GreenShield, a non-profit insurance and health care provider, earlier this year completed a transformation of its corporate and governance structures. It says this transformation will strengthen the company’s ability to operate as an integrated payer-provider.
In an email exchange with the Insurance Portal, Andrew MacDonald, senior vice president of corporate development at GreenShield says the move to bring all of GreenShield’s operating businesses together under a single non-profit parent company, was needed to create clear strategic alignment across the organization. “Fully realizing the potential of this (payer-provider) model requires deep organizational alignment,” he says.
Where the company previously operated as a group of separate entities without a centralized board overseeing the full organization, today the company’s non-profit parent, GreenShield Association (GSA) wholly owns all of GreenShield’s operating businesses through GreenShield holdings (GSH). Excess earnings from the holding company and subsidiaries will be directed to GSA for reinvestment in the organization’s social impact initiatives.
Enhances collaboration
“Having all of GreenShield’s operating businesses – GreenShield Insurance, GreenShield Administration and GreenShield Health – under a single non-profit parent enhances collaboration, accountability and impact across all areas of the organization,” the company stated in a press release about the reorganization.
Going forward, the company will also operate with two boards of directors, each with a distinct mandate: GSH’s board of directors will oversee all of GreenShield’s commercial businesses while the GreenShield Canada Insurance board of directors will provide independent oversight of GreenShield Canada Insurance.
“Our goal is to disrupt traditional models in health care, insurance and social impact,” MacDonald says. “GreenShield has always been, and will always be a social enterprise,” he adds. “We are an organization that uses commercial strategies to advance a social mission. Our new structure doesn’t change that identity. It reinforces the belief that business performance and social impact are not opposing forces – they can and should strengthen one another.”
