Leadership From the Ground Up: Why It Matters Who's at the Helm

There's a question parents rarely think to ask when choosing an ABA provider: Who actually leads this organization?

It's understandable. When you're navigating a new autism diagnosis, drowning in information, and desperately trying to find quality care for your child, you're focused on immediate concerns. Will they take my insurance? How long is the waitlist? Do they understand my child?

But here's the truth: who leads an organization shapes everything about the care your child receives.

And at Ignite, we're proud to say we're different.

We are owned by special education teachers who acquired this organization because they saw families being failed by corporate, profit-driven models. We are led at the highest level by Board Certified Behavior Analysts who've spent their entire careers in the trenches, building programs from the ground up, training therapists, and walking alongside families through some of their hardest days.

Today, we're celebrating two exceptional leaders who embody exactly what that commitment looks like.

Victoria Oliversen: Chief Development Officer

Victoria didn't come to Ignite to climb a corporate ladder. She came because she saw a gap, really between what families needed and what most ABA organizations were providing.

Over her career, Victoria has become known for a few things. Her intensity. Her refusal to settle for "good enough." Her ability to build something from nothing and make it exceptional.

At Ignite, she did exactly that.

Building Something Families Deserve

Victoria built our Milwaukee center from the ground up. Not a generic, clinical warehouse space. A warm, welcoming environment where children feel safe to explore, play, and grow. Where therapy doesn't feel like therapy it feels like connection.

But Victoria saw something else that no one else was addressing: Milwaukee has a large Spanish-speaking population, and nearly all ABA providers were offering services only in English.

So she didn't just build a center. She partnered with heritage language speakers to build the first bilingual ABA center in Milwaukee and has used lots of people from within the community to help build this program. 

For Spanish-speaking families, this isn't a nice perk. It's everything. It's the difference between feeling like an outsider looking in and being able to communicate fully in your first language. It's parent training that actually resonates. It's trust built on real understanding, not lost in translation.

Victoria also pioneered Ignite’s multidisciplinary model, integrating ABA, speech therapy, occupational therapy, and mental health services under one roof. She understands what families experience firsthand: coordinating multiple providers across different locations while balancing work, other children, and the emotional weight of a new diagnosis,is simply not sustainable. Families need care that is collaborative and connected, not fragmented into silos.

In addition, Victoria actively partners with schools and leads BCBAs who are specifically trained to collaborate effectively in educational settings. Her team consults across a wide range of diagnoses, providing thoughtful, flexible behavior support that meets the diverse needs of children in school environments.

A Thought Leader and Advocate

Victoria doesn't just lead at Ignite. She's a thought leader in the broader field of behavior analysis, advocating fiercely for gold-standard care across Wisconsin.

This week, she was named President-Elect of the Wisconsin Association for Behavior Analysts, and will serve as President in the following term. In her own words: "What we do actually matters. We literally impact the trajectories of children's lives every single day. That weight, that privilege, deserves intensity."

That intensity shapes everything Victoria touches. Her commitment to families. Her expectations for clinical quality. Her refusal to let profit margins compromise care.

Now, as Ignite's Chief Development Officer, Victoria will continue expanding access to the kind of care she built in Milwaukee bringing that same rigor, warmth, and advocacy to every community Ignite serves.

Rebecca Prinsen: Chief Clinical Officer

If Victoria is known for building something from nothing, Becca is known for something equally rare: staying power and depth.

Becca has been with Ignite from the very beginning. In an industry notorious for turnover, where therapists burn out under impossible caseloads and BCBAs leave for better conditions, Becca stayed. Not because there weren't other opportunities. But because Ignite's mission aligned with everything she believes about what ABA should be.

A Decade of Leadership, From the Ground Up

Becca brings over a decade of leadership experience in the field. She's helped start multiple service locations and centers from the ground up not just in Wisconsin, but in Minnesota as well.

She knows what it takes to launch a program that works. The staffing. The training. The systems that ensure every child receives individualized care, not cookie-cutter protocols. The supervision that supports therapists instead of stretching them too thin.

More than that, Becca understands families. She's been in the room when parents receive life-changing diagnoses. She's celebrated tiny victories that felt monumental. She's problem-solved through the hard moments when progress plateaus and everyone needs to adjust the plan.

Clinical Excellence That Shapes Everything

As Chief Clinical Officer, Becca oversees the clinical quality of every program Ignite delivers. That means:

• Ensuring every treatment plan is truly individualized, designed around the child's unique strengths, needs, and interests

• Maintaining Ignite's gold-standard supervision ratios (15-20% vs. the 10% industry norm) so therapists receive the mentorship and support they need

• Training and developing the next generation of behavior analysts who will carry forward Ignite's values

• Collaborating across disciplines with speech therapists, occupational therapists, mental health providers, schools, to ensure children receive comprehensive, coordinated care

  
  

Becca doesn't lead from a distance. She's in it ,mentoring BCBAs, troubleshooting complex cases, celebrating progress, and holding the line on what gold-standard care actually looks like.

Her promotion to Chief Clinical Officer isn't just recognition of her tenure. It's recognition that clinical excellence requires leaders who've done the work, who understand the nuances, and who refuse to compromise when it comes to the families they serve.

Why Leadership Structure Matters

Here's what most families don't realize: the ABA industry has changed dramatically in the last decade.

Private equity firms have acquired many of the largest ABA providers, driven by one goal: rapid growth and maximum profit. The pressure to scale quickly often comes at the expense of clinical quality. Therapists carry unsustainable caseloads. Supervision ratios stretch dangerously thin. Programs become standardized because individualization doesn't scale efficiently.

And the people making decisions, the executives at the top often have MBA backgrounds, not clinical ones. They've never worked directly with a child with autism. They've never delivered a therapy session or walked a parent through a meltdown strategy.

Ignite is the opposite of that model.

We are owned by licensed special education teachers who spent years in classrooms supporting children with diverse needs and saw firsthand what happens when systems fail families. They built Ignite because they believed families deserved better. Mission over margins. Relationships over quotas.

And we are led, at the highest clinical and operational levels, by BCBAs who've spent their entire careers in the field. Victoria and Becca aren't disconnected executives. They're clinicians who understand the work intimately because they've done it themselves.

What That Means for Families

When the people leading your child's ABA provider have done the work themselves, it changes everything:

✅ Clinical quality doesn't get compromised for growth. Victoria and Becca won't sacrifice supervision ratios or individualized care to hit revenue targets. They know what quality looks like because they've delivered it.

✅ Therapists are supported, not burned out. Leaders who've been stretched too thin themselves won't do that to their teams. That means lower turnover, more experienced therapists, and better outcomes for kids.

✅ Innovation happens from the ground up. The bilingual center in Milwaukee? The multidisciplinary model? Those didn't come from a corporate playbook. They came from leaders who listened to what families needed and built solutions.

✅ Families receive gold-standard care, not cookie-cutter protocols. When BCBAs lead clinical strategy, individualization isn't a buzzword. It's the foundation.

✅ Advocacy extends beyond Ignite's walls. Victoria's leadership in WisABA means she's fighting for quality standards across Wisconsin, raising the bar for the entire field, not just our organization.

A Culture That Reflects Our Values

Victoria and Becca's promotions aren't just about recognizing individual excellence (though they deserve that recognition). They're about reinforcing the culture that makes Ignite different.

A culture where:

• Relationships, not quotas, drive progress

• Every child's unique personality is celebrated, not suppressed

• Families are partners, not passive recipients

• Therapists are mentored, not exploited

• Evidence-based care is accessible to all, not just those who can afford private pay

• Mission comes before margins, every single time

This is the culture Victoria and Becca have helped build. And now, in their expanded roles, they'll continue shaping Ignite's future to ensure that culture never wavers no matter how many locations we open, how many families we serve, or how much the industry around us changes.

What Comes Next

For families, this news means you can trust that the organization supporting your child is led by people who understand your journey. Who've walked alongside hundreds of families through the same fears, hopes, and challenges you're experiencing. Who refuse to settle for "good enough" when your child deserves gold-standard care.

For our team, this means continued mentorship, professional development, and leadership grounded in real clinical experience. Victoria and Becca lead with integrity, shaped by years in the field working directly with families and clinicians. 

And for Wisconsin, this means thought leadership that's raising the bar for what ABA should be accessible, individualized, affirming, and rooted in genuine care for the children and families we serve.

Conclusion

We're proud of Victoria and Becca. Not just for what they've accomplished, but for how they've done it with intensity, compassion, and an unwavering commitment to doing the work that matters.

If you're looking for ABA therapy in Wisconsin, we hope this helps you understand why leadership matters and why we're honored to have Victoria and Becca at the helm.

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Ignite Child Development Services provides comprehensive ABA therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, and mental health services for children with autism across Milwaukee, Madison, Fox Valley, Minnesota, and Eau Claire. We accept all insurances including Medicaid. Complete our Interest Form at ignitedevelopment.org or call 920-393-8320.