Even for an Executive Used to Crises, Andrew Witty Is Being Tested at UnitedHealth
Andrew Witty seeks to calm employees and keep the company growing while facing public outrage over health-insurer practices
Since the assassination of his top lieutenant Brian Thompson on Dec. 4, Andrew Witty has been keeping long, difficult hours at the Minnesota headquarters of the giant company he runs, UnitedHealth Group.
Witty has been telling company executives during meetings and rank-and-file employees in videos that the work they do is important, lifesaving and deeply appreciated following the killing of Thompson, who had run the company’s health-insurance division.
More quietly, Witty is telling executives that the company is expecting to hit financial records by the end of the year.
It is up to Witty, a knighted former pharmaceutical chief who went on to a rare second act running the even larger and more powerful healthcare conglomerate that is UnitedHealth, to steer through one of the worst corporate crises imaginable: the targeted killing of one of its own executives.
MORE: