Executive Forum for Blues Plans

Nick Kraft is Chief Customer & Market Engagement Officer for Lifetime Health Care Companies, parent of Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, Univera Healthcare, and CDPHP. He leads enterprise efforts across customer strategy, marketing, brand, innovation, and engagement, focused on making health care more affordable, accessible, and easier to navigate for members, employers, providers, and communities. Previously, Nick served as SVP and Chief Growth Officer at CDPHP, where he oversaw product innovation, sales, marketing, customer experience, and community relations. During his tenure, CDPHP achieved record membership growth, earned national recognition as a top-growing Medicare Advantage plan, and generated over $900 million in new revenue, restoring profitability across key business lines. He also established CDPHP’s Revenue Organization, aligning growth functions into a unified data-driven team.

Teresa Anderson is a marketing communications executive, consultant, and educator with deep expertise in brand strategy, customer engagement, customer experience, and reputation building. During her 30-year healthcare career, she has served nonprofit health systems, academic medical centers, and health plans. She has led brand and engagement strategies, shaping the vision, strategy, and roadmaps for brand and marketing communications. She translates market research and stakeholder insights into initiatives that increase visibility, deepen engagement, strengthen reputation, and build brand loyalty. A trusted adviser to senior leaders, she guides cross-functional teams spanning brand, media relations, thought leadership, digital, social media, marketing, and research.

Teresa has also served as an Adjunct Professor of Marketing at Champlain College and as an immersion consultant in the healthcare and financial services sectors, helping organizations understand how customer experience impacts their brand. Her industry leadership includes serving as chair, co-chair, and member of the Vizient Chief Marketing & Development Committee, and as a member of the Association of American Medical Colleges Marketing and Development Committee.

A Vermont resident for nearly 20 years, she is an equestrian who enjoys traveling, live music, and spending time with her family.

Melinda Nelhuebel has extensive work experience in the healthcare industry. Melinda is currently working at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, where she started as a Member Services Associate in 2004. Throughout the years, she has held various roles, including Operations Analyst, Quality Coach, Manager, Senior Manager, and Senior Product Manager. In 2018, she became the Director of Operations in the Pharmacy division before being promoted to the role of Senior Director of Operations in January 2023. Prior to her current position, Melinda worked at Prime Therapeutics as a Senior Director of Client Engagement from 2016 to 2018. Additionally, Melinda gained early work experience as an intern at Chadwicks of Boston in 2003.

Melinda has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, with a focus on Marketing and Communications, which she earned from Bryant University from 2001 to 2005. She then pursued a Master of Science degree in Management of Aging Services from UMass Boston between 2012 and 2016. In addition, from 2005 to 2007, she obtained a Graduate Certificate in Leadership from Northeastern University.

Ms. Ellmore is one of the earliest pioneers in bringing the best of consumer marketing and data driven methodologies to healthcare. Instead of getting you to eat when you are not hungry and buy things you don’t need, we can finally use the same strategies to instead change the health equation in America. Kathleen previously led the Consumer Engagement consulting practice for Welltok (formerly Silverlink) for 12 years, leveraging its data repository of over a billion consumer health interactions, the best of behavioral economics, and the latest in clinical research, to create evidenced-based communications on what works to drive consumer healthcare behavior yielding better outcomes and lower costs. She is often quoted in the trade and national press and is a regular speaker on the national stage, having spent the first twenty years of her career in brand marketing at leading consumer marketing organizations, including General Mills and P&G. Additionally, she was a Vice President at Digitas, a leading direct marketing firm. Recently she was selected as Consultant Member of the first ever FDA’s Patient Engagement Advisory Committee.

Nazish has more than 10 years of experience working in healthcare and technology industries. She has partnered with clients to discover and implement innovative solutions to critical business issues. Her healthcare experience includes engagements at payer and PBM clients that focus on consumer engagement design, technology integration, and process improvement. Nazish has a unique capability to identify and understand business challenges, drilling deep into technology to map out actionable strategies to drive improvements. She is recognized for her ability to establish strong working partnerships across all levels of an organization.

As Associate Partner at Engagys, Shannon O’Connell spearheads initiatives that transform member engagement for health plans. With a sharp focus on the Medicare population and communities facing the barriers of social determinants of health, Shannon leverages over a decade of healthcare experience to drive impactful behavior change. Her visionary leadership in improving member and provider engagement is driven by a C360 communications approach. Shannon’s expertise includes leading teams to excel in producing and improving communications mapping, inventory, and taxonomy development, transforming print-to-digital strategy, establishing robust communications governance models, and optimizing campaigns for maximum effectiveness.