Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com • October 19, 2020 • Hartford Business Journal CLA 7 C-SUITE AWARDS 2020 Galvin's turnaround experience helps ConnectiCare through pandemic By Liese Klein I t took Eric Galvin only a year to begin making a difference at ConnectiCare, the Farmington- based insurer that had reported $100 million in losses shortly before he joined the company. "We went through a lot of chal- lenging, really hard decisions but ultimately we came out at the other end of that, turning the company around," said Galvin, who took ConnectiCare's CFO post in 2015. "We fixed the company but we also established a runway that was going to be successful for the future." Now president of the insurer, Galvin has taken the lessons of that turnaround into his current role. "I really value surrounding myself with people who are a lot smarter than I am," Galvin said. "Also, listen- ing to our customers. I was really try- ing to draw from those experiences." Galvin grew up in Waterbury and was attracted to business early on thanks to a family friend who introduced him to the challenges of creating and sustaining a successful enterprise. He earned a bachelor's degree in accounting from UConn, then interned at health insurer Cigna and thrived under the guidance of several valued mentors. After a stint at PricewaterhouseC- oopers, Galvin returned to Cigna, recognizing that the healthcare sector would provide him with a meaningful career. "It married two things together: One is my passion for business and trying to solve complex problems, the second it is an industry where you can be mission-oriented and re- ally want to help people," he said. Fourteen years later, Galvin left Cigna for various healthcare execu- tive roles in South Carolina to gain experience in different high-level jobs and markets. Then he heard about the CFO opening at ConnectiCare. "It really was that perfect marriage of a business — one that is really in the community, very present, very ac- tive and tries to do it better than the people we compete with," Galvin said. The financial crunch at Connec- tiCare had wiped out a decade of profits at the company. Galvin's job was to figure out the problems and "fix what was broken." When CEO Michael Wise tapped Galvin for the top job in 2017, the new president moved to bring in his own team and respond quickly to the crisis. Galvin sees parallels in the company's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. ConnectiCare moved quickly to expand telemedicine coverage and enable employees to work remotely. One initiative at the insurer in- volved calling thousands of individ- ual customers to "check in" during the worst of the lockdown. "The feedback was overwhelming in how appreciative they were," Gal- vin said. "It really mattered to our customers." Now Galvin sees the positives that have come out of the crisis. "We have a lot of opportunities to re- ally rethink how healthcare gets deliv- ered and the roles that various people play in getting that done," he said. Having local people working with local customers puts ConnectiCare at an advantage as the crisis evolves, Galvin added. Jakubowski keeps CT's hungary fed By Liese Klein A vice president job at a hos- pital would be the pinnacle of many careers, but Jason Jakubowski found himself consider- ing a major career change in 2017. He was serving as vice president of external relations at Hospital for Special Care when he was approached about the job of president and CEO of Foodshare, the regional food bank for Hartford and Tolland counties. "I had a really good job at the hospital, but I just really fell in love with Food- share and the employees and the vol- unteers and the mission," Jakubowski said. "I haven't regretted it for one day since. It's an amazing organization." Born and raised in New Britain, Jakubowski explored a career in poli- tics after graduating from UConn with a political science degree. First elected at age 21, he served two terms on the New Britain city council and two terms as city treasurer before an eight-year stint at Charter Oak State College. At the Hospital for Special Care, Jakubowski combined his profes- sional duties advocating for expand- ed Medicaid coverage with com- munity work. He served as board chairman for both Community Health Resources of Windsor and Leadership Greater Hartford. The Foodshare job attracted Jakubowski with the opportunity to combine his professional skills with his ideals. "I just think Foodshare has a tre- mendous history but also a tremen- dous culture," he said. Founded in 1982, the organization has grown to distribute food and sup- plies from 60 mobile sites to 250 part- ner pantries across Greater Hartford, totaling 11.5 million meals a year. As CEO, Jakubowski jumped in to expand the nonprofit's activities to take on more anti-poverty work, including creating "Hunger Ac- tion Teams" to organize residents around issues of food insecurity. He also helped set up the Foodshare Institute For Hunger Research & So- lutions, designed to study hunger and come up with innovative programs to improve community nutrition and health. Food banks in 12 other states are currently working with the insti- tute to improve their programs. "Those are the types of things that 10 or 20 years ago you never saw a food bank do. The old way was just to collect as much edible product as possible and distribute it. Now it's a much more holistic approach," Jakubowski said. "It's not just about distributing food anymore, it's also about helping people out of the cycle of poverty so they don't need to continue to rely on our services." Then, three years into Jakubows- ki's tenure, COVID-19 hit. Demand for food in Foodshare's service area increased overnight by 35%, even as donations and volunteers dropped off dramatically and staff members struggled to adapt to new working conditions. The agency was forced to hire part-timers to help with distribution and buy tons of food to meet the surging need. Foodshare's drive-through food pantry at Rentschler Field in East Hartford has served 150,000 families since the beginning of the pandemic, and delivered more than 6 million pounds of food. Cash donations have increased, but Jakubowski predicts that demand for food will remain high for at least a year due to the economic damage caused by the pandemic. "The good news is we have never raised this much money, the bad news is that we have never spent this much money," he said. "There are so many people that are new to food insecurity that never thought that they'd be in this situation but due to COVID, they are."

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