Leading From The Heart
Photo by Lawrence Tabudlo
When Ellie Ventula-Honda got a text from Shelley Wilson back in May, she didn’t sense anything out of the ordinary. The two are friends who travel in the same professional circles, so it’s not unusual for them to chat. Ventula-Honda is president and CEO of Elite Partnerships, where she specializes in fundraising and revenue development. Wilson is the founder of Wilson Care Group.
“I thought she was asking me to help her do some work at Wilson Care Group because she was on the mainland taking care of her mom and her sister,” Ventula-Honda says. “I was like, ʻOK, sure!’”
But it turns out Wilson had bigger plans: She was looking for a successor. Would Ventula-Honda be interested?
“Excuse me?” Ventula-Honda remembers thinking. “Pardon?”
Their texts gave way to phone calls, and as the conversation grew more serious, it became clear Ventula-Honda would indeed be the right fit to lead the company Wilson founded 30 years ago to provide in-home care services.
“When I thought of a successor and someone that I trust implicitly, and someone who has the heart and the passion for Wilson Care Group and our mission and the things that we do, Ellie hands down was the right person,” Wilson says. “She was made for this role.”
It’s a responsibility Ventula-Honda — who officially became the new president and CEO of Wilson Care Group in July — takes seriously.
“In its 30 years of existence, Shelley has worked hard in building Wilson Care Group,” she says. “I want to continue carrying her legacy. I have big shoes to fill, but I will do my utmost to make her proud.”
Prior to starting Elite Partnerships, Ventula-Honda worked for the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society and the American Diabetes Association.
“Over the years, in my position as a fund development person, I was always in healthcare,” she says. “My sister would say it’s just different parts of the body. When someone would ask her, ‘How is your baby sister doing?’ she would go, ‘She’s working for another part of the body.’”
One of her proudest achievements is the work she did at St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawai‘i.
“I helped to create the Kūpuna Village at St. Francis,” she says. “They brought me on to fundraise for that entire village.”
She credits Leslie Lam, who was vice president of St. Francis at the time, for believing in her and bringing her on board, but says the entire St. Francis team worked together to make the Kūpuna Village a reality.
Event planning is a big part of fundraising and it’s something Ventula-Honda enjoys — she’s got a striking sense of style and an eye for making a lasting impression — but underneath the glamor is someone who cares about fostering relationships.
At St. Francis, she made it a point to thank donors and ask what had compelled them to give. One donor shared that when she was a child, her mother was taken to the hospital by ambulance. The ambulance driver let her mother look out the window to watch her wave goodbye. That was the last time she saw her mother alive. The donor never forgot this act of kindness and vowed to pay it forward when she grew up.
To Ventula-Honda, this is a reminder that small gestures can be as impactful as grand galas.
“People remember how you make them feel,” she says.
The youngest of eight children, Ventula-Honda has helped care for her own parents and her older siblings when they were ill. Then, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, her husband took care of her.
“So in my heart, when Shelley offered me this wonderful opportunity, I was ready to help care for others,” she says.
Her personal background in giving and receiving care mirrors Wilson’s.
“I’m not the smartest person in the world, not the most strategic person,” Wilson says of starting her business. “I’m just a person that went through an experience and felt really inspired.”
That experience was a life-altering car accident. It happened when she was just 18, still living with her family in Iowa, but on the cusp of an exciting future with the Iowa National Guard.
“My left arm was going to be amputated,” she recalls. “My right knee was immobile. My left foot was crushed. My face was unrecognizable.”
But the worst part was the mental and emotional toll. This was not the future she’d imagined for herself, and she took her frustration out on her family.
“When I got home (from the hospital), I still had glass in my hair from the windshield,” she recalls. “My sister picked every single piece out of my hair, and I was grumpy and saying mean things to her the entire time.”
Still, being homebound gave her time to think about the kind of help that might have made things easier for herself and her family.
Those thoughts would eventually manifest into something more concrete when Wilson moved to Hawai‘i in the 1990s. Some military friends had invited her to finish her recovery here, and she seized the opportunity.
She started what would become Wilson Care Group by handing out business cards at condominiums in Waikīkī, offering to run errands and do light housework.
“I never felt defeated,” she recalls of launching her business. “Because I could still move, I could still do things.”
From these humble beginnings, she built a company that would become a lifeline to thousands of local families in need of in-home care and senior living options. At the same time, as part of the Hawai‘i National Guard, she fulfilled her goal of becoming a combat medic.
Today, Wilson Care Group offers everything from bathing and meal service to 24-hour home care and skilled nursing from licensed medical professionals. For kūpuna who can no longer live at home, Wilson Care Group has a 22-bed senior living facility in Kailua. The company is also an authorized Veterans Affairs provider.
Wilson says the care home, which opened in 2013, was a natural extension of the in-home services. Some clients could no longer live independently, so she found another way to provide what they needed.
Ventula-Honda is quick to point out that in addition to in-home care and Wilson Senior Living in Kailua, there’s also Be Well Hawai‘i, a subsidiary Wilson launched during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide healthcare workers with personal protective equipment like gloves and face masks. It is still going strong today.
She hopes to build more brand recognition for Be Well Hawai‘i and wants to explore ways to have keiki from nearby schools visit kūpuna at Wilson Senior Living. She saw firsthand the positive impact of such interactions at St. Francis Kūpuna Village. For now, she’s focused on settling into her new role and winding things down at Elite Partnerships.
Wilson, for her part, is still caring for people. She stepped down from her company to support her mother and sister, who were both diagnosed with breast cancer. They looked after her following her car accident and it’s important to her to now dedicate her time to them. She was able to do this because she found the right caregiver for Wilson Care Group.
