Barbara Ward, CEO
Barbara Ward is a retired Senior Executive whose professional career spans over 40 years working in the health care and health insurance industry, state and federal government and the military. Her background and experience includes executive level leadership positions as an Assistant Hospital Administrator, Vice President of Medical Services, Regional Director of Field Case Management and Director positions in state and federal government. She is also the CEO and owner of Ward and Associates LLC, a newly formed consulting group whose areas of expertise focus on executive leadership, government operations, strategic planning, training assessments and change management.
Her most recent position was Director of the Center for Minority Veterans at the Department of Veterans Affairs. In this role she was responsible for supporting the VA mission and collaborating with numerous strategic internal and external partners, including Congressional representatives, in addressing the vast needs of the veteran population during a major cultural transformation process. She developed successful programs that specifically targeted outreach to over 5 million minority veterans nationwide to increase utilization of VA benefits. Prior to this position, Ms. Ward served as the Deputy Secretary for Women and Minority Veterans for the State of California. She worked with numerous veteran service organizations and stakeholders to service the needs of women veterans and planned an annual women veterans conference. During her career she collaborated with strategic partners on developing mentoring and training programs dedicated to supporting employees seeking to advance to a Senior Executive Service level position within the federal government. She also served as a Veterans Affairs representative in an advisory capacity to the Office of Personnel Management in the review of the SES Executive Core Qualifications by identifying further staff training needs and to facilitate process improvements.
Barbara has consistently demonstrated her passion to assist others throughout her career by serving as an officer on several non-profit boards, participating as a member of various Veteran Service Organizations and as an adjunct faculty member at several universities. Additionally, she has served on numerous panels as a subject matter expert and as a motivational speaker at various conferences. Currently, she teaches a Public Policy Analysis and Evaluation Graduate course for Golden Gate University, San Francisco, California and mentors a MHSA graduate student at Georgetown University.
Barbara obtained her Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, Tallahassee, Florida and her Master Degree in Public Administration, Health Services Management, from Golden Gate University, San Francisco, California. She has received numerous awards throughout her career for her success as a business leader.