Millie Virgil is senior vice president, transformation, operations, and customer experience, at Blue Shield of California, a nonprofit health plan with $22.9 billion in annual revenue serving more than 4.7 million members in the state’s commercial, individual, and government markets. Virgil is working toward a future state of healthcare by generating personalized experiences for Blue Shield’s members, providers, brokers, and employees that are automated, digital, and paperless. She is also leveraging advanced technologies to ensure efficient, effective, and compliant operations across the enterprise.
Virgil has a deep background in healthcare business strategy, planning, finance, and operations. Since joining Blue Shield in 2011, she has led initiatives across multiple lines of business to bring healthcare into the digital age. Before assuming her current role, she was vice president of the health plan’s Digital Clinical Data Strategy and Operations group, where she developed a strategic partnership and plan to enable universal sharing of clinical data. Designed to empower patients and medical professionals, this real-time access to longitudinal health records facilitates improved health outcomes.
She has led strategic planning to support the continued delivery of high-quality, affordable healthcare for all Californians. In this role, Virgil designed and implemented quality improvements to reduce the cost of care, which resulted in $340 million in savings annually. Managing a budget of $300 million in administrative expenses, she identified opportunities to ensure adherence to planned spending and mitigate risks.
Virgil also served in an operational execution role for Blue Shield’s CEO as vice president, integrated enterprise planning to ensure the coordinated planning and delivery of enterprise-wide performance goals across teams and divisions. In this position, she brokered solutions among stakeholders, which included developing a self-funded line of business strategy.
Prior to joining Blue Shield of California, Virgil led financial planning and budgeting at Pac-West Telecomm, Inc., to help realize the organization’s long-term strategic business goals. She also managed a merger to integrate a regional telecommunications company, ensuring the execution of deal terms.
Virgil earned her Master of Business Administration degree and Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree from University of the Pacific.