Gail Boudreaux

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Gail Boudreaux has credited her athletic career at Dartmouth College with shaping her approach to leadership and teamwork in business.

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Gail Boudreaux is the president and chief executive officer of Elevance Health, Inc. (ELV), formerly Anthem, Inc., one of the largest health insurers in the United States. Before entering the health care industry, she was a star basketball player at Dartmouth College, where she set multiple Ivy League records and later became one of the conference’s most decorated athletes.

Gail Koziara Boudreaux was born in 1960 in Chicopee, Massachusetts, just outside Springfield. Her father worked as a machinist, and her mother was a homemaker. Growing up, Boudreaux often played sports with her older brother and his friends, experiences she later credited with helping develop her competitiveness and confidence.

Boudreaux excelled in athletics from an early age, particularly basketball. After graduating from high school, she enrolled at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where she studied while competing in both basketball and track-and-field. She graduated with honors in 1982.

Playing center for Dartmouth’s women’s basketball team, the 6-foot-2-inch (1.88-meter) Boudreaux became one of the most accomplished athletes in Ivy League history. She averaged 21.9 points and 18.4 rebounds per game during her college career and was named first-team All-Ivy League four times. She also won Ivy League Player of the Year honors three times.

Boudreaux set several Dartmouth records for scoring and rebounding, including career records in both categories. In addition to basketball, she competed on Dartmouth’s track-and-field team and won four Ivy League shot put championships.

Boudreaux has frequently linked her athletic background to her management style. In interviews, she has said that basketball taught her the importance of teamwork, clearly defined roles, and supporting individual strengths within a larger organization.

Her accomplishments at Dartmouth later brought national recognition. Boudreaux was inducted into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003 and received the NCAA Silver Anniversary Award in 2007. She received the Billie Jean King Leadership Award in 2018, and the Theodore Roosevelt Award (the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s highest honor for a former college athlete) in 2022.

Boudreaux became interested in business and health care during a summer internship at health insurer Aetna. After graduating from Dartmouth, she played basketball overseas before returning to the United States and joining Aetna full time through the company’s management training program in 1983.

While at Aetna, she received a master of business administration degree in finance and health care administration from Columbia Business School in 1989. She spent nearly two decades at Aetna and eventually became senior vice president of group insurance.

In 2002, Boudreaux joined BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois, where she later became president. Six years later, UnitedHealthcare (UHC) hired her as president of its commercial business. In 2011, she was appointed CEO of UnitedHealthcare.

After leaving UnitedHealthcare in 2014, Boudreaux founded the consulting and investment firm GKB Global Health, LLC. In 2017, Anthem, Inc. named her president and CEO.

Under Boudreaux, Anthem expanded its business to include pharmacy, behavioral, clinical, and complex care services. In 2022, the company changed its name to Elevance Health to reflect its broader focus.

In interviews, Boudreaux has compared successful business teams to basketball teams, stressing the importance of clearly defined roles and complementary strengths. She has emphasized collaboration, accountability, competitiveness, and resilience in building large organizations.

Boudreaux has remained closely connected to Dartmouth College. She was elected to the school’s board of trustees in 2011, and in 2015 she and her family donated $2 million to endow the head coaching position for the women’s basketball team.

In addition to her athletic achievements, Boudreaux has received broader recognition in the business world, regularly appearing on Fortune and Forbes lists of the most powerful women in business.