Corporate-Strategic Role for Anthem's Boxer

Since assuming the role of senior vice president, e-business, at Anthem (Indianapolis, $12.5 billion in assets) in 2000, Mark Boxer has played a key strategic role, as he did earlier at CIGNA HealthCare (Philadelphia) as senior vice president of IT and e-business. Now Boxer has been called upon to exercise his business and technology competencies on a corporate level as Anthem's first chief strategy and business development officer.

In his new role Boxer will report directly to Anthem CEO/chairman Larry Glasscock, and will be responsible for the company's overall business strategy, enterprise-wide product innovation, brand management, new business development and venture capital investment operations. At a time when IT is playing a crucial role in reshaping the healthcare industry, "it's a wonderful time for us to step back and think about our strategic long-range plan," Boxer says. "It's also a wonderful time to start developing deeper models around various scenarios."

One of Boxer's focus areas will be supporting Anthem's core business by better leveraging information management, which he describes as taking data and improving processes for data capture, and dramatically improving access to accurate information to all of Anthem's stakeholders. "As we shift accountability off to consumers, one of the things that you need to do is give them the tools and information that they need to better manage their health and benefits," he says. That focus will drive success not only in consumer-directed health care initiatives but across all products, Boxer says.

Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio