Simon Davies, Executive Director of Teen Cancer America

Now in its tenth year, Simon leads Teen Cancer America, the only national charity in the USA working directly with hospitals to advise, support and fund them in the development of specialized facilities and programs for adolescents and young adults with cancer. The charity is built on the successful model of Teenage Cancer Trust, UK where Simon was Chief Executive Officer for 13 years before launching Teen Cancer America in 2012.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Simon Davies is devoted to making adifference. Is the executive director of Teenage
Cancer America, an organization that helpsteenagers with their toughest battle, the battle
against cancer. Simon joins us nowon CEOs. You should know. Welcome
to CEOs, you should know.Job put us today, just Chyles,

(00:24):
we get around, that's right.Can you please introduce yourself to the people
tuning in right now and what wehave to discuss today. Hi there,
my name is Simon Davies and I'mthe executive director of Team Cancer America.
You have such a scintillating voice.I must say, where are you from?

(00:46):
Exactly? Well, I'm from theUK. I guess you've probably got
that already. Spend most of mylife in London. But if you really
want to get Granula, a littleEast coast town called felix Stone. Wow,
it's so it's just so proper,And you know, UK is such.
I've only been in the UK tenminutes on a transfer over to a

(01:07):
plane, but i wanted to goand explore. So I'm excited to have
you here today. My name isSketch and I'm walking through the Team Cancer
America essentially like a breakdown with youright what it is about and who's behind
it. And I've actually never beenable to lend myself to this. So
going into this discussion with you,I was very excited in the setup of

(01:32):
it because it's for a great cause. It's bigger than you and I.
It's for Team Cancer America. Canyou break down what Team Cancer America is
for somebody who may not be familiarwith it? Sure? I think the
easiest way is just to imagine oreven remember. You know, when you're
a teenager or even a young adult, and obviously the time that you're going

(01:53):
through then is change changing anyway,lots of things going on in your life,
and then you get a diagnosis ofcancer, which in itself is a
terrible thing and something that's challenging todeal with. But then when you get
to hospital, if you're a teenager, let's say in seventeen eighteen, you

(02:14):
might likely be treated in a pediatrichospital. And pediatric hospital the average age
is six and most of the peoplein there will be much younger than you,
and that sense of isolation exists forthose people going into that setting with
all the Disney wallpapers, and that'skind of stuff that expect. And then
if you're in your early twenties andyou go into a hospital, the average

(02:38):
age of a cancer hospital is sixtyand so as a young adult, you're
there in amongst old people, manyof whom are dying. And this is
equally challenging and depressing. And sothe whole ethos of Team Cancer America is
to create programs and spaces that bridgethat gap, that is a place for

(02:58):
young people to be, that hasstaff who understand young people, and most
important of all that there are otheryoung people that you can build that camaraderie
with. Right and as you know, there's nothing more important than your peer
group at that age and with TeenCancer America and all the things that are
also going on within the venue.Right, where is it located at?

(03:20):
Oh, actually, we're right acrossAmerica. So but the original headquarters.
Oh so, the original headquarters forTeen cancerl America is last we were based
in Los Angeles. But then you'vespread all over the country and set up
to help all the other teams aroundin every pretty much in every city.
Are you in every state? We'rein about twenty two states. Wow,

(03:45):
and that's about forty cities. Theprinciple is is to try and get this
facility in every major cancer hospital inAmerica. My sister is a pediatric nerse,
so I can relate to. Fortunately, none of my family had to
endure the challenges of somebody having cancerin our family. We have other ailments

(04:08):
like drinking too much. But butyou know, that's besides the point let's
get into I want to discuss.You know, it was brought to my
attention Simon. I can call youSimon about the the the who being involved
with this and this was surprising tome. I mean, obviously I know
a lot of celebrities contribute and lendthemselves to the cause, right, but

(04:30):
to learn about what's really going onwith Roger Daltry and Pete Townsend from the
who partaking in not only like contributingto teen Cancer America, but also giving
away signed guitars and whatnot and doingconcerts for the teens. The teens are
also writing music and doing stuff,according to Christine Briggs. Shout out to
Christine Briggs, who's also heavily involvedwith this cause. Yes, so can

(04:55):
you tell us a little bit more? This is one of the questions I
wanted to ask you what motivated RogerDaltrey and Pete Townsend of the WHO to
start up Team Cancer America. Whatwas it? Well, you know,
actually the story goes right back tothe UK because I was the chief executive
of the Teenage Cancer Trust in theUK, which was the predecessor of Team
Cancer America, and Roger Daltrey inPete Townsend were already involved in that and

(05:18):
had been since the nineties. Andit really came about initially through Roger Daltrey's
doctor, doctor Jan Whitson, whowas the founder of the charity, but
also he motivated Roger to sort ofthink about this issue, and Roger was
Roger in particular, really got captivatedabout this and feels, I think most

(05:42):
both of them do feel very passionatelyabout the fact that really their success and
everything that they have earned in theirlifetime is down to young people, and
it's young people that have made theWHO, and this is their way of
giving back now beyond that, andRoger in particular has really become an ambassador
for this. He's not just aguy who raises money and gives away signed

(06:05):
guitars, right, Here's a guywho is really passionate about this. He
spends time going to see young people, and he really engages and is very
very strong publicly about trying to createthis change. So he's been at it
for over twenty Wow. I mean, it's just so just reading this question

(06:26):
and reading the side in the aboutus and the vision and the mission.
But you're saying Roger and Pete theystarted teen Cancer America. They started it
themselves, like there was no theidea and then the funding and then getting
obviously they brought in other people,but it was essentially their baby. Absolutely.
They've seen the success of what washappening in the UK. They wanted

(06:47):
to bring it over here. Theyinvite myself and Rebecca Rostein, who's the
chairman of our charity has been integralto the charity success, to start this
thing up and get it going overhere in the US. And their commitment
again to American youth was because Americanyouth made them as successful as British youth.
They much to that, I see. So they just wanted to do

(07:10):
this. They saw there was agap and it needed it needed to change,
and so they established Team Cancer America. They raised the first million dollars
for it themselves and gave that tothe charity to get it started. I
was very fortunate that they offered methe opportunity to come here. And you've
been on it since the beginning,since the beginning. Were you in the

(07:31):
band at all? Did you playwith did you tour with them at all?
You know, I couldn't sing orplay a note save my life,
n't care a tune, Simon,Come on, you you talk so eloquently,
so articulately. Maybe I could dosome poetry for him or something spoken
word, yeah, something like that. But I do you know, I've
been involved since two thousand in thewhole set up doing in the UK,
but two thousand and twelve was whenwe set it up in America and we

(07:56):
haven't looked back since then. That'sa decade, a great journey in a
decade. It's been a decade,which love saying that word. This is
a perfect time to celebrate ten years. That is such a fortunate and blessing
to have with the who with Rogerand Pete and were you guys? I
just have to know this personally,were you guys friends before? Like?
Did you how did you get involved? How did they come to you?

(08:16):
Simon? I'm this is just meno, No, that's fine. I
mean really I got involved because Iwas running the charity in the UK and
they were so a part of it. But I would have to say that
over time, you know, I'vegot to know them both, but particularly
Roger, because Roger, you know, he'll call me up day or night
and say what's going down? Youknow how you know what progress are we

(08:37):
making? What are we doing?What more can I do? He's involved,
he checks in and so here andI have really become friends over time,
and we strategized together even about youknow, what's the best thing to
do, how can we use youknow, Roger's influence. You know,
we went to DC one year andspend some time with some people in you
know, Bipartisan Group and Congress,and you know you can't aren't be having

(09:00):
a spokesperson. Is it surreal tobe in business with Pete and Roger?
I mean does it make you Doyou ever have those moments where you're like,
wow, you know what I mean? Or is it just you're just
so used to it by now?No? No, I mean I never
quite get used to it. Imean we're blessed. You couldn't ask for
two better founders and ambassadors and Rogerand particularly because he's so out there typical

(09:24):
lead singer, you know, verycreative, he's you know, there are
many situations where we've been at showsor things that where they've they've been raising
money for us, and you lookaround and you think, wow, you
know, I've got the who playingthis for us. Yeah, as it's
happening, and that's extraordinary. Yes, not a personal level. You know,

(09:45):
Roger calls me, it's like havinga friend called me, you know,
and he wants to get business done. So great, let's move on

(10:28):
to the next question here. Canyou explain what the charity does and why
it's needed Simon? Please? Yeah, Well, I started to just give
you the picture from a young person'sperspective about being isolated in these inappropriate settings.
You don't want to be with Disneywallpaper and little kids, and you
don't want to be with adults whereyou know, most of them in their

(10:50):
sixties and you're out of touch withthem. You need your own space,
and you also need teams that understandwhat you're doing. You know, what
you're going through, not just thecancer, but they need to understand how
psychologically this is a young adult,how they think the exact exactly, you
know. And so what we dois we work with both pediatric and adult

(11:11):
hospitals to bring those medical and pediatricteams together. And your sisters and nurse
will understand this. There are adultcancers that appear in pediatric age group and
there are pediatric cancers that appear inthe adult age group, and so they
need to they need to bring theirexpertise together. So we provide them with

(11:33):
a platform, we give them strategies, we help them develop that, and
we also lead them towards building aparticular space within a hospital as well as
very teen friendly and as computers andPlayStations and kind of stuff that young people
are going to want. You gotit, all of that, and so
we bring them to a point wheretheir leadership and them are committed to this,

(11:56):
they want it to happen. Andthen when they're ready, they can
apply to us for money and thenwe give them hard cash to develop the
teams and to develop these physical spacesas amazing. So we kind of take
with a journey between us and thehospitals because quite often, although you would
think that it's a simple thing toyou and me, and when I speak

(12:16):
to many people in general public,they think, well, of course,
young people want something different, andthey are different, and they're very unique
and individualized when you're a teenager,you know, and in every walk of
life, you know, we treatthem differently. You know that their schooling
and their and their education is different. You know, the way that they're

(12:37):
commercialized world adapts to them is different. Even the criminal justice system treats them
different. Yeah, in the healthsystem, they're kind of nowhere to be
found. They're in this no man'sland type of area. So what we're
what we're really doing is buildings.I think we're kind of changing the structure
of the way absolute system. You'reimplementing their own unique sphere, not only

(13:00):
their atmosphere of what they're going tobe around every day while they're there and
enduring the trout the journey, butas well as trying to be sympathetic to
their their feelings, their mental stateas well. All of that. You
know, the psychological impact is reallycritical. Do you know what it's like
as a teenager. We're going throughchanges anywhere, there's hormonal stuff going crazy.

(13:22):
You know, I think I'm stillam a teenager to fix next year,
and you know, critical time foreducation and employment, so all that
stuff gets disrupted. So that's allthere, and then on top of that
you have these complexities of the cancersnot necessarily fitting where they are. So
if they have an adult cancer andthey're in a pediatric center, then the

(13:43):
pediatric doctors may not be quite surehow to deal with that. And if
they have a pediatric cancer in anadult hospital, they might be thinking scratching
their heads and not quite sure howto deal with that. So we're trying
to bring them together. And aswell, I have to say, I'm
sorry to say that the young peoplehave not been surviving or their improvement in

(14:03):
survival has not been as good asyounger or older age groups historically, and
that's been shown. So what we'retrying to do is say, let's let's
get that expertise together, so it'sa clinical as well as you know,
the research as well. We wantto make have research the specific to this
age group. Right. Let megive you just one example, please.

(14:24):
Breast cancer is obviously very common.We know about, we know a lot
about. It's been around for awhile, been around for a while.
But what they're finding now is thatthe effect of some of the types of
breast cancer on younger people is moreaggressive? Is it because they're younger?
Oh well, let's not get toodeep into it. The why, I
don't know. It could be genetic. It could be because that's the thing

(14:46):
about cancer, it's so stealthy.It's so what's the word I'm looking for,
Simon? What's an articulate word thatyou would give cancer? In your
own in your own experience of seeingall this, you know, it's I
don't know I should compliment it.It's a very smart disease what it does?
Yes? Is it in different people? Right? People with different ethnicities

(15:07):
are affected differently by some of it. And also you know the treatments,
how people react to the treatments.Treatments are incredibly toxic. So even if
you survive the cancer, you've beenthrough a lot of toxic treatments, and
so the long term effects of thatcan be very difficult. Can I quickly
share with you, Simon that Idid state earlier that none of my family

(15:28):
fortunately had to deal with this.I will quickly interject that my uncle Jerry
passed away from pancreatic cancer at seventyeight years age. Now he wasn't my
real uncle. I was content tocall him my uncle. Yeah, but
anybody in my family were Mexican.When it comes down to the aggressiveness that
you were speaking on with the differenttypes of cancer, just out of curiosity,
what is like some of the mostaggressive and then what is some of

(15:52):
the most not so aggressive that you'veseen almost put into remission, right,
what can you tell us a littlebit just about that before we move on
to the other question. I mean, there's there's a to give you an
example of a particularly aggressive and difficultcancer that affects young people more than any
other age group of geo sarcoma,which is a bone cancer. It's very

(16:12):
rare, It's quite often difficult todiagnose in the early stages, so late
diagnosis happens, and then the canceritself is very aggressive. The treatments have
to be very strong, very brutal, and toxic in order to try and
cure that, and that could endup with you know, obviously young people
not surviving. So that's a challengingone for example. And then there's a

(16:34):
thyroid cancer for example, it's onewhere with you know, good treatment and
good and appropriate surgery, there's ahigher chance of remission. In that,
although I'm always hesitant to kind ofsay those things because you don't want to
give people, of course, butwhat you've seen, what you've seen in
you're over a decade and being withthe with the teen Cancer America, I'm

(16:56):
sure you've you've witnessed quite a bit. Let's move on to the next question,
if you're okay with that, Simon. It seems as though Team Cancer
America is trying to change traditional healthcarestructures and it's creating a new model.
Yeah, tell us more about thenew model and the structure even that you
are pretty much explaining that right now, but dive deeper into this whole new

(17:17):
mode we're going into. You've gotto think, you think about the health
system. And this is general publicwill understand this that both children's hospitals and
adult hospitals have kind of grown upin silos. So sometimes they're on the
same site, sometimes either side oftown, and so what they've created there
is divisions between the two, andso transitions between the two are very difficult

(17:40):
to manage, and quite often evencommunication and collaboration between the two is difficult.
So what I'm talking about in termsof changing the structure is you have
to change that way of even thinkingto say, look, there has to
be a collaborative process here between pediatricand adult experts. They're all important,

(18:02):
they're all really critical to success,you know, but we really have to
bring them together to bridge that,to make the transitions okay, and to
do the very best we can toincrease those chances of better outcomes than survival.
Well, you guys are certainly mergingthe greatest minds together and across the

(18:23):
country, said twenty two so farin twenty two states. Yeah, so
we have we're up to by theend of this year. Well, I've
got forty eight programs that we've beenin. We've got going which we're very,
very proud of. In ten years. We should go over fifty next
year. I think we'll be intothe early fifties next year. That represents

(18:45):
to me, and this is onlya guestimate because please always merging and stuff
like that, but that represents tome about a quarter of the USA.
Wow. So I think there's abouttwo hundred that are needed in the in
the US, and so you know, we're about a quarter. They were
way there in ten years and that'sbeen kind of like startup mode. So

(19:07):
I'm really confident that we can drivethis further forward, and the more money
that we get, the faster wecan go. Right because we have the
model, we know what works.Yeah, you already have the system put
in place, just need more peopleto jump on board. Yeah. Right
here you're there are some of thebiggest and best hospitals in the world like
MD Anderson and Memorial Sloan Cattering andhere in UCLA. But you know,

(19:30):
we're also needing to be in everycommunity hospital in every city. So it's
not just the big boys, it'snot just the coastal cities, it's everywhere.
It needs to be everywhere. Youalso run a music education program.

(19:52):
Break it down for us, misterSimon. So as you can imagine,
music is in our DNA, andso we were always consc that this was
a really important feature of young people'slives, and we felt that during treatment,
we know that many young people weresort of using music really as a
therapy, you know, for justgetting through time. I do it every

(20:15):
day, your favorite song, youknow, whatever gets you through the night
type of thing. You know,it's important. So we wanted to engage
them in music and my colleague HillaryGann, who works with a guy called
Kenley Mattis. She was previously workingat UCLA and had developed this idea of
a music education program that actually enabledyoung people to not just like have a

(20:37):
guy come in and play the guitarand listen, but actually take part in
making their own music, whether theyhad any skill at all, and a
jam session, like a jam session, they would find out what their genre
of music was they're interested in.It could be rap, it could be
blues, whatever you know, andthen to help them to write that music
and to make it and to recordit and to record it to a really

(21:00):
strong professional level. And Kenley isa master of this art. And we
developed this program which began very softlyin la and we got it going and
some young people have given us thisgreat feedback about how much this helped them
during their journey and then subsequently wegot them through through the pandemic, we

(21:22):
thought, well, we got totry and do this digitally, and so
now we've got young people all acrossthe country who are taking part on this
program, doing jam sessions together anduse it together. It's really it is
hot thing. It many good bandsget behind us. We've had Portugal in
The Man. Oh yeah, Iwanted to get into that. I really
want it. Let's let's name afew, can we can? We can

(21:45):
I break this down with you together, Simon. So you have had fantastic
artists join your fundraisers and engage withyour program. Eddie Vetter, Yeah,
the Foo Fighters, Yeah, EdgeSheering, Green Day, Pink Portugal,
the Man as you just said,just to name a few, and of
course Pete and Roger behind the wholething from The Who, which is I

(22:06):
mean you have like a like asmall army of these fantastic musicians taking part
in this. Please tell us more. Well, you know one thing that
it's really handy to have a Rogeradult or Townsend. It is pretty difficult
to turn them down if they giveyou a call and say they're going to
come and help me at one ofour shows. So these artists, who
obviously respect The Who is one ofthe greatest rock and roll bands of all

(22:30):
times, they would be accurate.You know, I'm not going to find
it easy to say no. Thereason I said yes to doing this is
I was like, oh yeah,okay the Who. I'm reading more about
this and to talk with you.And then when Briggs was like, well,
he's so polite and he's from theUK, and I was like,
I can't wait to talk to thisguy. He's going to have a great
action, but please continue on.Well, you know, and that's not

(22:52):
to say that these people have come. You know, we're not getting them
to come kicking and screaming. Youknow, these guys want again. And
when Roger you know, tells themabout what it is, it makes so
much then and we run these amazingshows that you know we run every year
and tell us about the shows,well, we just it's actually an exclusive

(23:14):
experience back We call it a backyardshow, but actually it's at one of
our are the home of one ofour board members. So we have about
a thousand people come at a bigbackyard to a proper stage. And this
year we had we had Billy Idol, had John Fogerty from Credence clear Water

(23:36):
Revival play, we had Green Day, We had The Who, and then
Eddie Veda came on stage and joinedwith the Who. It's an amazing night
as you can imagine. I justcan't even imagine. How was the crowd
that the crowd receiving it. Imean, I love it I mean,
because where we're going to get thatchance and you're upfront with these people and
we split that. The benefit ofthat goes to a UCLA autism program as

(24:02):
well as US, so we spritethat. But it's a beautiful fundraiser and
it raises will probably raise over fivemillion between the two charities, so it's
an incredible thing. I just wantedto say one more thing about the music
program because that's a different type ofengagement which is much more personal for the
artists and Portugal and the man,for example, who got close to a
young guy actually who passed and didn'tmake it through his cancer journey. They

(24:26):
helped him. They've come back andthey've done sessions with young people. They
just did one this week where theywere just engaging with them and helping them
make their music in a very discreet, quiet, beautiful way, and we
really appreciate that. Sketch. You'vegot the sketch a Madic podcast. Well,
we've got a podcast too. Youknow, through our music program,

(24:48):
we got a relationship with a Pantheongroup who run a lot of music podcasts,
and they've been helping us produce apodcast which is listening to the stories
of young people and knitting that inwith the music that they're making a very
cool Pantheon Pantheon which is a musicpodcast company, and they've been helping us

(25:14):
to develop a podcast which is tellingthe stories of individual cancer patients along with
the music that they're producing on ourmusic education program. And it's very cool.
And we've even now just made avinyl of twenty of their songs,
oh On, printed on vinyl,got on waxing. It's not a commercial

(25:38):
thing. We wanted it to bea gift for them and for their families.
So the vinyl really is it's tosay, here's to celebrate what you've
done, like kind of like aplaque. Absolutely. In fact, we
can get them made into the discsif they want it. I think you
should, and that vinyl will bethere forever and if it in it and
you know, if the young persondoesn't, what a beautiful legacy for their

(26:00):
parents and their family. Is thereany DJ's involved, like with DJing on
turntables, any of the teens DJbecause you know everybody's a DJ. Now
Caitlyn's in here with us, she'sa DJ. She didn't even know she
was a DJ. I mean everybody'sa couple of the young people themselves have
turned into DJ. Yes, that'spretty cool, that's what I'm saying.
Yeah, I myself came from aDJ background, and you know, if

(26:22):
there's any a chance I can DJfor TCA, which is Teen Cancer America,
I would love to lend myself tothat. We would love that.
We would love that. And sure, I mean that music program could lend
itself as well, and those sortsof skills, because we're trying to see
some production skills and but yeah,it would be great. And that's what
brings me to this question right here. How can the iHeart audience help you?

(26:42):
Well, I am an iHeart employeeas well as Caitlyn, and we're
all I'm sure we're all hands ondeck for the TCA crew, you know
what I mean. So, ifthere's any a chance that the teens would
like to learn about radio and stufflike that, they should have their own
little radio station up there. Didthey have their own little you know,
that's been a dream of mine.So you tell me how to do that.

(27:03):
Do the imaging we love that,we love to No, I think
there are so many opportunities for that, so clearly iHeart is a beautiful relationship.
And if we could generate some interestin any of your work, you
know, whether it's broadcasting or yournetworks with with the artists, et cetera
that you have. And yeah,sure I've got you down now because you

(27:25):
said it. I said you're goingto be You're going to be our next
DJ tutor. That's for sure.There is anyway. But yeah, from
an iHeart listener point of view,listen, everybody out there, thank you
so much for listening to this showand for hearing hearing the stories about Team
Cancer America. But you know,there are several things you can do,

(27:45):
you know. One is this isa message for change here, you know,
so we're doing something that's about creatingchange within these hospitals. But actually
what would be great would be todevelop a demand for this change. You
know. So we're doing we're kindof being reactive to what the issue is.
But actually any of you out therecould start to look around at your

(28:07):
own hospitals and say, well,what have we got one of these.
We've got up a special program foryoung people, ask the questions, see
if you can get some influence going, and any hospital can phone us and
we'll be there to help them ina second. So you know that's a
piece of don't doesn't cost much,just you know, just find out what's
going on. Of course you canraise money for us. We always want
more money hitching on a party,but yeah, have a party, do

(28:30):
whatever you want to do in anysmall way. You know, we're grateful
of to receive income from any sourceand and just engage with us. You
know, we're a very open charity. As you know, we have lots
of music connections. You know,we're interested. You know, maybe you
have ideas about how we can dobetter, so you know, feel free
to contact us. The website detailsare there for you and teen Cancer America

(28:55):
dot org. And I'd like youto say it one more time. You
can get to us any time throughteam and so America dot org. We're
really open to speaking to you guysand seeing how you can engage and help
us with our course. Thank you, Simon. It's been such a pleasure
and very insightful and enlightening sitting herewith you and learning so much in a
short amount of time. I couldliterally I'd like to go and have lunch

(29:18):
with you and just sitting and justhear you talk. I mean your voice
is so it's like butter and Ithink you should have a part. Thanks
for joining us on CEOs. Youshould know Phoenix, I'm Rob Hunter.
We'll see you next time.