After several years of due diligence and discussion, Minneapolis-based Allina Health announced in May that it agreed to merge with California-based Sutter Health. Throughout the process of integrating the two health systems (which is still being finalized), Tim Welsh has provided insights and leadership that blend strategic thinking and community concern.

Allina’s board chair since 2024, Welsh has been active in the Twin Cities community for nearly four decades. He has served on about 20 boards, including a stint as chair of the Greater Twin Cities United Way. In 2016, Allina’s then-CEO Penny Wheeler, who knew Welsh from their work on the Itasca Project (which Welsh co-founded) and elsewhere, asked him to lead a strategic task force that would result in a joint venture between Allina and Connecticut-based managed-healthcare company Aetna. In 2018, he joined the Allina board. “[Wheeler] believed my values were consistent with hers,” Welsh recalls. “She said, ‘You understand what Allina is about, which is taking care of the community.’”

It wasn’t only his commitment to community that brought Welsh and Allina together. His professional experience, including as a senior partner at McKinsey & Co. and vice chair of consumer and business banking at U.S. Bank, has brought a high level of strategic thinking to the board. (Welsh is currently president of CCC Intelligent Solutions, a Chicago-based AI/SaaS platform provider for the insurance industry.)

The essence of corporate strategy is “how an entity can be most successful,” Welsh says. “Success is defined as serving the market well.” In Allina’s case, he adds, serving the market means providing access to high-quality healthcare services. Allina is a $6 billion enterprise with 28,000 employees across 12 hospitals and 90 clinics. About a third of hospital patients in the region are being cared for in an Allina facility. “This region cannot stay healthy unless Allina is healthy,” Welsh says.

The board’s work that led to the proposed Allina-Sutter merger “has been textbook strategy-meets-mission,” Welsh says. “If you’re in a situation where the market is very challenged—and Allina is facing its share of challenges—you ask yourself, ‘What options do we have to ensure the sustainability of this vital community asset?’” The Allina board “looked at the overall healthcare sector to determine where nonprofit health care in particular was going and asked ourselves, ‘Can we thrive as an independent entity or is it better to partner?’ We did that holistic assessment to help determine our path forward.”

In seeking to craft what Welsh calls a “strategic partnership,” Allina’s board and management “prioritized mission and values alignment as the most crucial element, because without that, it’s a nonstarter.”

What values do Allina and Sutter share? Both are nonprofits, and, according to Welsh, both “are deeply involved in making sure their communities have access to high-quality, affordable healthcare.” Sutter has committed to invest more than $2 billion in Allina’s region, which would result in new facilities in areas “that lack complete [healthcare] access,” such as rural regions.

At the same time, both sides bring distinctive attributes to the table. “Allina has extraordinary capabilities in several clinical areas,” Welsh says, notably cardiology and oncology. He believes Sutter wants to access Allina’s clinical expertise for its physicians in California. As for Sutter, one of its strengths is its technological prowess, particularly in the use of AI in diagnostics and other healthcare applications.

One of the aspects of Welsh’s board service that Lisa Shannon, Allina’s president and CEO since 2022, particularly values is his ability to cut through “the spaghetti of complexity and identify the top issues we need to solve.” Shannon cites his work on the proposed merger as a prime example. “He helped a rather large board of more than 20 members see that the future is brighter with a partner like Sutter,” one that would “keep our principles intact,” as well as provide financial stability.

Welsh says he finds board service personally rewarding, but that shouldn’t be the only reason someone serves: “You do it because it makes the community better.” That’s particularly true of being an Allina director. “It makes you proud,” he adds, “to be in some small way helping people you’ll never meet benefit because of the work we’ve done together.”

Other Board Service

Itasca Project: 2003–2025
Greater Twin Cities United Way: 2008–2021
Greater MSP: 2011–present
Upside Foods: 2017–present
Minneapolis Institute of Arts: 2020–present
Ordway Center for the Performing Arts: 2020–present
Xcel Energy: 2023–present

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