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Leonard D. Schaeffer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, WellPoint

Leonard D. Schaeffer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, WellPoint.

Leonard D. Schaeffer is chairman and chief executive officer of WellPoint, the nation's second largest publicly traded health care company. WellPoint serves more than 15 million medical members and approximately 46 million specialty members. WellPoint's revenues for the 12 months ended December 31, 2003 were $20.4 billion. WellPoint employs nearly 20,000 full-time associates in more than 90 offices throughout the country.

Under his leadership, WellPoint has been selected by FORTUNE magazine as America's "Most Admired Health Care Company" for an unprecedented six consecutive years and is ranked number 3 on BusinessWeek's "BW50" ranking of top performing public companies in the S&P 500. WellPoint has also been named by Forbes magazine as America's best large health insurance company and named one of America's Top Public Companies for Executive Women. Schaeffer was selected by BusinessWeek magazine as one of the "Top 25 Managers of the Year" and by Worth magazine as one of the "50 Best CEOs in America."

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WellPoint operates in five strategic geographies-California, Texas, the Midwest, the Southeast and the Mid-Atlantic states. Within these geographies, WellPoint provides quality branded health care products through Blue Cross of California, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Missouri, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wisconsin, other Wisconsin-based companies, HealthLink and UNICARE. WellPoint Pharmacy Management is the nation's leading plan-owned pharmacy benefit management company.

Schaeffer was recruited to WellPoint's predecessor, Blue Cross of California, as President and CEO in 1986 when the not-for-profit company had revenues of $2 billion and was near bankruptcy. He managed the turnaround of Blue Cross of California, the first Blue conversion to for-profit status and the IPO creating WellPoint in 1993. Since then, WellPoint has made 17 acquisitions totaling over $4 billion in value while its market capitalization has grown to over $16 billion.

In 1996, Schaeffer led the recapitalization of WellPoint, which also created America's sixth largest philanthropy with an endowment of more than $4 billion. WellPoint subsequently increased the value of The Missouri Foundation for Health to nearly $1 billion, endowed a Georgia-based independent charitable foundation with more than $100 million and increased the value of the Wisconsin United for Health Foundation by approximately $500 million. The company also contributed over $110 million to the WellPoint Foundation which Schaeffer chairs.

Previously, Schaeffer was President and CEO of Group Health, Inc. of Minnesota, EVP and COO of the Student Loan Marketing Association and a Vice President of Citibank.

In the federal government, he served as Administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) and as Assistant Secretary for Management and Budget of the Department of Health and Human Services. Previously, Schaeffer was Director of the Bureau of the Budget for the State of Illinois and also served as Chairman of the Illinois Capital Development Board and as Deputy Director for Management, Illinois Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities.

Schaeffer is active on the boards of numerous business, philanthropic and professional organizations. A native of Evanston, Illinois, he is a graduate of Princeton University. Schaeffer and his wife, the former Pamela Sidford, have two children.