GRADY HEALTH SYSTEM: Borders will lead foundation

Atlanta City Council President Lisa Borders on Thursday was named president of the Henry W. Grady Health System Foundation.

“I’m delighted to have the opportunity to join the leadership team,” Borders said at an afternoon news conference. “This is a wonderful place that has been here for a very long time and we want it to be here for a much longer time.”

Borders fills a newly created position on the foundation board. The sole purpose of the 15-year-old Grady Foundation is to raise money.

As president, Borders will head the foundation’s development and community outreach efforts. She also will play a major role in a capital and fund-raising campaign that starts in January for the financially beleaguered hospital.

Borders said she will remain in office as Atlanta City Council president until her current term expires at the end of 2009. Borders said she hasn’t decided whether she’ll seek another term.

Borders has been City Council president since 2004 and was considered a front-runner to succeed Mayor Shirley Franklin. But in August, Borders withdrew from the mayor’s race, saying she wanted to spend more time with her aging parents.

Borders runs her own marketing and communications firm and previously worked at Cousins Properties, Atlanta Women’s Specialists and Healthcap Atlanta. She also has a master’s degree in health administration, according to her Web site.

Borders will “wind down” her current company, according to Henry W. Grady III, who chairs the foundation board and who hailed Borders’ appointment.

“We’re real excited. She’s experienced. She has a lot of people in the community who respect her,” Grady said. “Lisa and I have known each other for many years and I’m very comfortable with her.”

Borders takes on the job as the publicly funded health care system continues its struggle to regain its financial footing. Borders noted that nonprofit organizations like the Grady Foundation are struggling to raise money as the economy continues to founder.

Borders said she wants to expand the organization’s fund-raising efforts beyond foundation and corporate donors with deep pockets to smaller donors within the community.

She said the January fund-raising campaign “will be broad-based and very inclusive from top to bottom, left to right, to ensure that everyone understands the great benefit … that is this resource called Grady.”

Borders’ appointment did not draw universal praise.

State Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta) said elected officials and their families should not be employed at Grady.

“It seems to me that it creates a conflict of interest,” Fort said.

Fort is a member of the Grady Coalition, an activist group that often has clashed with hospital management.

Grady did not specify Borders’ salary, but did say that it was “in line” with what top executives of other nonprofits make.

State Rep. Pam Stephenson, a former chairwoman of the Grady authority board who was briefly the hospital’s CEO, was widely accused of a conflict of interest because the Georgia Legislature funds Grady.

Borders said her situation is not the same.

“I am not a state representative, I am a city official,” Borders said. “The city of Atlanta does not fund Grady hospital.”

GRADY FOUNDATION’S NEW PRESIDENT

Lisa Borders

Age: 51

Political experience: Elected to the council in a 2004 special election. Re-elected in 2005.

Professional: Previous positions include serving as senior vice president with Cousins Properties Inc.

Education: Bachelor of arts, Duke University; master’s in health administration, University of Colorado at Denver