
Ceci Connolly
President and CEO
Expertise: Federal Health Policy, Congress, Not-For-Profit Health Companies, Value-Based Design, Health Care Costs, Payer-Provider Partnerships, Women’s Leadership
Experience: Ceci Connolly is a nationally recognized thought leader, author and chief executive officer of the Alliance of Community Health Plans (ACHP). But if you refer to her as a former ink-stained wretch, she won’t object. One of Modern Healthcare’s 100 Most Influential People in 2024, Ceci previously spent 25 years in the news business covering politics and health care, including 13 years at the Washington Post. She is co-author of Landmark: America’s New Health Care Law and What It Means for Us All. Between her journalism career and ACHP, she worked at McKinsey and PwC, concluding that fee-for-service medicine is what ails us. Her passion now is to put a stake in it. She is a founding member of Women of Impact, serves on the Aledade Policy Council and the Board of the Pharmacy Quality Alliance and previously served as a Board member of Whitman-Walker Health. Ceci was the first non-physician to receive the Mayo Clinic Plummer Society Award for promoting deeper understanding of science and medicine. She remains an adrenaline junkie and stickler for good grammar.
Hometown: Broomall, PA
Academia:
B.A., Boston College
- Awards and Publications:
- Modern Healthcare’s 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare in 2024
- Business Insider’s inaugural DC Health Care Power Players
- Mayo Clinic Plummer Society award for promoting deeper understanding of science and medicine
- Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government fellowship
- What could we do if GLP-1 weight loss drugs were free? Would our obesity epidemic be solved for good? (The Health Care Blog, 2024)
- Don’t let hospital care at home shrivel when the public health emergency ends (STAT News, 2022)
- Nonprofit Health Plans Launch Telehealth-First Options to Increase Access and Affordability (NEJM Catalyst, 2021)
- New Research Shows How Payer-Provider Partnerships Can Accelerate Adoption of Evidence-Based Care (NEJM Catalyst, 2019)
- Patients Win When Payers and Providers Speak the Same Language (The Health Care Blog, 2019)
- The Committed Perspective — Policy Principles for Regional Health Plans (NEJM, 2017)
Did You Know?
Ceci lives at the intersection of politics, policy and the “real world.”