Six months after the head of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation announced that she was leaving the nonprofit to be an executive at the group’s namesake insurer, another of the insurer’s leaders has been named to take her place.
Audrey Shelto of Newton will be the foundation’s next president. She has worked for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts since 2007, most recently as a senior vice president and chief executive of a program to manage care for adults with disabilities.
Shelto replaces Sarah Iselin who in December became chief strategy officer at Blue Cross, the state’s largest insurer which helped to establish the foundation in 2001 with a $55 million endowment.
Shelto has some experience with the foundation. She served as a consultant when the foundation was established in 2001 and was interim president in 2005, when the organization was creating its Roadmap to Coverage initiative, an impetus for the statewide debate and drafting of the 2006 law that expanded health coverage in Massachusetts.
“Not only does Audrey have three decades of leadership experience in government, health care and human services, but she also brings a great familiarity with the foundation’s mission to expand access to care for vulnerable and low income people in the Commonwealth,” Philip W. Johnston, the chairman of the foundation’s board, said in a press release.
Shelto previously has worked as a health care consultant, an associate commissioner at the state Department of Mental Health, and chief operating officer at Neighborhood Health Plan. She was executive director of a mayoral commission that helped to establish the Boston Public Health Commission and merge two hospitals to create Boston Medical Center.
Shelto has a master’s degree in management from the Brandeis University Heller Graduate School for Advanced Studies in Social Welfare.
Date: May 10, 2013