As Senior Advisor, Health Systems Strategy & Partnership at The CareWorks Project, Jennifer Vachon brings more than three decades of executive leadership across strategy, operations, and innovation in complex healthcare systems. She serves as a strategic advisor to the CEO on health system transformation, payer-provider dynamics, and national partnerships that strengthen care delivery and financing.

Jennifer is a seasoned healthcare executive with deep experience leading enterprise-wide strategy and operations at scale. She retired in 2024 as Executive Vice President of Business Operations at the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, where she helped drive national strategy and oversaw programs supporting 33 independent Blue Cross Blue Shield Plans serving more than 110 million people across all 50 states.

Over the course of her tenure, Jennifer held multiple senior leadership roles spanning brand and marketing, policy and advocacy, clinical affairs, and human resources. She managed significant P&L responsibilities, including oversight of the Federal Employees Program, which serves more than 5.6 million members. She is widely recognized for her ability to align business performance with mission-driven impact, particularly in large, distributed systems.

Jennifer’s leadership has earned national recognition, including being named one of Fierce Healthcare’s “5 Insurance Executives to Watch” and Crain’s Chicago Business’s “Notable Women Executives Over 50.” She is also an active civic leader, serving on the boards of the Greater Chicago Food Depository and the Chicago Children’s Museum.

She holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy Studies with a concentration in health policy from the University of Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Union College. She has completed executive education at Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and was part of the founding class of Health Evolution’s Institute for Rising Leaders.