Martha Samuelson’s Impact Is Tied to BMC’s Powerful Legacy of Women Leaders

It was 2007 when Martha Samuelson first toured Boston Medical Center. Then-president and CEO Elaine Ullian asked Samuelson, with whom she was on the Citizens Bank board at the time, to visit the campus and see the transformative work she and her teams were doing. Samuelson describes walking through the BMC pharmacy, seeing patients waiting for the medicine they otherwise wouldn’t have access to, and then touring surgical suites and seeing the state-of-the-art equipment.  

“My jaw dropped,” Samuelson, the chairman and a full-time partner of the Analysis Group, tells HealthCity. “When I thought about healthcare, I never thought about differential access to healthcare. It didn’t occur to me that hospitals could be part of social justice.” 

The tour kicked off nearly two decades of her guidance and leadership of the essential academic medical center and health system. Shortly after her initial tour, Samuelson and her husband, Paul, philanthropically supported BMC and in 2008, she joined the BMC Board of Trustees, serving as board chair from 2016 until last year. From 2013 to 2025, she also served on the BMC Health System Board, lending her expertise and leadership to support the growth of the health system. 

This year, hospital is honoring Samuelson at BMC Seasons on May 9, an annual fundraising event that will raise essential operating funds and mark the hospital’s 30th anniversary of the merger of Boston City Hospital and Boston University Medical Center. In addition, the health system is honoring longtime collaborator in sustainability, Takeda, and the late Richard Slifka, former board member who was dedicated to fighting multiple sclerosis in honor of his late mother, Sonya, and championed many BMC initiatives. 

In her time advising and supporting BMC, Samuelson joined a roster of women leaders — including her initial tour guide Ullian — who bolstered not only each other, but the patients and community members the health system serves, as well as the women healthcare leaders who have followed them. 

Women in healthcare leadership 

Around 80% of healthcare decisions are made by women, who often spearhead the decision-making across their families, with their spouses, children, and even aging parents. And while women also make up the majority of the healthcare workforce, they still lag in executive and C-suite roles, particularly CEOs. So, Ullian, who served as president and CEO of BMC from 1996 to 2010, was unique, a pioneer in the space. Soon into Samuelson’s involvement with BMC, she was directly involved in hiring Ullian’s successor, a leader who ended up continuing that legacy of women in leadership at the academic medical center. 

Kate Walsh, who recently retired as the Massachusetts Secretary of Health and Human Services, stepped into the role of president and CEO in 2010. Walsh’s hiring was the beginning of a deep relationship built on mutual respect, admiration, and values. 

“I am so grateful to Martha for her leadership, generosity, and wisdom during my time at BMC and so happy for our enduring friendship!” Walsh wrote in a note to celebrate Samuelson at Seasons. “Martha, you are a great combination of smarts, practicality and kindness — tailor made for BMC! Thank you….for everything!!”   

There’s a foundation of understanding between the two women, women who held powerful leadership positions across industries when leaders were commonly men. Samuelson’s recently stepped down from her role as CEO of Analysis Group, an international economics consulting firm, but in her tenure, she built the team to a point where 40% of the partners were women.  

“Kate and I are unbelievably close personal friends and continue to be. I think there just aren’t that many of us.” she says. “There aren’t that many of us at our age. The world has moved forward, and that’s a great thing, but I think we grew close because of that from the get-go.”  

The critically important work of nursing

It was because of another woman leader in healthcare that Samuelson committed to philanthropically supporting nursing at BMC. BMC’s Nancy Gaden, DNP, RN, FAAN, joined the organization in 2014 and is now senior vice president and Chief Nursing Officer. She and Samuelson immediately hit it off. 

“I couldn’t be more impressed by what she does,” Samuelson says about Gaden. “Through Nancy, I’ve had more of a window into how impressive and how critically important this group of nurses is.” 

In 2023, Samuelson established the endowed Nursing Research and Clinical Innovation Fund. Her gift supports clinical innovation and research in the Department of Nursing.

“Martha cares deeply about people, and it shines through in her leadership. The nursing department is deeply grateful for her unwavering commitment to patient care.”   

NANCY GADEN, svp, chief nursing officer, bmc Health system, on martha samuleson

“Martha cares deeply about people, and it shines through in her leadership,” Gaden wrote about Samuelson. “The nursing department is deeply grateful for her unwavering commitment to patient care.” 

From board member to trusted advisor

What Samuelson says she appreciates most about her time at BMC was that she was trusted as a partner for her own achievements, expertise, and perspective. Ullian, Walsh, and upon Walsh’s move in 2022, Alastair Bell, MD—who now serves as president and CEO of BMC Health System—all respected Samuelson’s storied career and looked to her as an advisor. 

“I wasn’t just asked to sort of support the organization financially. I was asked to be involved in ways that drew on my strengths, and that mattered to me enormously,” Samuelson says. “I almost immediately became involved in managerial aspects, helping to select Kate, and helping to address the challenges that came along for the institution. For me, I wanted to be called on in ways beyond financial support—that part was very important.” 

As Walsh and Samuelson’s relationship grew, so did their respect for each other’s perspective. They became each other’s advisors, confidants, and ultimately, close friends through the next decade-plus at BMC and still today. Samuelson tells stories of some of the hardest times, when they would support each other with a shoulder to cry on or pieces of advice to help each other push forward.

COVID-19 pandemic and Samuelson’s calling

Among those hard times, perhaps no challenge was more immense than the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit about a decade into their partnership at BMC. 

“Supporting Kate and Alastair through COVID—I really felt like I was put on the planet for a reason, and that was part of the reason,” says Samuelson. 

As an essential hospital serving a patient base who have largely been underserved by healthcare, BMC wasn’t just facing an unprecedented global pandemic, it was also facing a growing set of health disparities for its vulnerable patients and communities. Samuelson describes helping the hospital leadership navigate life-or-death decisions for which there was no blueprint. How would they operate if care was constrained? What would they do if they didn’t have enough ventilators to meet their need? How would care be allocated? And, for BMC in particular, how could they ensure that the most underserved communities had access to care and, when they became available, vaccines?  

“Supporting Kate [Walsh] and Alastair [Bell] through COVID—I really felt like I was put on the planet for a reason, and that was part of the reason.”

Martha Samuelson, chairman and a full-time partner of Analysis Group, former chair of bmc board of trustees

“We moved immediately. We had to radically change how the board participated with the organization to support people through incredibly challenging times,” says Samuelson. “I felt like I could help with that. I felt like my judgement was good, my sense of fairness is really central to me, and those were called on like never before during COVID.” 

Gaden agrees, writing, “[Martha’s] passion, presence and leadership during COVID inspired us all.” 

When vaccines became available and it was clear that Black and Brown Americans weren’t getting the same access to this potentially life-saving intervention, BMC under Walsh stood up several vaccination sites in crucial, underserved neighborhoods through partnerships with trusted community leaders, including Mattapan, Roxbury, and Dorchester. The effort helped close gaps in access and vaccination rates. 

“I think we came through feeling very proud of how we did it. That was incredibly important,” says Samuelson. 

A foundation for what comes next for women in healthcare

Samuelson has been reflecting a lot lately. What’s important to her is becoming even clearer as she looks back. 

“The things that are important to me are building robust institutions that are sustainable and durable for the long term and making good, sometimes tough, business decisions that are consistent with that,” she says. But she doesn’t like to think about her own legacy. 

“If you start to think about yourself too much, you end up getting transactional and making decisions that seem expedient in the short term, but are actually are dangerous for the institution,” she reflects. 

Women are still facing a large gap in executive and C-suite roles in healthcare, but new generations are showing promise toward closing those gaps. And while Samuelson doesn’t like to focus on her own legacy, the foundational role of people like her, Walsh, Ullian, Gaden, and many others who stand in leadership positions is lighting the way for the women that come after them. Their impact on the last 30 years of BMC is clear for those following in their footsteps.