Sarah Iselin to Lead Massachusetts Blue: Executive Changes

What You Need to Know

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The board of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts has picked Sarah Iselin to be the company’s new president and CEO.

Iselin is set to take over as president and CEO of the Boston-based health insurer in January.

Andrew Dreyfus, the current Massachusetts Blue CEO, plans to retire. He has been working for the company since 2001 and became CEO in 2010.

Massachusetts Blue provides or administers health coverage for 2.9 million people and has $8 billion in annual revenue.

Iselin is now the chief operating officer of Blue Shield of California, a nonprofit, San Francisco-based health insurer with 4.7 million enrollees and $23 billion in annual revenue.

She has been working primarily at Massachusetts Blue, Florida Blue or Blue Shield of California since 2001. She spent three years working as Massachusetts’ health care finance and policy commissioner, from 2007 through 2009.

From 2014 through 2016, she was an executive at UnitedHealth’s Optum unit. For about one year, she was president of the company’s Optum Federal unit, which handles large federal contracts.

She has a bachelor’s degree from the Art Institute of Chicago and a master’s degree in health policy and management from Harvard.