By SUSAN ADELMAN, MD
Tricia Keith has just been appointed CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, becoming the first woman to attain that position since 1929, the year the company was first organized. She comes to this position after a career of steadily rising through the ranks of the organization since she joined in 2006. Her last appointment was as Chief Operating Officer and President of the Emerging Markets Division. In 2018, a profile of her in Detroit Business gave her titles as executive vice president, chief of staff, and corporate secretary of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan in Detroit. In these positions, Tricia Keith oversaw 300 employees, a managed care subsidiary called Blue Cross Complete, the Blues Medicare business, and a $110 million budget. In this new position, she oversees 9,000 employees.
Keith is a Michigan native who grew up just outside of Ludington and graduated from Central Michigan University. Her rise to prominence must not have been what her family might have expected of their little girl as they worked the farm that had been in the family for three generations, but times have changed.
Early on, Keith decided that life in agriculture was not for her. When she went off to college, soon she found herself studying political science, enjoying a stint of studying abroad, and becoming inspired to seek a position as a legislative assistant in the Michigan House of Representatives. This was where she met a man who eventually became the BCBSM Chief of Staff, Daniel Loepp, and this is the man who became the BCBSM CEO who she has just succeeded.
With Loepp’s encouragement, Keith earned an MBA from Michigan State University and joined the BCBSM leadership team, ultimately becoming CEO of what is now a $26.5 billion dollar corporation with 4.3 million members. This is a very big deal. People may not remember it, but I remember that, in the years when I was on the BCBSM Board in 1981-86, this was the largest Blue Cross Blue Shield plan in the country, and it remained extremely prominent for many more years. Attaining the position that Keith has just achieved is no mean feat.
I also remember being the only woman ever to have represented the Michigan State Medical Society on the BCBSM Board, and, as such, I had to swat away silly questions about how I felt about being a token woman. I do not know if she was pestered with similar foolishness, but knowing the business world, I would not be surprised if she once was. Yet, those were different days. Today being a woman actually is an advantage in many places, but I submit that no reasonable board of directors of any major corporation, even today, would want to appoint a woman just because she is a woman. The life and health of their corporation are too important to risk. I think that Keith’s biography and performance history make it amply clear that appointing her is unlikely to have had anything to do with checking a box. I assume that she is supremely qualified, and that this is not a case of promoting diversity, but an appointment made simply because the selected appointee is good.
In fact, I have a secret to share, but do not tell anybody. It has been the practice in business for years for the CEO or otherwise named leader of a large business or corporation to be a man, and the executive secretary or otherwise named second in power to be a woman. The job of the man always has been to shake hands, make speeches, have power lunches, swan around in Washington, participate in civic organizations and committees, humbly accept the chairmanship of several charities and accept congratulations on how well his company is doing. The job of the woman who is executive secretary or vice president is to make sure everyone does their jobs, to solve problems when things get messed up, supervise hiring and firing, interface with customers and suppliers, make sure contract language is in order, and watch over such details as the legalities of the business arrangements. In other words, she makes everything happen.
The irony of our contemporary enthusiasm for publicly appointing women to acknowledged positions of leadership and power is that now these women finally are recognized by everybody for doing what they have been doing quietly for years. Amazing, and huzzah.