Dawn Maroney lost her grandparents at a young age, which robbed her of the chance to build formative bonds with them.
That experience inspired her to work with other elders in the healthcare space for more than 30 years.
Today, she is markets president and chief executive of California health plans at Orange-based Alignment Healthcare Inc. (Nasdaq: ALHC), which develops customized health plans for elderly or disabled beneficiaries on Medicare. It currently has markets in California, Nevada and North Carolina, and will expand to Arizona in January 2022.
“We’ve always addressed lower income populations; now that retiree who makes less than $20,000 a year can have the same experience as someone who makes $100,000,” Maroney said. “They get an even richer package because they need it.”
Her efforts to provide pioneering insurance plans for Medicare recipients were lauded as she was honored at the Business Journal’s 27th annual Women in Business Awards on Oct. 28 (see related stories throughout this edition).
“The recognition has been really humbling,” she said. “It means something to other people in my industry, and that means something to me. If I can do it, they can do it.”
Public Company
Chief Executive John Kao began Alignment in 2013 to provide extra benefits to seniors on Medicare like vision, dental and hearing exams.
A year later, he was joined by Maroney, who was Chief Medicare Officer for Blue Shield of California, representing over 400,000 Medicare and Medicaid lives in California, Arizona and Texas.
Nowadays, Marone oversees Alignment’s consumer experience, growth and expansion in all areas from sales strategy to acquisitions. She spearheads marketing efforts around the brand, as well as overseeing direct response and public relations activities.
Earlier this year, the company made its debut as a publicly traded company (Nasdaq: ALHC) and now sports a $3.7 billion market cap. As of the regulatory filings from March, she owned 808,603 shares that are now worth around $16 million.
Late last week, the company reported third-quarter sales rose 18% to $294 million.
“The vision is no different. Public or not, it’s still about serving the senior,” Maroney said “My goal is to touch something we’re not touching from a product standpoint, and how to give them even more.”
‘Unbelievable Humans’
Maroney’s career in healthcare insurance began in her early 20s when she began working for Secure Horizon, subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group.
In her role as a “marketing ambassador,” she’d explain the company’s products to customers. She also found a “phenomenal opportunity” to learn from people that reminded Maroney of her late grandparents.
The customers were “unbelievable humans”—a retired general, a retired investor, an empty nester mother and a “beautiful, loving couple from England.”
“They were like grandparents to me—and they would boss me around like grandparents, too,” she said.
Over the years, she earned managerial and executive positions at Secure Horizon and CareMore Health Plan, as well as Blue Shield of California. Throughout, she’s had a team who has grown along with her, she said.
“I loved management because I could mentor young men and women,” she said. “One day, they were administrative assistants; the next, they were in executive roles.”
One such person, Maroney said, came from Mexico and didn’t know English until age 11. She completed her graduate degree and now serves in a management role.
“I’ve hired women who decided to leave the workforce to take care of their baby. Give people with gaps a chance; to me, it was always about somebody who has a passion for wanting to do good in the community and in the workplace.”
Alignment Healthcare
Since Maroney joined Alignment, she has pioneered several initiatives to better serve seniors.
Earlier this month, the company launched The ONE or “el ÚNICO” initiative, a health plan designed to address the needs of Hispanic seniors age 65 and over, a population that is expected to grow fivefold to 19.9 million by 2060.
It follows the success of Harmony, an HMO plan designed to do the same for Asian populations.
“Alignment has a long heritage of serving seniors from all backgrounds across the country,” she said. “That’s why we developed a robust portfolio of more than 40 benefits-rich plans, the most in our company’s history, to give seniors more choice, access and flexibility in their care regardless of zip code, socioeconomic status or native language.”
Today, Maroney said she’s in the “giveback” stage of her life, doing her job while training the next generation of passionate employees.
“It’s exciting and humbling to be in this position,” she said. “But I wouldn’t be here without that first ambassador team and being around a retired general 20 to 30 hours a week. That was the most phenomenal mentorship.”
