Mark T. Bertolini (born 1956) is an American businessman who is the Co-CEO of

Bridgewater Associates Bridgewater Associates is an American investment management firm founded by Ray Dalio in 1975. The firm serves institutional clients including pension funds, endowments, foundations, foreign governments, and central banks. It utilizes a glob ...

, one of the world's largest

hedge fund A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as s ...

s. He was previously the CEO of

Aetna Aetna Inc. () is an American managed health care company that sells traditional and consumer directed health care insurance and related services, such as medical, pharmaceutical, dental, behavioral health, long-term care, and disability plans, ...

, a Fortune 50 diversified health care benefits company with over $60 billion in 2015 revenue. Bertolini assumed the role of CEO on November 29, 2010 and of Chairman on April 8, 2011 until Aetna was sold to CVS on November 28, 2018.

Early life

Bertolini was born in 1956. He completed his undergraduate studies at

Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

, and earned an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management The Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management is the graduate business school in the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University, a private Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York. It was founded in 1946 and ren ...

Career

Bertolini held executive positions at Cigna, NYLCare Health Plans, and SelectCare before joining

in 2003. He became CEO of Aetna on November 29, 2010, and chairman on April 8, 2011. As chairman, president and CEO of Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna, Bertolini oversaw a health insurer with more than $35.5 billion in revenue, according to 2012 figures. He served on the Board of Directors for the U.S.-China Business Council and on the Board of Directors for FIDELCO; an organization that trains, breeds and provides

guide dogs A guide is a person who leads travelers, sportspeople, or tourists through unknown or unfamiliar locations. The term can also be applied to a person who leads others to more abstract goals such as knowledge or wisdom. Travel and recreation Ex ...

for the visually impaired. In addition, Bertolini was on the Board of Directors for The

Hole in the Wall Gang Camp The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, based in Ashford, Connecticut, is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, residential summer camp, and year-round center serving children and their families coping with cancer and other serious illnesses and condition ...

, an organization that focuses on serving children with serious illnesses including cancer. Bertolini received a total compensation of $10.6 million in 2011 and $13.2 million in 2012 despite a cut of bonuses from $2 million to $892,000 for failing to meet financial performance goals. In 2013, Bertolini received $30.7 million in compensation. Bertolini in April 2016 described Aetna's participation in ACA individual exchanges as "a good investment" despite initial losses, emphasizing the long-term possibilities. By July 5, 2016 he wrote to the DOJ that Aetna would, instead of expanding into 20 states, reduce its participation from 15 to ten states if its merger with

Humana Humana Inc. is a for-profit American health insurance company based in Louisville, Kentucky. In 2021, the company ranked 41 on the Fortune 500 list, which made it the highest ranked (by revenues) company based in Kentucky. It has been the thir ...

were challenged by the DOJ. After that challenge occurred, Aetna reduced its participation in ObamaCare individual exchanges to four states, citing its inability to sustain the losses it incurred in those markets. Among the states Aetna abandoned was Pennsylvania where it ran a profit in 2014 and 2015 and projected a record profit for 2017. Bertolini said in an August 2 conference to financial analysts that the decision to withdraw from the exchanges was "a separate conversation" from the Humana merger lawsuit. In January 2017, the merger was blocked by a federal judge. Bertolini retired as the CEO of Aetna, after the company was acquired by CVS Health in November 2018.

Personal life

In 2004, Bertolini was involved in a severe ski accident, which left him disabled for a year, prompting him to investigate alternative healing methods such as

acupuncture Acupuncture is a form of alternative medicine and a component of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in which thin needles are inserted into the body. Acupuncture is a pseudoscience; the theories and practices of TCM are not based on scientif ...

and

yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consci ...

and other treatment modalities that Aetna would not cover.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bertolini, Mark 1956 births American chief executives of financial services companies Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management alumni Living people Aetna employees Wayne State University alumni 20th-century American businesspeople Peterson Institute for International Economics