Heartbeat Forward · Founder
Adrian
Adair
Founder, Heartbeat Forward · CHD Advocate · Author
Heartbeat Forward was built on one belief: that no child facing a congenital heart defect should feel invisible, and no family should walk that journey alone.
Adrian Adair
Founder, Heartbeat Forward
In his own words
I came to this cause not through personal pain. I came to it through something harder to explain. A moral weight I could not set down. Congenital heart disease affects millions of children, and most of the world has never heard those words spoken out loud. Someone has to look at that and say: not on my watch.
Congenital heart defects change lives instantly. A diagnosis can arrive in the quiet of an ultrasound room or in the urgency of a delivery ward. In that moment, everything shifts. Medical terminology replaces ordinary conversation. Fear and uncertainty settle in. Parents are asked to be strong while absorbing information no family ever expects to hear.
Adrian founded Heartbeat Forward in response to that emotional reality.
While medical science has made extraordinary progress in treating congenital heart disease, families often need more than surgery and clinical care. They need reassurance. They need dignity. They need moments of light in environments that can feel overwhelming.
Who He Believes Children With CHD Are
Adrian believes deeply that children with congenital heart defects are not defined by hospital rooms or diagnoses. They are artists, dreamers, siblings, students, and future leaders. Their stories deserve visibility. Their resilience deserves recognition. Their families deserve consistent, compassionate support.
Through Heartbeat Forward, Adrian works to strengthen awareness, expand compassionate resources, and build a culture where congenital heart disease is understood, acknowledged, and addressed with both medical excellence and emotional care.
The Longer Road
The care packages and emotional resources are the foundation. But the horizon Adrian is building toward is larger: an organization capable of helping fund life-saving heart surgeries for children whose families cannot afford them.
No family should ever face the unbearable decision between financial devastation and their child's survival.
That goal requires infrastructure. It requires trust. It requires years of credibility built one care package, one conversation, one published resource at a time. Adrian understands this, and he is building deliberately.
The Work Beyond Heartbeat Forward
Adrian is also the author of The Quiet Majority: Why Congenital Heart Disease Deserves to Be Seen, published under his Teneritas imprint. All proceeds from the book support Heartbeat Forward's mission. He also hosts the Small Hearts, Loud Voices podcast, bringing CHD stories into the public conversation one episode at a time.
For Adrian, this work is not temporary. It is a lasting commitment to ensuring that children born with congenital heart defects are seen, supported, and surrounded by compassion for as long as it takes.
His Leadership
Rooted in
Rooted in
three commitments.
Adrian's leadership of Heartbeat Forward is not driven by strategy alone. It is driven by a set of values he holds as non-negotiable. Every decision the organization makes flows from these three foundations.
01
Compassion
For every child navigating a cardiac ward. For every parent sitting in a waiting room. For every sibling who understands more than they should have to, this young. Compassion is not a strategy. It is the foundation.
02
Integrity
In how the organization operates, communicates, and grows. Every dollar accounted for. Every promise kept. Every family treated with the dignity they deserve. Credibility is not given. It is built, slowly and carefully.
03
Long-Term Advocacy
For greater public awareness of congenital heart defects. For research funding that matches the scale of the disease. For a world where CHD families no longer have to explain themselves at every turn.
The horizon
is larger than
today.
Adrian is building Heartbeat Forward step by step, with full knowledge that the most important milestones are still ahead. This is the roadmap as it stands today.
I
Care Packages & Resources
Delivering comfort and support to children and families in cardiac units. Active now.
II
Awareness & Public Education
Books, podcast, guides, and advocacy to make CHD impossible to ignore. Building now.
III
Institutional Partnerships
Hospital and nonprofit collaboration to embed Heartbeat Forward programs into clinical care. In progress.
IV
Surgical Funding
The long-term goal: helping fund life-saving surgeries for children whose families cannot afford them. The horizon we are building toward.
Adrian's Book
The Quiet
The Quiet
Majority
Why Congenital Heart Disease Deserves to Be Seen
Written by Adrian and published under his Teneritas imprint, this book tells the full story of CHD through the families who have lived it. It is not a medical textbook. It is a human document, and it is dedicated to making congenital heart disease impossible to ignore.
Every copy sold supports Heartbeat Forward's mission directly.
The work is
always open.
Adrian welcomes conversations with journalists, hospital partners, advocates, fellow nonprofit founders, and anyone who wants to be part of moving this mission forward.
For media and speaking inquiries, or to learn more about his broader advocacy work, his personal website is the right place to start.
This work is not
temporary. It is
a lifelong commitment.
Heartbeat Forward exists because Adrian believes that children born with congenital heart defects deserve to be seen, supported, and surrounded by compassion for as long as it takes.