There will be no senior leadership layoffs or health center closures, but maybe moving, says the new CEO.
By Kylee Worth
Original Air Date: July 11, 2025
Host: Amid rising political pressures and threats to reproductive healthcare, Planned Parenthood is making a historic move to combat it all. The strategy? Merge. Kylee Worth reports.
Sarasota Planned Parenthood staffers
Kylee Worth: Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, headquartered in Sarasota, is no more. That’s because the local chapter will be merging with Planned Parenthood of South, East and North Florida. Together the two chapters will form a new unified Planned Parenthood of Florida led by CEO Alexandra Mandado.
Mandado has led the “other” Planned Parenthood since 2022 from offices in West Palm Beach.
I was able to speak with Mandado to gain some clarity about the internal structure of this merged entity.
Alexandra Mandado: There were two affiliates in the state of Florida. They were separate 501(c)(3)s that each had their own board and senior management teams. In the past several years, we’ve always worked collaboratively in many different areas, so the opportunity here is to bring the two organizations together. There’s a combined board. Half of the board from the Southwest affiliate will be participating on the Florida board, half of the members of the PP Florida board will be coming from the parent of the Southeast and North Florida, and we also have our senior management team that is made up of mostly of Planned Parenthood of Southeast North Florida management team leaders, as well as some of our colleagues that came to us from the Southwest side.
KW: The Planned Parenthood of Florida headquarters will be in West Palm Beach. This location will be mainly used for administrative purposes such as offices and mailing. While there has been some restructuring, all facilities are slated to remain open. Not only that, but some will offer increased hours and days of service. Mandado says that the immediate concerns of the organization are the patients’ needs.
AM: Grappling with the deepening health disparities and how we increase patient needs as an organization—that is our primary goal for this first year. Within the next couple of years, what we’ve been discussing with our staff as well as our board is there might be an opportunity to make sure that we delve a little bit more deeply into asking questions like, “Hey, are our health centers actually in the right places? Are we really able to shift the needle on health equity opportunities if these health centers are in these places?”
In terms of closing, we don’t see that. Maybe moving is a question mark. In terms of our senior leadership team, no, they will be intact. We did some restructuring—again, we’ve been planning this merger for the past year—so having that time to really look at structure—”What makes sense for this new organization, looking at the organizational chart?” We’ve been working on that for the past year. There were no changes made to that initial sort of structure that we considered and implemented and no layoffs due to merger.
Sarasota Planned Parenthood interior
KW: She feels confident in the decision to merge.
AM: We have worked as two different organizations pretty collaboratively, but to bring us together is to be able to create efficiencies throughout every single health center that is unified—that is challenging the opportunities to provide access to patients and to create consistencies across all the health centers while also integrating the best practices from both affiliates. They’re bringing all these strengths together to better serve our communities.
KW: Anna Eskamani feels confident, too, about the merger. Before serving as a legislator for an Orlando-area district in the Florida House of Representatives, she worked for Planned Parenthood in Sarasota. Eskamani says the consolidation will make Planned Parenthood only stronger.
Rep. Anna Eskamani
Anna Eskamani: I think this merger is exactly what needs to happen as we’re navigating a really hostile environment for reproductive rights and freedom in the state and in the country, so combining forces gives us a much stronger organization to face this storm and to support one another—support our patients and really just stay focused on the mission.
KW: Speaking from experience, Eskamani understands the overall benefits.
AE: In 2015, I was on staff at Planned Parenthood greater Orlando when we had our merger that led to the creation of Planned Parenthood in Southwest and Central Florida. That was three Planned Parenthoods coming to one to cover a 22-county service area. With any merger, there’s definitely going to be very important efforts around internal communications—around the culture of a workplace. There’s the challenge of shifting job titles and roles and trying to find a fit for everyone. There’s always gonna be some of those very real operational realities of a merger, but ultimately, from a financial perspective, it helps to eliminate your overhead cost so you really can focus on delivering the mission on serving patients—on educating the community—on advocating for reproductive freedom—and less worried about some of those financial dynamics of having of having positions that are duplicative. Overall, there’s always gonna be the need to focus on those internal transitions, but from external facing perspective, I think that the merger is smart. I think it’s needed.
KW: Eskamani says that the merger is not going to be possible without the help of everyday people.
AE: The organization is only as strong as it supporters, so I really do encourage—if you care about this issue, if you care about reproductive care, if you care about people having access to these fundamental services—that you donate to your local Planned Parenthood, that you volunteer, that you help ensure that this is not only a successful merger but that the organization can survive and then thrive. And it is a very difficult environment right now in the Sunshine State.
KW: Reporting for WSLR News, Kylee Worth.
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