Coming into 2025, health insurance industry leadership encountered overwhelming uncertainty. Despite this, 2025 proved to be a year of executive mobility.
Here are 19 payer CEO moves from this past year:
1. Krista Nelson will lead Optum Health as CEO.
2. Former Humana CFO Susan Diamond will serve as Wellvana’s CEO.
3. BCBS Kansas City CEO Erin Stucky is retiring, with Jenny Housley taking over.
4. Capital District Physicians’ Health Plan CEO Brian O’Grady will retire, with Barry Thornton II succeeding.
5. Beth-Ann Roberts will join Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont as CEO. Don George shared plans to retire.
6. Vivek Garg, MD, is joining the National Committee for Quality Assurance as CEO after serving as chief medical officer at Humana’s CenterWell Senior Primary Care.
7. UnitedHealthcare of Texas CEO Scott Flannery is retiring.
8. Blue Shield of California named Mike Stuart as its permanent CEO. After two months, Lois Quam stepped down from her role as CEO at Blue Shield of California. Amid a restructuring early in the year, Ms. Quam became CEO of the health plan, and former CEO Paul Markovich became president of new parent company Ascendiun.
9. Independence Health Group named Kelly Munson as its next CEO. Gregory Deavens shared plans to retire at the end of the year.
10. Rushil Desai, CEO of Aetna Better Health of Illinois, stepped down.
11. Blue Shield of California sister company Stellarus named Vanessa Colella as CEO.
12. UnitedHealthcare’s specialty benefits CEO, Tom Wiffler, left.
13. UnitedHealthcare determined four division CEOs: Bobby Hunter, Mike Cotton, Dennis O’Brien and Kent Monical.
14. Optum West CEO Derek Chao, MD, joined Curana Health as president and CMO.
15. Ochsner Health Plan CEO Jeffrey Fernandez moved to CVS Health’s Aetna as senior vice president of Medicare.
16. Point32Health, parent company of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Tufts Health Plan, named Patrick Gilligan CEO.
17. GuideWell, the parent company of Florida Blue, named Brian Pieninck from CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield as its CEO. Pat Geraghty announced his retirement for the end of 2025.
18. Banner|Aetna named Victoria Coley as CEO.
19. UnitedHealth Group appointed Tim Noel as UnitedHealthcare CEO.
