And this time it’s not a Jeff or a Frank: it’s an Angela!
Health insurer Wellpoint announced the appointment of general counsel Angela Braly as CEO. Ms. Braly then becomes the highest-ranking of the 10 female CEOs on the Fortune 500, according to USA Today.
It’s about time that a woman joins the fraternity of such ex-GC CEOs as Pfizer’s Kindler and Home Depot’s Blake. To say nothing of lawyer-CEOs at the helm of Goldman Sachs, Time Warner, Citigroup, Marsh, and Waste Mangement, to name more than a few.
Ms. Braly was an architect of WellPoint’s recent acquisition strategies and also was responsible for public affairs. Given the substantial regulatory and policy challenges faced by health insurers, a legal background here is a natural, and has some strong parallels to the appointment of Mr. Kindler at Pfizer.
I fully expect some press reports to comment on Ms. Braly’s experience in a somewhat negative way (such as this from the Chicago Tribune; it fails to note that she was previously CEO of a subsidiary). Perhaps down the road the appointment of a GC as CEO won’t be news on this fact alone, and a legal background will be seen as an asset.