Teri Fontenot
Teri Fontenot, FACHE, is CEO Emeritus of Woman’s Hospital. She was the President and CEO for 23 years until her retirement in March 2019. Teri began her career at Woman’s in 1992 as chief financial officer and became CEO in 1996. Under her leadership, Woman’s became the largest birthing hospital (8200 births annually) and neonatal intensive care unit (84 beds) in Louisiana, and is the only independent, nonprofit women’s hospital in the country.
Teri led tremendous growth and development at Woman’s, including a $340 million replacement campus that opened in August 2012 with increased capacity for service expansion. Recent notable achievements include a strategic partnership with Mary Bird Perkins-Our Lady of the Lake Cancer Center to open the nation’s only specialized breast and gynecologic cancer facility in one location. The Birth Center of Baton Rouge, a midwife model of care facility, opened on Woman’s campus in late 2018 to provide more comprehensive obstetrical service.
Woman’s is a Magnet and Baby Friendly designated health system, and consistently performs favorably to national benchmarks on clinical outcomes, patient safety, financial performance, patient experience, culture, and workforce engagement. In 2018, Woman’s ranked in the 99th percentile for physician engagement, 94% for employee engagement, and the 95th percentile for patient experience. It is the only recipient of Modern HealthcareBest Places to Work award every year the award has been given, ranking 6th in 2018. Woman’s has a dominant market share in all women’s health service lines ranging from 75% to 95% in its primary and secondary service areas. As a tertiary health system, Woman’s provides high risk maternal and infant services statewide as well as access to breast cancer care. It also provides medical and residency training to students from Tulane, LSU, and several allied health colleges in Louisiana.
Teri’s leadership service to the healthcare field includes numerous state and national healthcare boards. She currently serves on the American College of Healthcare Executives Board of Governors. She has had numerous appointments the past twenty years with the American Hospital Association, including chair of the board of trustees in 2012. Teri is the only Louisianian to serve in that role in the AHA’s 120 year existence, and was the fifth female chair.
Other healthcare service includes a six-year term on the Advisory Committee on Research on Women’s Health for the National Institutes of Health, chair of the board of the Louisiana Hospital Association, and the LHA Professional and General Liability Insurance Funds board, which she chaired for over a decade.
She is currently an independent director on the boards of Amerisafe (AMSF) and LHC Group (LHCG)–both are NASDAQ companies; the Baton Rouge Water Company; and the advisory boards for IBERIABANK, CCs Coffee Shops, and Horizon Wealth Management.
She is also a consultant for Pivot Strategic Advisors and Epsilon venture fund. Other notable past governance service includes 12 years on the board of directors of the Sixth District Federal Reserve Bank and as the Audit Committee chair, and the New Orleans Federal Reserve Bank branch board. She was a nonexecutive director on the board of Landauer, a public company, until its sale in 2017.
Teri was included in Modern Healthcare magazine’s Top 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare in 2011 and 2012, and named to Modern Healthcare magazine’s inaugural list of the Top 25 Women in Healthcare in 2005. She was honored as Businessperson of the Year in 2013 by theBaton Rouge Business Report, received the inaugural Becker’s Hospital Review Healthcare Leadership award in 2013 and again in 2016, and was a 2011 inductee of the Louisiana State University E. J. Ourso College of Business Hall of Distinction.
Teri is a CPA (inactive), holds an MBA, is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives. She is married with two children, four grandchildren, and a pug.