Gretchen Ellis

For more than three decades, Dr. Ellis has served as Chief Financial Officer of The Prime Family of Companies, a diversified group of operating companies and investment entities. She oversees finance, accounting, human resources, legal affairs, and strategic planning. She has also helped lead financing, acquisition, and operational initiatives involving billions of dollars in capital, including the evaluation and oversight of private equity and operating company investments.

Dr. Ellis has been deeply involved in nonprofit leadership and public service. She served on the boards of both SafePlace and Austin Children's Shelter and helped lead the collaboration that brought the two organizations together, serving as founding board chair of the alliance that first united them and that became the SAFE Alliance. She later served as Co-Interim Chief Executive Officer of SAFE Alliance and is currently Special Advisor to the CEO, and she chairs the board of SAFE's affordable housing subsidiary. Over more than two decades of service, she has held numerous leadership roles spanning finance, strategic planning, organizational growth, affordable housing development, and community partnerships.

Dr. Ellis earned her PhD in Public Policy from the University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs, where her research focused on affordable housing policy, housing opportunity, and the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program. Her dissertation examined whether court-mandated changes to Texas's affordable housing allocation system altered where affordable housing was built, and whether those changes improved access to opportunity for low-income families. Drawing on data from nearly every LIHTC property developed in Texas and more than 750,000 tenant records, the research shows that public policy can meaningfully shape housing outcomes, though the benefits are not shared equally across communities.

Her interests include affordable housing policy, nonprofit and public-sector leadership, organizational finance, and the practical application of research to improve community outcomes.