Charlie Baker joined the UnitedHealth Group committee in November 2023, only eight weeks into his eight-month tenure as president of the NCAA. In announcing his contrast, the business praised Baker’s track record in both politicians and plan, including his “deep health care knowledge”.
Baker’s experience may be more important for the health plan monopoly than previously. The business has become the target of a much wider pushback against companies, who countless Americans believe are badly placing revenue before public health after the death of a top executive earlier this month on a street in New York City. Baker was somewhat criticized for helping Harvard Pilgrim avoid debt in the late 1990s.
His appointment as UnitedHealth Group’s command last year was a result of the company’s wider effort to reorganize its board, which has welcomed some new directors since the company’s incorporation in 2019.

At the time of his appointment, Baker stated in a statement that” United Health Group has unique features to enhance health care benefits, lower prices, and make the experience better for both patients and services,” adding that he was “honored to join such a recognized board.”
In a surrogate statement, the business noted Baker’s “distinguished career in business, nonprofit and government supervision”, which included his position as CEO of volunteer health insurer Harvard Pilgrim. An described matrix outlining the director nominees ‘ “skills &amp, expertise” showed Baker checking eight of 11 necessary boxes, with his several lacking assets being a lack of medical practice, diversity and experience with direct-to-consumer markets.
Through his dual role, President Baker is in an enviable position to have an impact and enhance access to healthcare for millions of Americans, as well as college athletes, according to Julie Sommer, executive director of The Drake Fund Education Fund, a sister organization of the college sports reform group. The NCAA is seeking legislative guidance on NIL, compensation, antitrust exemptions, and other issues that could make it a partner in athlete health and well-being, and the needs of young people who put their bodies on the line for their schools and fans can no longer be ignored.
Following the Dec. 4 targeted killing of Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare, the company has come under increasing media attention and public animus. ( United Healthcare is a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, a multinational corporation with a presence in Minnesota and a stake in the healthcare technology company Optum. )

Baker is unknown to have addressed his UnitedHealth Group role in public other than the statement that came with the press release of his board appointment, and he did not respond to a request for comment for this story sent through an NCAA spokesperson.
For his quarterly compensation as a company director, Baker received 151 shares of deferred common stock units in October, which are immediately vested but must be kept in place for the duration of his board service. According to SEC disclosures, that brought Baker’s total common stock holdings to 622 shares, which is worth around$ 300, 000 as of Tuesday morning—down from a high of$ 389, 000 on Nov. 11.
On Friday, ProPublica reported on internal documents produced by Optum, which it described as the company’s” strategic playbook” in denying treatment to thousands of children with autism. Andrew Witty, the CEO and de facto board member of UnitedHealth Group, wrote an article for the New York Times that day to try to lower the heat of the recent negative reviews of the business. Instead, it produced a lot of negative comments.
Baker can relate to Witty’s predicament.
At a time when the insurance company was heading for bankruptcy, Baker assumed the position of CEO of Harvard Pilgrim in 1998. In 2000, the company, which had recently ended its operations in Rhode Island, was put into a temporary receivership with the state of Massachusetts. Its net worth at the time was negative$ 100 million, and it was anticipated to experience more and more losses.
With Baker as president, Harvard Pilgrim developed a turnaround plan to increase revenue by the second half of 2000, which included lowering premiums by 15 % and dropping coverage for some senior policyholders. By 2008, the company was on solid financial footing and Baker was rewarded with$ 1.7 million in compensation. Baker made his first attempt to run for governor of Massachusetts in July 2009, which Deval Patrick ultimately defeated. Prior to preparing for his second gubernatorial run in 2014, he was appointed an executive in residence for the venture capital firm General Catalyst.

During that campaign, Baker’s Harvard Pilgrim pay—which had tripled over the course of his tenure—became the source of repeated attacks by his Democratic challenger, Martha Coakley.
Baker and his supporters argued in response that Coakley, who had been the former Massachusetts attorney general for three of the years he spent at Harvard Pilgrim, gave the impression that he had saved the company from collapsing at a critical time.
In the end, Baker won the race and gave health care reform more weight during his presidency, signing numerous pieces of legislation and standing up for President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act against Republican attacks.
Baker is not the only NCAA official to have served on a corporate board while also serving the organization’s president. Mark Emmett, a former head of the NCAA, served on the boards of directors for the pharmaceutical services provider Omnicare, the timberland company Weyerhaeuser, and the world-wide logistics company Expeditors International of Washington. Donald Remy, the NCAA’s chief legal officer, joined the board of Garretson Resolution Group in September 2016 just two months after the organization had been given the authority to oversee the NCAA’s concussion monitoring program. He later served as the Department of Veterans Affairs ‘ deputy secretary.