Umar Farooq

Umar is EVP and Chief Strategy Officer for Premera Blue Cross. Prior to Premera, Umar was President of Essence Healthcare at Lumeris, Umar’s responsibilities included developing and executing strategy, driving national scalability for growth, and delivering an industry leading experience for its customers, members and stakeholders. Prior to Lumeris, Umar was General Manager | Market President for Commonwealth Care Alliance of Boston, Massachusetts; a $2B fully integrated payer/provider managed care plan. At CCA Umar was responsible for market and business line performance of Medicare and Medicaid health plans, relationships with government officials, provider groups, and other key strategic partners that drive growth & expansion.Prior to CCA, Umar was a Vice President at Centene Corporation, where he was responsible for MHS health plan's provider strategy, operations, Medicare bid, and strategic planning efforts. While at Centene, he drove regional strategic planning efforts by supporting Market leadership execute 'all products, all markets' growth agenda via product expansion and margin improvement initiatives under Centene's Enterprise Strategy Group. Finally, in his last tour, he assisted Centene's 2020 Transformation efforts which included Marketplace(Ambetter) Network strategy and TX Medicaid Margin improvement planning. Umar has extensive operating experience in the development and formation of Provider Sponsored Health Plans(PSHP) and provider-aligned managed care products. His experience includes domain expertise in value-based program development with health plans and provider systems moving towards total cost of care management across programs in Commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid managed product lines.