Ellen LaPointe
Ellen LaPointe is the Chief Executive Officer of Fenway Health in Boston, Massachusetts. Fenway Health, a comprehensive, federally qualified community health center that advocates for and delivers innovative, equitable, accessible health care, supportive services, and transformative research and education, centering LGBTQIA+ people, BIPOC individuals, and other underserved communities to enable our local, national, and global neighbors to flourish.
Ellen has held numerous leadership roles in the nonprofit and public health sectors over the course of her career, working in social justice, research, LGBTQIA+/HIV activism and advocacy, health policy, and law. Prior to joining Fenway Health, she was President and Chief Executive Officer of Northern California Grantmakers in San Francisco, a nonprofit that brings together Bay Area philanthropy to advance the common good. During her tenure over five years, the organization strengthened its leading role within a member-based philanthropic community that gives over $3.5 billion annually. Ellen is also credited with transforming the culture of the organization, including the establishment of a robust racial equity framework to inform organizational priorities and practices.
Previously, Ellen served as Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at HopeLab, an operating foundation that focuses on technology-based approaches to promoting positive health behavior, and she was Executive Director of Project Inform. She began her career as Coordinator of the Brown University AIDS Program, where she was involved in some of the earliest efforts to ensure access to promising experimental AIDS treatments and life-saving care.
Ellen also served as Director of Clinical Research at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco and practiced law at a large firm, where she represented pro bono clients in cases involving marriage equality, wrongful eviction, end-of-life liberty, and other matters.
A native of Maine, Ellen earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown University and her Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.