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Ruth Donahue

Consultant, Chicago
312.984.8586
rdonahue@segalco.com

Expertise

Ms. Donahue provides employee benefits consulting for clients through The Segal Company's Chicago office. Her comprehensive experience, including thirteen years of consulting work, eleven years as a Human Resource practitioner, and over thirty years as a clinician and coach allows for broad expertise and specialty focus on behavioral health, wellness, and behavior change strategies.

Ms. Donahue is successful in identifying human resource and benefit challenges, and also offers the unique knowledge and experience needed to implement effective solutions. She plays an integral role on Segal's National Health Team addressing behavioral health issues. Ms. Donahue's clients include:

• Large university to competitively bid their benefit program, develop an effective contribution strategy for active and retired employees, and communicate the changes to their constituents.
• Coalition of multiemployer health and welfare funds to contract with an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) provider to choose a provider that met all of the stakeholders' needs at a cost-effective, group-purchasing price.
• Urban school district to benchmark their employee benefits against comparator institutions, providing testimony before the governing school board.
• Large organization to develop a cost-efficient strategy for carving their behavioral health benefit out of the medical plan, including vendor choice, contract negotiation, and implementation of a customized program that incorporated measurable performance guarantees.

Professional Background

Prior to joining The Segal Company, Ms. Donahue worked as a client services consultant for two major, international behavioral health providers. In these positions, she gained experience in developing strategies to effectively integrate Employee Assistance Program, managed behavioral health care, work/life, and wellness services into employer sponsored benefit plans.

Throughout the course of her career, Ms. Donahue has been responsible for human resources administration, including employee benefits and labor/management relations in the public sector. As a Clinical Social Worker, Ms. Donahue's experience has included direct clinical practice, management, training, and coaching.

Education/Professional Designations

Ms. Donahue received a MSW degree from Indiana University, a BA degree from University of Illinois, and she was awarded a Certificate in Administrative Foundations in Public Service from DePaul University. She has participated in post-graduate training at the Adler School of Professional Psychology in Chicago, the Chicago Center for Family Health, The Coaches Training Institute, and the Mediation Training and Consultation Institute.

Ms. Donahue is a licensed producer of life, health and accident insurance in the States of Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Oklahoma.

Published Works/Speeches

Ms. Donahue has been interviewed by national and regional publications and quoted on topics related to behavioral health care. She has been a guest-lecturer at local community colleges and presented at numerous professional and industry conferences.