Career growth has been on Ryan Henderson’s radar since he graduated from college in 2008 and took his first job in accounting with a trucking company.
Two years after that, he found his way to BlueCross as a billing clerk in Commercial Operations before advancing to account specialist for self-funded groups, and then to business analyst. He moved to the Product Strategy team in 2018 where he works on BlueCross’ Health Savings Accounts offerings, among other things.
“Being an associate product manager for such dynamic products is a pretty great job,” Ryan says. “Day to day, we work with sales and account teams and brokers to craft benefit offerings that bring value to our members. Those include the pre-tax payroll deduction programs that assist members in paying their medical expenses.”
His desire to learn about leadership and the big picture of BlueCross business led him to participate in the corporate mentoring program in 2017. He’s now participating in our job rotation program along with managing responsibilities of his product team role.
“We’re a company with many parts,” Ryan says. “I want to stretch myself to learn more about that, and to be able to bring that back to my role and team.”
A broader view of the company
Our job rotation program pairs candidates with teams in a way that’s mutually beneficial for a period of 3-6 months. That led to the opportunity for Ryan to work with the strategy and innovation team and its director, Neda Long.
That team manages BlueCross’ strategic investment portfolio by evaluating new business development opportunities and creating strategies to expand BlueCross business. One of those that Ryan heard more about was the Echo Innovation Alliance, which BlueCross joined in 2022. The alliance invests in companies that support and nationally scale cutting-edge technologies in health care to improve affordability, accessibility and member outcomes.
Learning about projects like that offers Ryan a greater understanding of the health plan industry and how strategy and innovation looks at that in planning growth opportunities.
“Our product team keeps a finger on the pulse of the industry,” Ryan says. “Working with this team reinforced why we should look ahead and anticipate what’s down the road.”
In addition to learning about long-term projects the team is undertaking, he’s offered perspective on them from his product team experience. Ryan’s also had the opportunity to be hands-on with shorter-term and recurring projects.
“A big part of this has been listening and learning,” he says. “It’s been helpful to pick their brains to understand how they analyze situations.”
It’s also given Ryan a lot to take back to his role and his team.
“These insights will be applicable to our future work in product strategy,” he says. “Specifically, my exposure to the Echo Innovation Alliance and its partnerships and connections enables me to identify opportunities for collaboration that will help us achieve our team goals.”
A full-circle innovative learning environment
Neda said the goal for this job rotation was two-fold. They’re always looking for new ways to integrate the team’s work on long-term enterprise strategy with near-term goals and priorities of other areas of the company. They also wanted Ryan to explore how BlueCross uses its capital to seek out new innovations and capabilities in the industry and to connect insights from that to the product team’s work.
Neda’s team had Ryan working on several key projects including support to produce the quarterly competitive assessment that’s delivered to BlueCross’ board of directors.
“I was delighted to see how self-driven Ryan is to teach himself new skills,” Neda says. “Along the way, he’s taught us a lot about the product team priorities and the competitive landscape of commercial business.”
For Ryan, the experience has been an impactful one, as he saw first-hand how other areas’ work impacts the BlueCross mission of peace of mind through better health.
“As a company, we’re always looking for opportunities to deliver on our value and meet our mission,” he says. “To be able to see how other teams are doing that was eye-opening.”
“I’d do this again in a heartbeat.”
Marie joined the BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee corporate communications team in 2012. A Florida native, she has more than 25 years of experience in public relations, community relations, speech writing and special event planning.