Lilly Bolen
Senior Manager, Advertising and Promotion Regulatory, Takeda Pharmaceuticals
Highlights
- 2026 Community Vision Honoree
- Former NCAA Division III women’s basketball student-athlete, Tufts University
- Family advocate
Following the loss of her mother, Lauren Bolen (a former Living Beyond Breast Cancer board member), Lilly Bolen turned her grief into a powerful mission of fostering community support, awareness, and funds.
As a sophomore basketball player, Lilly launched the Play for Pink initiative at Tufts University to benefit LBBC with the support of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC). Play for Pink is now the most successful Athletics fundraiser in the University’s history, providing nearly $160,000 to support our mission and engaging thousands of students and community members.
As the former president of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), four-year basketball team member, and a cum laude graduate of Tufts University, Lilly led her fellow student-athletes to develop a powerful fundraising initiative with real impact on health equity and patient support. Now a senior manager of advertising and promotion regulatory at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Lilly applies that same dedication to ensuring compliance and integrity within the biotech industry. From the court to the corporate world, Lilly’s leadership has fostered a lasting culture of service that continues to resonate at Tufts and beyond.
LBBC also honors with this award the Tufts University SAAC for its unwavering commitment to student leadership. When Lilly pitched the idea as a freshman, Tufts SAAC and the entire athletics community embraced her mission, helped her launch Play for Pink, and ultimately supported the transformation of her vision into a cornerstone of campus philanthropy.
Together, Lilly and Tufts University SAAC exemplify how higher education institutions can empower students to transform personal challenges into a powerful, lasting vision for their communities.