Though she never opted to study medicine herself, Andrea Walsh may well have been destined to work in health care. The daughter of a Mayo Clinic nephrologist, Walsh grew up in Rochester, where the presence of one of the nation’s foremost health care providers looms large.

Some of her earliest memories of health care, she says, came from visits to her grandfather, who worked as a doctor in Salina, Kansas. She’d follow him on rounds at the hospital where he worked, getting an early behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of health care.

Even so, as she reflects in an interview conducted on the 10th floor of HealthPartners’ Bloomington headquarters, she says she didn’t necessarily think about a career in health care early in life.

“What makes me tick,” she says, “is really wanting to make a difference in people’s lives.”

Those who have worked alongside her say she’s done just that over her three decades working at HealthPartners. Colleagues and peers describe her as an empathetic, strategic leader whose influence and ambitions extend far beyond her work at the local health system.

“I joke with her sometimes that I think there are more than one of her,” says David Mortenson, chairman of the Golden Valley-based Mortenson real estate development and construction firm. He’s worked with Walsh on various Itasca Project civic initiatives over the years. “She doesn’t delegate community leadership; she shows up herself.”

Walsh was born in Kansas City in 1963 and raised in Rochester, Minnesota, the eldest of four children. Her mother worked in real estate.

Walsh earned degrees in business and English at the University of Kansas in 1985, then earned a law degree from the University of Minnesota. She began her legal career in 1988 at the now-shuttered Minneapolis law firm Rider, Bennett, Egan & Arundel. Three years into that job, she was appointed assistant commissioner at the Minnesota Department of Health, a career-defining move. During her tenure, the Minnesota Legislature established MinnesotaCare, the state’s health insurance program for low-income residents.

“When I went to the health department, it was at the peak of a conversation around health care reform,” Walsh recalls. “It unleashed my interest in health policy and my passion for health and well-being. It became clear to me that if you want to transform an industry, you need to be in the industry.”

After her term at the health department ended in 1993, Walsh returned to private practice for a year before then-HealthPartners CEO George Halvorson recruited her to run the health system’s legal department as senior vice president and corporate counsel.

It was a pivotal time for the organization. The HealthPartners name had debuted in 1992, just two years before Walsh came on board, the result of a merger between the Group Health and MedCenters Health Plan systems.

“Andrea is one of the most thoughtful, engaged, and reliable leaders in our community.”

—David Mortenson, chairman, Mortenson

For about five years, Walsh worked as general counsel, then took a pause to do contract work for HealthPartners from 1999 to 2002. “My kids were little, and my husband was working internationally,” she explains. Walsh, who married her college sweetheart, Tim, in 1986, has two sons, a daughter, and two grandchildren.

Even in her brief absence, Walsh remained top of mind for HealthPartners leadership. When Mary Brainerd took over the CEO job in 2002, she brought Walsh back as chief marketing officer, a role she held for 15 years. Her accomplishments extended far beyond what a typical CMO might do: She also played a crucial role in growing HealthPartners’ footprint.

“I was involved in our patient member experience,” Walsh says. “I was involved in our strategic growth and affiliation work. We were growing our care delivery system at the time.”

Indeed, during Walsh’s tenure in the C-suite, HealthPartners affiliated with or merged with several other health systems and health plans locally and in other states. Perhaps most notably, the organization merged with Park Nicollet in 2017, the same year Walsh was promoted to president and CEO of HealthPartners, the second woman to hold the role.

The nonprofit organization has come a long way from a single-hospital operator in St. Paul to the behemoth it is today, with more than 28,000 employees and over 90 clinics and hospitals. It’s now the fifth-largest employer in the state.

That’s a distinction Walsh doesn’t take lightly. She sees herself not just as an executive, but also a community and civic leader. She’s served on several boards over the years and has supported a range of community-oriented initiatives outside the office. Walsh currently serves on the nine-member board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

“I count Andrea among my most valued mentors for her wise counsel, exceptional leadership example, and tireless role in serving the community beyond her day job,” says Glen Gunderson, CEO of the YMCA of the North, where Walsh served as board chair. “Andrea has a keen vision, yet shares power in a way that drives the whole team to bigger ideas and outcomes. Andrea is steady, be it when things are going well or in crisis. She instills confidence.”

The arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic was one such crisis for Walsh. Those who’ve worked with Walsh say she handled it with aplomb, rapidly adopting virtual services where possible and ramping up mental health support options.

For Walsh, partnerships and trust are a key part of success, whether it’s navigating the complexities of American health care or a global pandemic. The pandemic, in particular, reaffirmed for Walsh the importance of trust between patients and providers.

“From our vantage point, we needed to double down on building trust back and seeking to understand why it has been broken,” Walsh says.

Dr. Kedar Mate, the former president and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, which has worked with HealthPartners on several initiatives, says Walsh has shown a clear commitment to the health of the community she has dedicated her career to. That’s not always the case for health executives, some of whom may only lead systems on a temporary or interim basis, he notes.

Walsh has also earned the trust of peers and colleagues in the industry with her candid, straightforward approach, Mate adds.

“It’s not all idealism and aspiration,” Mate says of Walsh’s leadership. “For her, it’s ideals and values coupled with a healthy dose of pragmatism.”

Phil Donaldson, former CFO of windows and doors maker Andersen Corp., first met with Walsh in the 2010s when he was chairing the Lakeview Health System, which had been searching for a larger health system. HealthPartners quickly rose to the top, Donaldson says, in part because of Walsh, who sat in on several meetings with the Stillwater health provider.

“As we went through that evaluation process, Andrea stood out as somebody who had a really strong value system,” says Donaldson.

In his view, Walsh is both strategic and insightful. She’s caring, too. When Donaldson was in the hospital for three straight months last year, Walsh continued to check in. “Not a week went by where I didn’t hear from her,” he recalls.

For Walsh, it’s all part of a longstanding commitment to the community. She still makes a point to visit her many HealthPartners colleagues at clinics and hospitals in person. As she says, “There is no substitute for connection.”

See the other 2025 Minnesota Business Hall of Fame inductees.