Health insurance carrier
About
Compensation and benefits are among the largest investments an organization makes. They shape whether people can meet their obligations, care for their families, plan for the future, and see a reason to stay.
Leading Total Rewards means holding both sides of that responsibility at once: making sure employees have pay and benefits that are meaningful in their lives, while making decisions the organization can sustain.
My role is to lead that balance. I bring the judgment, market perspective, and relationships needed to evaluate options, influence senior leaders, and create leverage with carriers, brokers, consultants, and other partners. The outcome is not simply a lower cost. It is a Total Rewards program that is credible to employees and responsible to the business.
Across Blue Cross, Atrius Health, and CareQuest, the pattern is the operating model, not the annual queue: a PEO exit, a tiered service center, contribution bands, and a guarded automation pilot that moved routine questions off the team without loosening Form 5500, ACA, or Section 125.
Healthcare delivery
Nonprofit · oral-health institute
Experience
CareQuest Institute for Oral Health
August 2024 – December 2025
Benefits Manager · Greater Boston, MA
Carried the full Director of Total Rewards duties while the Total Rewards leader was on family, medical, and parental leave; handed the work back as planned when the leader returned in December 2025.
- Directed compensation, benefits, retirement, and HR operations for about 200 employees across 50 U.S. states; led a team of 5; partnered with the C-suite (CEO, CFO, Chief Legal Officer, and Chief People Officer).
- Renegotiated broker compensation on a medical premium portfolio of about $5.3 million a year: commission cut from 8.4% to 0% for Year 1 with a guaranteed 2% cap after that, for about $440,000 in Year 1 savings and about $1.1 million over three years.
- Directed the exit from ADP TotalSource PEO co-employment to a direct-employer model on ADP Workforce Now and enabled additional capabilities, eliminating $630,000 in annual PEO fees.
- Directed annual compensation planning, including market pricing, salary structures, merit modeling, and incentive distribution, and redesigned contribution tiers by salary band to protect affordability for lower-wage employees.
- Piloted ADP AI Agents to move routine Tier 1–2 benefits questions off the team while keeping Form 5500, nondiscrimination, ACA, and Section 125 filings audit-ready.
- Established the employer-sponsored benefits programs the PEO had administered, including life, disability, 401(k), and Massachusetts PFML and other state paid family leave with The Hartford, and put direct broker, carrier, and ASO relationships in place; moved the organization to a new HSA administrator.
Atrius Health
February 2022 – June 2023
Benefits Consultant · Greater Boston, MA
- Atrius Health was acquired by Optum in 2022. I was a key contributor to benefits and compensation integration during the acquisition.
- Led benefits, leave, retirement, and frontline HR operations for about 5,400 employees across 30 sites; led a team of 9.
- Partnered with Finance on forecasting, renewals, and in-year cost performance for an approximately $137 million annual fringe portfolio, kept within 1% of budget.
- Designed and implemented a multi-tier HR Solution Center (Tier 0–2) with SLAs and KPIs to protect clinician time.
- Drove pay-equity work under the Massachusetts Equal Pay Act (MEPA), restructuring about 100 single-incumbent roles into three standardized roles.
- Directed the carrier migration from Harvard Pilgrim to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts using a two-tier network strategy.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts
September 2007 – April 2021
Senior Manager · Greater Boston, MA
About 10 years in Human Resources, then about 3.5 years in Account Management.
Human Resources progression
| Year | Title | Department |
|---|---|---|
| 2007 – 2008 | Employee Service Representative | Human Resources |
| 2008 – 2009 | HRIS Analyst | Human Resources |
| 2009 – 2012 | Supervisor | Human Resources |
| 2012 – 2014 | Manager | Human Resources |
| 2014 – 2016 | L&D Manager | Human Resources |
| 2016 – 2017 | Senior Manager | Human Resources |
| 2017 – 2021 | Senior Manager | Account Management |
- Moved from the frontline of Human Resources through supervisor and manager roles into Senior Manager over the service organization.
- As Senior Manager in Human Resources, owned four Human Resources teams covering compensation, benefits, leaves, and employee service delivery; restructured delivery to teams of 16 and developed senior specialists into team-lead roles.
- As L&D Manager, authored and delivered a 293-hour enterprise curriculum and trained 653 employees across member services and account management.
- From 2017, advised C-suite, Human Resources, and Total Rewards leaders on ASO versus fully insured design, stop-loss, pharmacy, and cost governance across Key and National accounts.
- Guided more than 40 HDHP/HSA implementations and complex self-funded transitions.
- Established the Account Education Line as an online-first delivery model with a fee schedule, avoiding about $15,000 average travel cost per person for a team of 16, or about $240,000 a year in travel and 100+ hours of overtime and travel time.
Blue Cross®, Blue Shield®, and the Cross and Shield symbols are registered marks of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts is an Independent Licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Atrius Health®, CareQuest Institute for Oral Health®, and Delta Dental® are trademarks of their respective owners. Sean Tyler is not currently affiliated with these organizations.