Ellen Masterson

Current public company boards: Insperity, Westwood Holdings Group

Executive Experience: Ellen currently serves as an independent director of Insperity, Inc. (ticker: NSP) a provider of HR and business solutions designed to help improve business performance, where she serves as audit committee chair; Westwood Holdings Group, Inc, (ticker: WHG) an investment management firm with approx. $15 billion in assets under management and its affiliate Westwood Trust, a Texas state-chartered trust company. She chairs the audit committees of both WHG and Westwood Trust, and serves on both the nom/gov and compensation committees of WHG. She also serves on the Board of Governors of The Doctors Company (TDC), the largest doctor-owned medical malpractice insurer in the United States, where she sits on both the audit and finance committees and on the board of TDC’s subsidiary, Medical Advantage Group.

Ellen is a retired partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) with a career spanning 35 years in public accounting and the financial services industry. She was an assurance partner with PwC and its predecessor firm, responsible for the audits of SEC registrants in financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, and retailing, as well as institutions of higher education, and not-for-profits. As a senior partner with PwC, Ellen held both US and global leadership positions. On the global stage, she worked with leaders throughout the PwC network of firms to set and achieve quality and consistency standards in the deployment of the Firm’s global audit methodologies and partner and staff training. In addition, she led the Firm’s ValueReporting™ initiative to improve corporate reporting in the marketplace, including contributing significantly to two books on the topic. Based on her knowledge of the PwC network and experience with global leadership, she performed quality control assessments of member firms’ efforts to achieve quality standards, a role she continued for two years after her retirement. 

From 1997-1999, Ellen served as senior vice president and chief financial officer of American General Corp, prior to its acquisition by AIG. At that time, American General was listed on the New York Stock Exchange and ranked among the largest diversified financial services companies in the US. As CFO, Ellen was a member of the company’s executive committee which had responsibility for establishing corporate policy and strategy.  

The combination of Ellen’s experience with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and American General Corporation enables her to quickly understand and assess business strategy, determine the risks and challenges to the achievement of management’s goals, monitor progress against those goals, and create transparency regarding financial results. In addition, she is a qualified financial expert as defined by the SEC.

Additional information: Ellen received a BA degree in mathematics from Emory University and an MBA from Southern Methodist University. She is a CPA licensed in the states of Texas and New York.