Outstanding Directors 2024: Morris Goodwin

For board service to HealthPartners (2017–present)

By Dan Niepow

| August 30, 2024

For Morris Goodwin, board service is a chance to “make sure that unheard voices are being heard.”

“That’s my driving passion,” he says.

Over decades in board leadership, the financial services vet has made it a priority to advocate on behalf of underrepresented populations. Those who have served alongside Goodwin say he’s a thorough, thoughtful leader who delivers real results to organizations large and small.

“There’s so much wisdom and heart that goes into Morris’ board service,” says Amy Langer, founder of HR firm Salo, who has served on the HealthPartners board with Goodwin since 2017. “He approaches everything [with] an incredibly curious mind.”

But Goodwin also is meticulous, Langer notes. “Morris misses nothing,” she says. “You want him on your finance and audit committee.”

Goodwin knew from early on that he wanted to work in business. Growing up in a “very entrepreneurial” community in south Minneapolis, he found plenty of examples of strong business leaders in his own backyard.

After earning a bachelor of arts in political economy from Williams College in Massachusetts, Goodwin landed a job on Wall Street as an analyst for Chase Manhattan Bank. He worked there for a few years and soon felt a “hankering to learn more about the academic side of financial modeling,” which drove him to pursue an MBA at Stanford University in the late 1970s. It was a dynamic time, he says, as Silicon Valley was just beginning to take shape.

“A whole lot of consulting firms and a whole lot of investment banks were coming out to Stanford to recruit graduates,” Goodwin recalls.

He ended up going with the latter option, taking a VP job in New York City with Morgan Stanley after business school.

His time there was similarly dynamic; his role covered corporate finance, business development, mergers and acquisitions, derivative trading, and more.

But another job opportunity offered him a chance to come back to Minneapolis, his home base. In the late ’80s, he took a job as VP and corporate treasurer for American Express Financial Advisors, now known as Ameriprise Financial. It was there that Goodwin got his first taste of board service.

The company required senior executives to serve on nonprofit boards, so Goodwin picked the Minnesota Orchestra and Minnesota Public Radio to start. Those experiences were invaluable; as he puts it, they provided a chance to “reinvest in the community that created all these opportunities for me.”

Meanwhile, in his professional life, Goodwin continued to climb the ranks at notable organizations around town, including Deluxe Corp. and American Public Media Group. He even launched and sold a health insurance company known as Vivius Inc.

But after his first taste of board leadership, Goodwin felt driven to continue. He went on to serve on the boards of the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota, the Wilder Foundation, the F.R. Bigelow Foundation, Twin Cities Rise, and more.

“I had always watched strategy as an insider, as a single officer inside a corporation,” he says.

“Boards of directors had to take that point of view from an external perspective.”

Though he’s plenty busy with his day job as managing director and enterprise financial advisor for startup advocacy group Forge North, Goodwin remains an in-demand board leader for organizations around the Twin Cities.

“He is ever-mindful of the disparities faced by so many populations and reminds us of the obligation to bridge them,” says Sondra Samuels, president and CEO of the Northside Achievement Zone, who has served on the HealthPartners board with Goodwin since 2019. “He is a fierce advocate for BIPOC communities and often brings new information to the table to help us understand the needs and urgencies.”

Fellow board member Langer notes that Goodwin can ask questions “in a way that does not put people on defense.”

“I think it just allows the rest of the board to maybe slow down a little bit and think,” she adds.

When Goodwin joins any board, one of the first things he asks himself is, “Whose voice is not at the table?” Though he came from a working-class background, he knows what it’s like to be “at the top of the food chain,” he says.

He also knows “what it’s like not to have those opportunities.”