Carene George

Provide transformational leadership to 260-400 team members located throughout California, empowering them to provide extraordinary pension and health benefit services to over 2 million members and beneficiaries and 3,100 business partners via voice, electronic and in-person channels, along with comprehensive member and employer education programs.

Effectively manage $30 million annual budget by driving efficiency through strategic prioritization, focus on customer expectations, continual improvement, and fiscal discipline.

Developed comprehensive onboarding and development program for new contact center agents and team leaders.

Successfully transitioned contact center technology from on-premises to Cloud solution, saving money, improving agent and customer experience, and

In the last five years, have maintained a 93 percent or greater Customer Satisfaction rate in the contact center, an agent vacancy rate of under five percent, and decreased Average Handle Time by over two minutes while improving Quality Assurance scores by 11 percent.

Exercised full responsibility for administration of and policy direction to pension and health program and operations including all Open Enrollment activities, the CalPERS Medicare program, health eligibility and enrollment for retirees and their dependents/survivors, Service Credit Purchase and Elections, the Complementary Annuitant Premium Payment (CAPP), and program and administrative functions (budgetary, human resources, compliance and audit support) for the Customer Services and Support Branch.

Led transition of CalPERS Medicare Advantage program from multiple to single carrier, which included webinar deployment, comprehensive stakeholder engagement, negotiation with health plans, and interaction with Board of Administration.

Completely transformed CAPP to ensure CalPERS fiduciary responsibilities were met while improving the customer experience and reducing workload in the Financial Office.

Became Lean certified and led efforts to reimagine and improve many business processes.

Launched and operated six state-of–the-art consumer service sites consisting of over 1,000 State and 1,100 contracted employees. Enrolled over 2 million previously uninsured Californians in affordable health coverage programs, promoting better health outcomes in our State.

Led Service Center, responsible for providing extensive multi-lingual and culturally sensitive pre and post enrollment services for consumers seeking affordable health coverage, including application and plan selection assistance; appeals adjudication; and working with insurance carriers/health plans, various State health and regulatory departments, county social services offices and advocates to resolve barriers preventing consumers from accessing medically necessary care within regulatory time frames.

In partnership with the Department of Healthcare Services, implemented CalHEERS, a Statewide consolidated technology system support for eligibility, enrollment, and retention for the Covered California, Medi-Cal, and Healthy Families.

Managed $100 million annual budget.