In an effort to boost its integration and retail strategy, Humana is bringing on a veteran investment banker who has worked on some of healthcare's largest merger and acquisition deals in recent history.
Brian Kane, a 41-year-old managing director at Goldman Sachs, will become Humana's chief financial officer and senior vice president in June.
A Harvard MBA, Kane has spent the past 17 years at Goldman, with a deal flow spanning healthcare, finance, real estate and retail. Most recently, Kane worked as managing director of Goldman's managed care group, which advised Aetna on its $7.3 billion acquisition of Coventry and Amerigroup on its $4.9 billion sale to WellPoint.
Kane "brings financial and strategic breadth that will nicely complement the operational depth of Steve McCulley," said Humana's President and CEO Bruce Broussard, in a media release. McCulley has served as the interim CFO, filling in after former CFO Jim Bloem retired. He will re-assume the chief accounting officer role.
As a managing director at Goldman, Kane lead strategy and financing for client companies in health, property and life insurance, as well as in the restaurant, consumer product and retail industries. At Humana, he has the potential to use that background to be something of a strategic CFO.
The company is trying to make inroads into clinical integration through recently acquired businesses like Concentra, Metropolitan Health Networks, American Eldercare and Healthrageous, a patient engagement technology spun off by Partners HealthCare that's ripe for integration with Humana's Vitality program.
Kane is Humana's second recent executive hire from outside the healthcare insurance industry. Former Citi investments managing director Christopher Kay recently joined the company as chief innovation officer, and has been called upon by Broussard to "simplify the healthcare experience."
Humana's stock closed Monday at $113.27 – three cents higher than it started – but dropped slightly by mid-morning on Tuesday to $112.20.
This story is based on a post appearing on Healthcare Payer News.