Q&A: Wellpoint Care Network’s new CEO looks to build opportunity, strengthen community and enrich lives

Mar 6, 2025 11:45 am

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Reggie Newson. Submitted Photo. On Monday, Reggie Newson will officially take the helm as Wellpoint Care Network’s new chief executive officer. In February, Wellpoint — the Milwaukee-based human services agency formerly known as SaintA — announced Newson would succeed retiring CEO Ann Leinfelder Grove, who has led the organization since 2018.

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Reggie Newson. Submitted Photo.[/caption] On Monday, Reggie Newson will officially take the helm as Wellpoint Care Network’s new chief executive officer. In February, Wellpoint — the Milwaukee-based human services agency formerly known as SaintA — announced Newson would succeed retiring CEO Ann Leinfelder Grove, who has led the organization since 2018. Newson formerly served as Ascension Wisconsin’s chief community impact and advocacy officer. He was also the president and CEO of the Ascension Wisconsin Foundation for over two years. BizTimes reporter Samantha Dietel spoke with Newson about his drive to serve the Milwaukee community and his priorities as he takes on his new leadership role. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. BizTimes: Why do you want to lead Wellpoint Care Network? Newson: “Throughout my career, there have been three things that have driven my why and my purpose and my passion, and that’s building opportunity, strengthening community and enriching lives. This CEO role fits squarely in the intersection of those three things. To be able to continue to serve the community, the privilege to serve the families and the children in the community, our passionate associates, it hits all of those things.” Trauma informed care is key at Wellpoint. What does that mission to provide trauma informed care mean to you? “What it means to me is, certainly continuing to break down the stigma around behavioral health and access to mental health, and certainly expanding access to those services. Meeting people, meeting children where they are in the community. Providing those therapeutics, the evidence based practice around trauma, training individuals in trauma informed care so we can expand the reach and scope of access and continue to raise the awareness of that. And certainly Wellpoint is on the cutting edge of all those different things, of expanding care, expanding the reach and scope, offering services into the community, offering services to children throughout the community and meeting people where they’re at.” Why is that so important here in Milwaukee? “If you think about the City of Milwaukee and the trauma that the city is seeing, whether it be violence in the community with young people, bad role models that they may have and other things like that, it’s really important that we provide that access to health care, access to behavioral health for young people, both in person and the virtual services. Again, meeting people where they are, not waiting for folks to come to us, but going to where they are directly, and offering those therapeutics, addressing their issues around trauma, issues around anxiety, coping skills and calming skills to really help individuals flourish. When young people have the ability to cope and relieve anxiety, we know that they’re going to do better in school, they’re going to be able to maximize their potential.” How has your past experience at Ascension prepared you for your new role at Wellpoint? “My past roles at Ascension Wisconsin have been great opportunities to really learn the things besides access to care that impact health care outcomes. … I learned in those roles at Ascension Wisconsin that the determinants of health that we call them, whether or not someone has access to employment, housing that’s affordable and safe, access to food and they have food security. Employment, education, all those things impact an individual’s ability to be healthy and have healthy outcomes and flourish. What Wellpoint does through the Seven Essential Ingredients (of trauma informed care), as well as the five essentials (pillars), is that they focus in on those wraparound services along with the trauma prevention, behavioral health prevention (and) intervention to really help treat a person mind, body and spirit — the whole person.” What are your priorities as CEO? “My priorities as CEO, I would say, for the first year, will be listening to and learning from our associates, working with our board of directors, our key stakeholders in the community, community leaders, civic leaders, business leaders, elected officials, to really understand things that Wellpoint can continue to do, where we can expand our services, where we can continue to provide the resources needed to the community. Spend a lot of time with our families and individuals that we’re privileged to serve. So I’m going to do a lot of listening, a lot of learning, a lot of meeting, a lot of engaging and gathering information and data and taking that back to our passionate associates, our board directors, and again, continue to formulate strategies, plans and tactics to expand our reach and impact.” Do you have any ideas right now for areas where Wellpoint could expand its services? “Right now, we want to continue to expand our services, to expand behavioral health, school-based behavioral health and those therapeutics. We’re in 50 schools throughout the community. I think that is a unique position to be in to continue to provide that scope and scale. Again, meeting people where they’re at. But then we’re going to be looking at other ideas around the things I talked about, the needs of the whole person. Access to education, food, employment, housing, food security and ways we can integrate and create those intersections between those things, behavioral health prevention and intervention, to help people flourish.” What do you think will be your greatest challenge as you take on this new leadership role? “I think I have a lot to learn in terms of meeting the needs of the community. Certainly, I learned a lot at Ascension Wisconsin around this work, and there’s still a lot to learn. And I think my biggest challenge will be to continue to expand my knowledge around trauma, my knowledge around the child welfare system and intersections of how we can maximize impact there, and that’s why I’m going to be focusing a lot of my attention on, is that listening and learning and building strategic alliances and partnerships, because we can’t do this work alone. The issues are too big, the scale is complex and complicated.” You’re taking over from Ann Leinfelder Grove, who spent nearly 30 years with the organization. How do you hope to continue or build on her work? “I’m really blessed to have the ability to have this great, great knowledge transfer and transition. Ann has been a trusted advisor up to this point. I start officially on this coming Monday. Ann will serve in an advisory capacity to me throughout the rest of the calendar year, and Ann will be working side-by-side with me to help me, brief me, educate me and certainly provide that advice and counsel of her knowledge over 30 plus years in this place and space. I’m just really fortunate to have her and the board, that support and working as an advisor to me and to the leadership team.” What inspired you to get involved with this type of community impact work? “Building opportunity, strengthening community and enriching lives — those three things have been the things that have driven my purpose in my life and my career, and (in) every role I’ve had, I’ve been able to accomplish one of all three of those things. I look forward to the next chapter and the next journey at Wellpoint, and continue to build on the great mission and legacy there, and continue to build opportunity for our community, for our families and our children that we’re privileged to serve, continue to strengthen and enrich lives. That’s going to be my focus point, the next journey and chapter at Wellpoint.” What else should Milwaukee’s business community know about you? “I’m blessed and humbled and trusted with the responsibility of being in this role. I look forward to working with the business community (and) the civic community on addressing an important and emerging need in our community, and working with our children and making sure that the next generation of Milwaukeeans and Wisconsinites have the opportunity to thrive and meet their full potential. If we can do that, we’re going to continue to build a strong community. The foundation is already strong, and certainly we have a lot of unique challenges, things that we have to do in partnership to overcome it, and I want to be a part of working with the business and civic community to look for solutions to do that.” How can members of Milwaukee’s business community further support Wellpoint’s mission? “My call to action to the business community would be, I would sit down any place, any time, with any business and civic leader to talk about issues. Even looking forward to working with the new MPS superintendent (Brenda Cassellius) and other leaders, elected officials, public officials, and my door is open, and I’m hoping they will have an open door for me to sit down and talk to them, brainstorm and have joint solution brainstorming sessions. Certainly resources are also important. I believe that certainly our strategic partnership is a two way street, so I think there’s a lot of value that we can bring to support the business and civic community around solutions. I think Wellpoint Care Network has the thought leadership to be able to continue to move the paradigm around these issues. We want to convene, we want to collaborate and we want to facilitate with them on these very important matters.”

Q&A: Wellpoint Care Network’s new CEO looks to build opportunity, strengthen community and enrich lives

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Q&A: Wellpoint Care Network’s new CEO looks to build opportunity, strengthen community and enrich lives

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