Take a Raleigh entrepreneur, throw in actor Ryan Reynolds and a couple of colonoscopies, and you can save lives. At least that’s the hope of a new organization, named Lead From Behind, that launched this week with the help of Reynolds and fellow actor Rob McElhenney.
Raleigh-based entrepreneur Brooks Bell helped make it happen, alongside the Colorectal Cancer Alliance.
“I had a kind of vision that I wanted to have some national awareness for colon cancer prevention, to establish colon cancer as a preventable cancer, so we put together a team,” she said.
That vision got its start almost four years ago.
Bell was a tech CEO and investor. Her eponymous company, tech consulting firm Brooks Bell in Raleigh, had recently been named one of the Best Places to Work in the Triangle, a designation Bell said she had prioritized. The coworking spot she co-founded, now called Raleigh Founded, was thriving. She had recently spoken at the Democratic National Convention. And she and her husband, tech entrepreneur Jesse Lipson, were making a reputation for themselves for their entrepreneurship advocacy.
Then it came to a crashing halt with a stage three colon cancer diagnosis.
“People do not think a younger person is at risk for colon cancer,” she said following her cancer surgery in 2019. “This is the first mistake.”
Bell made major lifestyle changes. She left the day-to-day role leading her company. She started to meditate. Today, after nine cancer-free blood screenings, she says she feels “healthier” than she’s ever been.
But she knows that’s not true for everyone.
From entrepreneurship to advocacy
The stigma around colonoscopies and the age recommendations – currently at 45, though Bell was diagnosed at 38 – mean that for many, this completely “preventable” cancer can be a killer.
Bell has made it her mission to spread the word.
It started with her 2019 campaign called 50 Colonoscopies under 50. It morphed into something much, much bigger. Bell said she put together a team of “amazing experts.” And she utilized her network – “I know a lot of people who know a lot of people” – to approach Reynolds and his marketing team, Maximum Effort.
“We’ve been working with them for a while to find the right time and place and the right approach,” she said.
Bell said more is coming from the new initiative.
“We have a lot in the cooker for upcoming months, mainly around health equity,” she said. “Hopefully this is the first of many campaigns to come.”
Colon cancer is the second deadliest cancer in the nation, yet experts say it is preventable with routine colonoscopies.
Colon cancer is rising in young people, according to the CCA, and is predicted to be the top cancer killer for people under 50 by 2030. The age recommendation was shifted from age 50 to age 45 in 2021, and Bell was among those campaigning for the change.
Reynolds and McElhenney appeared in the launch video for Lead from Behind. And it was easy to get them on board – Bell just asked.
The actors, who both turned 45 this year, willingly filmed their colonoscopies as part of the campaign to spread awareness.
“The procedure and prep were painless but the discomfort of filming and sharing the process was the hardest part," Reynolds said in a statement. "Rob and I did it because we want this potentially life-saving procedure to be less mysterious and stigmatized.”