
For Solis, health equity has never been abstract. After losing her mother to mental health challenges, she joined the board of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), turning grief into sustained advocacy. She has since championed efforts to expand access to care, reduce stigma, and confront the systemic barriers that disproportionately affect communities of color.
As federal budget debates place mental health funding at risk, she does not hedge: "We cannot strengthen communities while cutting the services that keep families stable. If funding is threatened, I will fight in Washington to protect it — because mental health care is essential."
Her work on the Special Education Advisory Committee reflects the same conviction: that education and health are not separate issues but deeply interconnected ones. And when she steps away from the policy table, she is on the volleyball court, mentoring young girls and helping them build the resilience, confidence, and sense of community that formal systems too often fail to provide.
Now, as a congressional candidate for Maryland's 5th District, Solis is carrying that same record into the political arena. Her platform centers on health equity, economic stability, educational equity, and inclusive representation for the diverse communities of Prince George's County and Southern Maryland.
Why Alexis Solis Opens Architects of Wellness
Every Monday, we introduce you to a woman who is building something — in policy, in medicine, in research, in community. We're calling the series Architects of Wellness, because the women we're highlighting aren't just advocates. They're constructing the infrastructure that health equity actually requires.
We're starting with Alexis Solis because her work makes something visible that often stays invisible: the direct line between policy decisions and the health outcomes of real people. The laws passed, the budgets allocated, the programs funded or defunded — these are not abstractions. They determine who survives and who thrives. Solis has spent decades inside those systems, and she understands that changing them requires exactly the kind of sustained, unglamorous, inside-out work that rarely makes headlines.
Health equity needs more than clinicians and researchers. It needs people who understand how power moves — and who are willing to go where it lives.
Where Her Work Meets Ours:
Pillar 1 — Mental Health & Wellness Advocating for mental health funding, parity legislation, and youth mental health in sports and schools.
Pillar 2 — Maternal Health Equity Championing maternal health policy reforms that address racial disparities, centering Black and Latina women.
Pillar 3 — Preventive Wellness Former board member of the BREM Foundation, advancing early detection, equitable screening, and cancer research funding.
Building What Must Exist
What distinguishes Solis is a relentless practicality. She is not interested in visibility for its own sake, in performative politics, or in advocacy that stops at awareness. She wants structures changed. Budgets rewritten. Programs redesigned. And she is deeply familiar with how tedious, unglamorous, and necessary that work is.
For the communities of Maryland's 5th District — and for every woman who has been failed by a health system that was never built with her in mind — Alexis Solis is building something different. Not just a platform. Infrastructure.
That is, after all, what architects do.
"Alexis understands something The State of Women holds at its core: the gap between health equity as a concept and health equity as a reality is a policy gap. We need architects in Congress — people who know how to read the blueprints and aren't afraid to rebuild what isn't working." — Dr. Odessa Lacsina, Executive Director, The State of Women Institute
Leadership & Service
Vice President of Government Relations, Tryfacta
CEO, Empress Consulting International
Congressional Candidate, Maryland's 5th District
Board Member, BREM Foundation to Defeat Breast Cancer
Special Education Advisory Committee Member
15+ Years of Prince George's County Advocacy
Youth Volleyball Coach
Member, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. — Psi Phi Omega Chapter
Former Board Member, American Red Cross, Southern Maryland Chapter
Author, She Rose: A Story of Strength, Vision and Voice — https://a.co/d/0bY0WIE8
Connect with Alexis Solis Website: www.votealexissolis.com · Instagram: @ms.lexisolis · LinkedIn: Alexis Solis
The State of Women Institute · thestateofwomen.org · @thestateofwomen