About Ellen Offner
Ellen Offner is a senior executive with a successful record in strategic planning, program and business development, marketing, budgeting, financial analysis and management, and design and management of large, complex programs. She also has extensive experience as a member of boards of trustees of major nonprofit organizations, including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, International Planned Parenthood Federation, Lasell College, and Lasell Village, an innovative continuing care retirement community on the Lasell College Campus that has won accolades for its intergenerational educational program. Ellen is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Lasell Village.
Currently Ellen is consulting to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Abt Associates on development of a strategic plan for JFK Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, working with the leadership of the hospital and the Liberian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare. She is also working with the Collaborative Quality Improvement Consortium in Boston, a broad coalition designing creative approaches to improve the quality of medical care in the region, and with the Tufts Health Care Institute on organizational redesign and recruitment for key leadership positions.
During 2007 she consulted to Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein in São Paolo, Brazil, on long-range strategic planning, resulting in a comprehensive, innovative plan for the institution. She also continued her work with Network Health, the health plan affiliated with Cambridge Health Alliance, on their strategic planning. In 2006-2007 she consulted to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute on strategic planning and market analysis related to a major new outpatient facility scheduled to open in 2011. Her analysis was used by Goldman Sachs, Dana-Farber's underwriter, for a new bond issue to finance the facility.
During 2004-2007 Ellen consulted to the University of Michigan. From 2004 to 2006 she worked with the Executive Vice Presidents' Working Group on Health and a Task Force of senior faculty and administrators to translate the vision of President Mary Sue Coleman for the University community: to create a model program to promote healthy lifestyles, contain health care expenditures, and define optimal insurance coverage for individuals and families. During 2006-2007 she worked with the University's Senior Director of University Health & Well-Being Initiatives on a benchmarking study to learn about best practices among large, progressive employers that have won wide recognition for their excellent employee health and well-being programs.
For nearly twenty years, Ellen worked at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care (HPHC), a leading health plan headquartered in Boston. As Vice President for Medicare Programs, she created and ran a Medicare plan, First Seniority®, which Consumer Reports rated first in the nation. Earlier she was Vice President for Product Development and Management and Director of Strategic Planning at HPHC. She also served as Director of Health Plans, Finance, Marketing and Planning for the Medical Department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Under her leadership, the department developed an innovative social marketing campaign designed to address risky drinking on the campus and launched an award-winning medical website.
An expert in strategic planning, product development, and financial analysis for hospitals, health plans, universities, and other nonprofit organizations, Ellen is coauthor of several articles, including “Understanding Managed Care,” in Ambulatory Pediatric Care, and “Understanding Different Models of HMOs,” in Current Opinion in Pediatrics. Ellen has an A.B. from Barnard College and an M.B.A. from Boston University with specialization in the public and nonprofit sector.