My Resume

Professional Profile

Accomplished executive with over 30 years of healthcare experience. Proven ability to develop and implement strategies that grow margin and membership for business growth and sustainability. Recognized as an expert in business turnarounds, having led four separate business out of negative margin and decline to positive and sustainable profitability. General Manager experience in publicly-traded, not-for-profit and privately-held companies.

Track record of building high-performance teams that create value by applying novel solutions to meaningful problems in healthcare. Servant leader that knows how to GSD – Get Stuff Done – through the creation of a chevrons off team culture, aiming high and grit. Innovation practitioner that challenges status quo to get the business and the team to BETTER-FASTER-LEANER.

Summary of Professional Experiences
1989 through 2019

Healthcare Strategic Advisor
Since September 2019 retirement from Michigan Blue
Providing strategic consultation and advisory services to health plans, healthcare startups and collaterals, as well as venture capital firms investing in the healthcare space.

Full profit and loss responsibility for the company’s individual business segment. Turned around the individual business unit from a segment on the brink of financial failure into one of the most-profitable segments of the company.

• Led business transformation strategy to prepare for epic industry change due to implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
• Successfully navigated the early uncertainty of the Affordable Care Act by utilizing a selective-aggressive pricing strategy to yield a 72% individual Marketplace market share in 2014.
• Since 2014 the individual business segment has averaged a 58% market share on an annual revenue base of $1.4 billion.
• Turned business around from perennial losses to first ever positive margin; sustained year-over-year positive margin under market volatility and significant regulatory headwinds and uncertainty.
• Led epic change within the business over the last five years with a built-on-purpose culture of trust and innovation.
  • New organizational structure and leadership built around serving the customer, a culture of innovation and a retail mindset.
  • Focus on accountability, managing goal achievement and agile team methodology.
  • Built internal advanced analytics, informatics, performance sustainability and reporting teams to drive insights and structured decision-making process.
  • Reduced workforce 28%, primarily attributed to installation of Salesforce cloud computing platform to drive increased automation and faster go-to-market speed.
  • Improved customer satisfaction by 38% across last three years through an ETDBW (easier to do business with platform) that included a streamlined online enrollment platform, modernized bill pay and presentment and plain talk – straight answers customer materials and service responses.
• Met face-to-face with each business segment associate to promote a culture of organizational health and promote the servant leadership tenets of modeling the way, enabling others to act, encouraging their hearts, inspiring a shared vision and respectfully challenging the status quo.
• Across the last decade under my leadership the retail business became BETTER-FASTER-LEANER.
• For details on a decade of retail healthcare growth and success, go to BCBSM Deep Dive page.
  
  

Senior Director, Business Performance and Strategic Initiatives
Individual and Small Group Business
Anthem, Inc., Chicago, Illinois
2006 to 2010
Sales and revenue responsibility for UniCare Life & Health, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Anthem. Responsible for multi-state sales and distribution strategy for individual, small group, senior and specialty products. Member of a five-person Executive Council that turned this $3 billion business around from a $54 million loss to a $19 million profit in 19 months.

• Principle author of Individual-Small Group five-year strategic plan.
• Led product modernization initiative, streamlining the portfolio to attract a balanced risk pool and sustainable margin.
• Developed lifetime value of a customer model resulting in 30% improvement in lead efficiency and a 22% bump in profitable retention of individuals and small groups under 20 lives.
• Generated a 34% lift in broker satisfaction with installation of automated agent appointment platform, online small group quoting tool and more responsive broker support phone unit.
• Co-authored and facilitated multiple internal training workshops and summits including,
  • Sales Tough
  • Managing Goal Achievement
  • Integrity Selling
  • Active Listening and the Art of Asking Great Questions
  • Focus Your Goals and Unleashing the Leader Within You
  • Stop Meeting and Start Bringing It
    
    

Regional Sales Leader, Long Term Care Division
GE Capital Assurance, 2001 to 2004
Director, Long Term Care Division, Indiana Region
Genworth Financial (formerly GE Capital Assurance), 2004 to 2006
Indianapolis, Indiana
Sales and revenue responsibility for the market leader in long term care insurance protection. Took over failing operation and scratch-built a team of professionals that drove over 20,000 new customers and $30 million in earned premiums in the first 24 months of leadership. Advanced the Indiana market revenue ranking from 79 to 14 out of 82 markets nationally. Earned prestigious Diamond Leading Producer Certification four straight years.

Certified Genworth trainer and facilitator delivering multiple programs to over 200 associates. Programs included, Be A Change Agent, Leading When You Are Not In Charge, First Among Equals, Success Is A Choice, Integrity Selling, Tone-Tenor-Pace-Cadence Your Way to Success.


Chief Operating Officer and
Senior Vice President, Health Care & Insurance Practice
Fine Light Strategic Marketing Consultancy, 2000 to 2001
Bloomington, Indiana
Executive leadership, profit & loss and day-to-day operational responsibility for healthcare and insurance consulting practice with billing in excess of $75 million and 120 employees. Served Fortune 500 as well as privately-held clients throughout the country. Managed offices in Bloomington, Louisville, Chicago and New York.


Vice President and General Manager, Senior Markets
Anthem Virginia (formerly Trigon Blue Cross), 1993 to 2000
Roanoke, Virginia
Full P &L responsibility of $300 million division of this Fortune 500 company. Navigated division through change as the organization transformed from a not-for-profit mutual to a for-profit publicly traded stock company. Maintained marketing leading share and sustained double digit margins seven consecutive years.


Vice President & Practice Leader, Health Care Division
and Senior Vice President, Sports Marketing and Promotion
Shelby & Shane Marketing Communications, 1989 to 1993
Cincinnati, Ohio
Started successful health care marketing practice from scratch for Cincinnati’s fourth largest communications and advertising firm. Developed five-year business plan and held leadership responsibility for a subsidiary sports marketing firm. Over two-year time frame signed eight professional athletes to professional service contracts, representing them with several major regional and national retail endorsements.