Smith MBA Alumnus on Learning at Industry Speed

Marc Russo, MBA ’96, studied marketing and finance while pursuing his MBA at Smith. He is currently the CEO of Careforth, which offers financial and programmatic support to family caregivers. Russo has been in the role for six months and says “I’m leading an amazing team, doing incredible work offering support to those who desperately need it.”

Tell us about your path from graduation to your current job.

Heading toward the end of my two-year journey in pursuit of my MBA at the University of Maryland (UMD), I didn’t focus my job search on any particular industry or sector. I was focused mostly on finding a marketing or product management role in a company where the environment would embrace my desire to understand how the business worked – where value is created, how the company did what it did, and how customers engaged with and perceived the company.

Because my ultimate goal was to have P&L responsibility for a business – I felt like the quickest path to this goal was to gain a wholistic understand of whatever business I re-entered the workforce through, as quickly as possible. Through my interviews, I explored everything from consumer goods, to telecommunications, to consulting, to healthcare and more.

I ended up at a new and innovative health insurance company in the NY-tristate area called Oxford Health Plans. It turned out to be an amazing opportunity for me – because it offered the exact environment I was looking for – where associates were not only allowed but encouraged to extend beyond the direct responsibilities of their role and get to know how the company operated; offering to engage and provide support wherever you felt compelled was welcomed, not questioned.

I didn’t realize until later in my career how unusual this is – that it’s hard to find this kind of culture – and I was very lucky to have done so. Between my commitment to take full advantage of this open invitation to get to know every area of the business – and the incredibly turbulent times the company was about to go through the following five years (going from the darling of Wall Street to near bankruptcy to an incredible turnaround to being acquired by the largest company in the space) – it almost felt like the years following my graduation from UMD were a continuation of my education.

I feel incredibly fortunate for having the opportunity I did immediately following my graduation – and how well UMD prepared me for that opportunity. From this first job post-MBA, I held a number of P&L leadership roles in healthcare companies, coast to coast – each with an increasing scope of the size and complexity of the business I was responsible for: United Healthcare (who acquired Oxford), Blue Shield of CA, Wellcare, Anthem and Molina. Because my early roles were focused on the Medicare and Medicaid healthcare programs – that became my area of expertise, and the focus of all of my roles. Running businesses for almost three decades that were focused on the healthcare for low-income and elderly people led me to develop a passion for supporting these populations – and addressing the unique challenges they face in navigating this country’s healthcare system.

I spent six years at Anthem running what became its $15B Medicare business, and another four years at Molina leading its $30B flagship Medicaid business. After nearly 30 years in public companies, I decided I wanted to find a way to serve vulnerable populations as they navigate the challenges they face in the healthcare system. 

By this time, I had a number of colleagues make a move into private equity and they enjoyed the more entrepreneurial energy. After almost a year of networking I realized that I had a lot to offer and that my skills and experience would be deeply valued. I also got the sense that in the right role, I would be spending far more of my time having an impact on the business vs. responding to and managing internal organizational complexities and competing priorities. One of the private equity firms I met and became impressed with was Thomas H. Lee out of Boston. They were quite active and successful in the healthcare space, and had an unexpected CEO vacancy in one of their portfolio companies, Careforth.

Careforth offers financial and programmatic support to family caregivers – family members tackling the challenges of taking care of loved ones at home with declining health. Most care recipients are elderly (on Medicare), and most of our business is through a state-administered Medicaid program. This allowed me to draw on my experience while entering a space I’d come to understand personally, as I had recently become a caregiver for my own mother.

Now six months into my new CEO role, I’m leading an amazing team, doing incredible work offering support to those who desperately need it. I love where I am and what I’m doing today. I wouldn’t trade any of my career experiences as they’ve shaped who I am and that journey started at UMD.

Why did you decide to get a business degree and why did you choose the Smith School?

I knew as an undergraduate student that I wanted to pursue a career in business. And at the time, I felt like pursuing an MBA would help with my preparation for and success in that pursuit. It was important to me to work for a couple years between my undergraduate and graduate degrees – which I did. When I was ready to go to graduate school, I looked at quite a few schools in the mid-Atlantic and northeast regions. At the time (1994) UMD was investing quite a bit into their business school. When I visited the school, I could feel the impact of that investment mentality. I sensed enthusiasm and excitement for what the UMD’s business school was going to become – the same way I was excited about the investment I was making in my future by pursuing my MBA. The school was building new buildings and infrastructure; attracting new professors, many with professional experience; and attracting a more diverse student population, most with work experience. This of course culminated with the significant donation by Robert H. Smith – and the school being renamed shortly after I graduated, in 1998. I wanted to be a part of and contribute to the enthusiasm that was mounting in 1994.

What Smith resources or relationships played a role in your career journey?

While I didn’t leave Smith with a specific relationship that shaped my career, the structure and comprehensiveness of the program, the intensity of collaborative work, and the opportunity it offered me to engage with real companies through various projects and my internship played a role in how I re-entered the workforce determined to learn about all the aspects of the company I joined – which is really what set me on a course almost immediately for a P&L leadership role.

How has your Smith education helped you with your professional career? Were there specific classes, experiential projects, team projects, or internships that have been especially helpful to you?

The academic experience I had through my MBA experience was terrific. I felt that it was very well-rounded across all the business domains. While technology wasn’t my area of focus, we were right at the beginning of the dot com boom and the way it was being used in business was changing significantly. And I recall the school being extremely responsive to this. In almost real-time they incorporated what was going on in the business world with technology into how they developed our curriculum, taught us and had us interact with one another. The other thing that stands out as I reflect on my MBA experience is how much of the work we had to do that had to be done in groups. I didn’t appreciate it at the time – but requiring us to do so much of our work in groups was preparing us for how most of the business world operates: in teams. This approach educated and prepared us beyond the academic substance – it taught us how to work with others constructively to achieve an objective, to lead when a leader was needed, to be led when someone else was better suited to lead and to lift teammates up when they needed help. I honestly feel like well over 50% of what I did through my MBA experience was group work – and I couldn’t be more grateful for that.

What about your personal journey has led to your success?

It’s hard for me to point to specific things that helped me in my career. But when forced to reflect on my experiences, what I recall is that I was always focused on what needed to get done – the work. I had a strong work ethic from a very young age. To me, it was my commitment to doing good work when it was happening – rather than the desire to just get to the other end – that was most enjoyable and rewarding. I guess the cliché saying that comes to mind is that it’s about the journey, not the destination. In business, when you realize and respect this, you understand that it’s the work, or the journey, that teaches you all the lessons. Getting to the other end – presumably, accomplishing what you set out to – is merely a moment to celebrate and then figure out what’s next. Don’t get me wrong – you should celebrate your accomplishments – but my recognition of the value of work itself and my enjoyment of it, I think, is what led my career to be as rewarding and successful as it has been.

What are some of the achievements that you are most proud of?

Maybe as an extension of this point – the achievements I’m most proud of are not any of the business results I produced. Rather, it’s the incredible relationships I’ve formed through the hard work I did with the teams I was a part of – all the amazing associates I learned from, taught, was led by, and led. That’s resulted in me having an extensive, wonderful network of colleagues that I can call upon for anything, anytime – and they know they can do the same with me. That’s what I’m most proud of.

What advice would you give to current students?

The advice I’d give current students is to recognize as soon as you can that the vast majority of individuals don’t singularly have a meaningful impact – it’s teams of people that create success. When you realize this, a lightbulb comes on that the most important contributor to personal success is to be a great team player. And also understand that teams are made up of all kinds of players – not everyone is a leader. You’ll know when it’s your time to lead – and when it is, be ready – and strive to be the kind of leader you would want to follow; and for you to know what that looks like – you need to find and follow good leaders. Success in business almost always comes from collaboration with people you agree and disagree with, people you like and you don’t like, people who are similar to you and those who are different. Start today by putting as much effort as you can into becoming the best teammate possible. I promise you it’s one of the surest paths to a successful career in business.