Blue Shield of California Hires a Public Affairs Executive: Personnel Moves

Anthem named a Medicaid plan chief. Softheon added a chief information officer and a CFO.

Blue Shield of California has hired Sarah Iselin to be executive vice president of strategy and public affairs.

Iselin is filling a newly created position at the Oakland, California-based company.

Iselin previously was executive vice president of government programs and diversified business at Guidewell, the Jacksonville, Florida-based parent of Florida Blue.

She also has worked as the director of health care finance at the Massachusetts Hospital Association, an executive at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, and the commissioner in charge of health care finance and policy for Massachusetts.

Shortly before moving to Florida Blue, Iselin was president of UnitedHealth Group’s Optum federal arm.

Iselin has a bachelor’s degree in art history from the Art Institute of Chicago and a master’s degree in health policy from Harvard.

Blue Shield of California has also promoted:

Anthem

Anthem has named Ted Osthelder president of the Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Medicaid Health Plan in Wisconsin.

Osthelder will succeed Anthony Woods, who is now president of Anthem’s Amerigroup Washington unit.

Osthelder previously worked for Anthem in Wisconsin as a senior government relations director.

Osthelder started out working as a campaign manager.

For four years, he was the external relations director for former Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle.

He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Softheon

Softheon, a Stony Brook, New York-based company that runs health insurance exchange systems, has hired Robert Mosquera to be chief information officer, and Howard Nolan has joined to be CFO.

Mosquera previously was senior director of information technology for Mount Sinai Hospital System.

He has a bachelor’s degree from Thomas Edison State College.

Nolan has been working for Softheon as a consultant. Earlier, he was chief operating officer at BNB Bank in Hauppauge, New York.

Nolan has a bachelor’s degree from Dowling College. He holds the Certified Public Accountant and Certified Fraud Examiner professional designations.

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