Title
Chief Human Resources Officer (Retired)
Company
Aetna Inc.
Bio
Elease Wright built a successful 30-year career at Aetna Inc., a leading diversified health care benefits company, where she served as its Chief Human Resources Officer until her retirement in 2012.In her more than 25 years of human resources experience, she has held HR leadership positions in financial services, business reengineering, education, employee relations and leadership development.
In her career with Aetna, Ms. Wright helped shape what is one of the nation’s most heralded business transformations.She was instrumental in attracting and retaining key talent during Aetna’s difficult multi-year transition from broad-based insurer to health care leader.Her focus on both business success and attention to values and employee engagement yielded a highly effective senior team that took Aetna from a period of financial decline to one of significant, continuing success.More recently, Ms. Wright served as a consultant for RW2 Enterprises, a consulting firm that advises executives on leadership and high performance cultures.
In 2014, Governor Dannel Malloy appointed Ms. Wright to the Connecticut Board of Regents for Higher Education, which oversees seventeen statewide colleges and universities and where she serves as a member of the Board’s Executive Committee, Human Resource and Education Committee, and Chairs the Audit Committee. She was reappointed to the Board of Regents by Governor Ned Lamont in 2019. Ms. Wright also is the Vice Chair of the National Academy of Human Resources board; and serves on the boards of Hartford Hospital and the Hartford Stage, an internationally recognized theater company. In the past she has served on the boards of Cornell University’s Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies (CAHRS), the Human Resource Policy Association (HRPA) and the Greater Hartford Region YWCA where she served as Board President.