Meet the Council

Secretary Kate Walsh, Chair

Statutory requirement: Secretary of Health and Human Services, ex-officio

Prior to her appointment as Secretary, Kate Walsh served as CEO of Boston Medical Center (BMC) Health System for nearly 13 years, navigating multiple COVID-19 surges and recoveries by expanding telehealth capabilities, bolstering regional resource management, establishing a COVID Recuperation Unit, and coordinating with state and local government. She also oversaw a Clinical Campus Redesign project at BMC with the goal of decreasing costs and modernizing facilities. Walsh also established BMC Health System’s Health Equity Accelerator in November of 2021 to transform health care and eliminate gaps in life expectancy and quality of life among different races and ethnicities.

Walsh previously served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Chief Operating Officer for Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, and Senior Vice President of Medical Services and the MGH Cancer Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master’s Degree in Public Health from Yale University. She has served as a member of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the board of the American Hospital Association, America’s Essentials Hospitals the Boston Public Health Commission, the Massachusetts Hospital Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, Pine Street Inn, and Yale University. She lives in Boston.

Fay Donohue, Vice Chair

Statutory requirement: experience in health care delivery or health care management, appointed by the Governor

Fay Donohue is a health care organizational leader who has built cost and quality-focused health plan and care delivery systems, as well as navigated the rapidly changing regulatory environment to pioneer cost-effective expansion of services to under-served populations through Medicaid and Affordable Care Act insurance exchanges.

She recently retired as CEO of DentaQuest (2007-2015), one of the nation’s largest and most diversified oral health/eye care enterprises and, over nearly two decades, filled a diverse range of executive roles with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. 

DentaQuest, and its various subsidiaries and affiliates – including Delta Dental of Massachusetts – serves more than 24 million people across the country with both commercial and government dental and vision plans and programs.

Under Ms. Donohue’s direction, the DentaQuest Foundation expanded its support for oral health community engagement, education and policy support through $17 million in annual grants. And, through the DentaQuest Institute, she worked to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the oral health care delivery system.

Deeply committed to public service, she currently sits on the board, and is Chair, of the National Institute of Children’s Health Care Quality, and is past  Chair of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Association. She serves on the board of the Commonwealth Institute, is a Member of the Council of NovaSoutheastern University Dental School and is a member of the Massachusetts Women’s Forum. She also is a past Director of Operation ABLE, a nonprofit elderly job training and employment service and BMC Healthnet.

Ms. Donohue earned a BA from Bryn Mawr College, an MA from Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and an MBA from Boston College.

Currently Vacant

Statutory requirement: experience in cybersecurity, appointed by the Attorney General

   This position is currently vacant.

Brent Benson

Statutory requirement: undesignated, appointed by the State Auditor

Brent Benson is Director of Architecture and Data Platforms at Harvard Business School Online, Harvard Business School's online learning initiative. At HBS Online, Brent has helped develop an innovative learning platform based on active, social, case-based learning and has worked with his team to build a state-of-the-art data platform that incorporates Learning Analytics, Data Science, AI, and Machine Learning to evaluate and improve HBS Online's active, social pedagogy and its supporting technology, give learners actionable feedback, and increase the reach, inclusiveness, and equity of the online learning experience.

Before joining HBS in 2015, Brent worked for technology companies Oracle, Concentra, ICAD, and Harris Computer Systems in areas including constraint programming and programming language design and implementation. Brent holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Rochester and writes about Massachusetts politics and policy through a quantitative lens on the Mass. Numbers blog, Commonwealth Magazine, and other news outlets.

Commissioner Michael Caljouw

Statutory requirement: Commissioner of Insurance, ex-officio

Michael Caljouw's biography will be available shortly.

Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz

Statutory requirement: Secretary of Administration and Finance, ex-officio

Matthew Gorzkowicz is the Secretary of the Executive Office for Administration and Finance. He has more than 25 years' experience in state finance and budgeting in the Commonwealth. He has served as the Associate Vice President for Administration and Finance at the University of Massachusetts President's Office for more than a decade, where he has had a direct role in setting the University’s long-range administrative and financial goals and managed the development of an annual operating budget of $3.8 billion.

Prior to UMass, Secretary Gorzkowicz worked in the Massachusetts Senate, the Department of Mental Health, the School Building Authority, and the Executive Office for Administration and Finance under Governor Deval Patrick, where he served as Assistant Secretary for Budget and then Undersecretary.

He is a graduate of Northeastern University and lives in Winthrop, MA with his wife and two children.

Adrianna McIntyre

Statutory requirement: experience with the use of big data open data and analytics, appointed by the Governor

Adrianna McIntyre is an Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Politics in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She studies strategies to improve take-up and retention of health insurance and other social program benefits. She has been invited to present her findings before state and federal policymakers and her work has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA Health Forum, and other peer-reviewed journals.

Dr. McIntyre graduated with a PhD from Harvard University's interdisciplinary health policy program in May 2021. She also holds a Master in Public Health and a Master in Public Policy from the University of Michigan School of Public Health and Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.

From June 2015 to June 2016, she was a David A. Winston Health Policy Fellow in Washington, DC, where she worked in the office of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Alan Sager, PhD

Statutory requirement: health care economist, appointed by the State Auditor

Alan Sager is a professor of health law, policy, and management at the Boston University School of Public Health, where he has taught finance and planning for 80 semesters.  He has designed a "time banking" method of mobilizing voluntary aid for disabled citizens by creating a structured parallel economy of good deeds.  His analyses of urban hospital closings over 85 years found that closings harmed access while boosting costs. 

He has served as a vice-president of the former Health Planning Council for Greater Boston and as a trustee of the former Waltham Hospital.  He holds a BA in economics from Brandeis and a PhD in city planning from MIT.  

Executive Director David Seltz

Statutory requirement: Executive Director of the Health Policy Commission, ex-officio

David Seltz is the first Executive Director of the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission, which aims to modernize health care payment and delivery models to establish a more accountable, affordable system. Prior to this role, Mr. Seltz was the chief health care advisor for then-Senate President Therese Murray and served as the Special Advisor on health care for former Governor Deval Patrick (MA).

Through these positions, Mr. Seltz advised the passage of Chapter 58 of the Acts of 2006 and Chapter 224 of the Acts of 2012. Mr. Seltz is a 2003 graduate of Boston College and originally from Minnesota.

Sandra Wolitzky

Statutory requirement: appointed by the Attorney General

Sandra Wolitzky is an Assistant Attorney General and the Deputy Chief of the Health Care Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, where she has served since 2015. The Health Care Division enforces health care laws to protect the rights of Massachusetts consumers and works to promote public health and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the health care system. Sandy works on a variety of health care enforcement and policy matters. Among her health policy projects, Sandy co-authored the Attorney General’s 2020 report on Racial Justice and Health Equity and co-authored the Attorney General’s reports published since 2017 on health care cost trends and cost drivers.

Before joining the Attorney General's Office, Sandy clerked for Judge Carlos Bea at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and Judge Denise Casper at the District Court for the District of Massachusetts and worked in private practice in California. Sandy graduated from Harvard University and Harvard Law School.

Jean Yang

Statutory requirement: experience in finance and budgeting, appointed by the Governor

Ms. Jean Yang is the President and CEO of Vinfen Corporation, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to serving people with mental illnesses, intellectual and developmental disabilities, and other life changes.

Jean has twenty years of business and policy experience in the health care industry spanning across payer, provider, and government in the New England region. Prior to Vinfen, she was the President of Public Plans at Point32Health, where she led the company’s business segment that served Medicaid and other low-income populations. She also served as the Executive Director of the Boston Children’s Hospital Integrated Care Organization, where she led the development of the hospital’s inaugural Medicaid Accountable Care Organization. As a former public servant for the Commonwealth, Jean led the complex effort to implement the Affordable Care Act in Massachusetts, as well as being a policy influencer through her service on the Health Policy Commission and Group Insurance Commission. A native of China, Jean is a graduate of Peking University in Beijing and Harvard Business School. She is a 2017 awardee of Boston Chamber of Commerce’s Pinnacle Award.