How would your coworkers describe you?
Stickler for details, rule follower, fountain of historical FCG knowledge, numbers person, magical with spreadsheets.
What is your favorite hobby or pastime?
Hiking, camping, travel – basically anything outdoors.
Experience
Merel Abruzzese was one of the original founders of Faulkner Consulting Group in 2008, and is now the CFO and Managing Director of the firm. With a strong background in financial analysis and project management, Merel is responsible for engagement management of multi-year, large scale contracts at both HealthSource RI (HSRI) and RI Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS). She provides financial tracking, projections, and budget updates to senior leadership across dozens of projects leveraging several different state and federal funding sources.
At HSRI, Merel has managed a team of over 30 consultants across marketing, operations, and policy departments, supporting role definition and handling ongoing issues. Her analytical work at HSRI includes modeling projected costs for auto-enrollment initiatives, developing cost allocation methodologies to support enhanced federal matching funds, and creation of performance and workload monitoring tools for the Tier 2 Escalation Team. For EOHHS, Merel assessed the financial viability of nursing facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic and developed programs to distribute federal relief funding, improve infection control, and transform business models. She developed a multi-year financial model to project Medicaid program enrollment and costs, supporting the creation of a global budget and federal negotiations for a Medicaid 1115 waiver.
Prior to joining FCG, Merel worked in consulting, business development, and product management roles at companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500 clients across various industries. Merel holds a Master of Business Administration from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts in Applied Math, cum laude, with an emphasis in Economics from Harvard College.