Cigna Group Elevates Company Veteran Nelson to Legal Chief Role

Cigna Group has promoted Andrea Nelson, who has held law leadership roles at the health giant for the past six years, to the role of chief legal officer.

Nelson most recently was the head of a legal team at Cigna responsible for corporate and regulatory strategy, mergers and acquisitions, investment activities, and securities reporting and disclosures. She came to the company as an in-house lawyer for Express Scripts Holding Co., which Cigna acquired in 2018. Nelson helped with the integration of both companies.

She replaces Nicole Jones, who has been Cigna’s lead lawyer since 2011 and now holds the executive roles of general counsel and chief administrative officer. Nelson will continue to report to Jones. Nelson started Monday in her new job, said a company spokeswoman.

Cigna earlier this month reported second-quarter earnings that exceeded analysts’ expectations as US health insurers experienced a bumpy first half of the year. The company includes a health benefits division, Cigna Healthcare, and a branch called Evernorth Health Services that contains pharmacy care.

Nelson served as chief counsel for Evernorth. She has also been responsible for talent recruitment and retention within Cigna’s law department, as well as budgeting and forecasting, and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

She started her career at Ohio-based law firm Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease before becoming general counsel for specialty benefit manager CastiaRx and then working at Express Scripts.

Cigna Deals

Cigna over the last decade has been both the target and acquirer in a string of deals that have attracted antitrust regulatory scrutiny. In December 2023, Cigna abandoned merger talks with rival health insurer Humana Inc.

Earlier this year Cigna agreed to sell its Medicare Advantage unit to Health Care Service Corp. for $3.3 billion. The deal removes a potential hurdle that may have barred Cigna from pursuing a larger combination.

Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is representing Cigna on that pending transaction, which should close by early 2025. Rule Garza Howley, Sidley Austin, and Mintz Levin are respectively providing antitrust, insurance, and regulatory counsel to Bloomfield, Connecticut-based Cigna.

Jones will continue to oversee a broad C-suite portfolio that besides legal includes communications, community programs, compliance and risk, government affairs, human resources, and regulatory matters. Jones earned roughly $5.2 million in total compensation each year between 2021 and 2023, Cigna’s most recent proxy statement shows. Her additional duties led the company to increase her annual base salary to $850,000 a year ago.

Cigna said that its corporate secretary, attorney Kari Knight Stevens, now also serves as its chief human resources officer. The company is looking to hire a chief privacy counsel and has made several other changes to its executive team, such as promoting former senior counsel for shareholder engagement Geneva Campbell Brown to be its chief sustainability and diversity officer.