President of Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield West Virginia
John “Jay” Sheehy III is the president of Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield West Virginia, which serves approximately 250,000 members through the company’s health care benefits business as well as a comparable number of additional members through the national BlueCard® program. Based in Parkersburg, Mr. Sheehy is responsible for all West Virginia market functions. This includes health, dental, vision and stop-loss products and services in the West Virginia market.
Prior to his appointment to president-elect of Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield West Virginia in July 2025, Mr. Sheehy was the chief underwriting officer at Gravie. In this role, Jay was responsible for building out the Underwriting Organization including overseeing the people strategy, developing key management tools, policies/guidelines, enhancing controls and several other related activities.
He spent a significant portion of his career in key leadership positions at Aetna, including Chief Underwriting Officer, President and Head of the Government and Public Sector and Head of National Accounts Underwriting. He also held Business, Operations, Product and Underwriting leadership roles at AIG, CIGNA and Emblem Health.
He served on the Board of Directors for Strive, a nonprofit organization serving disadvantage Americans in twelve markets in the US. He was also a member of the State of Arizona Life & Guaranty Fund.
Over the past several years, he has worked with BusinessFrance in an advisory role for Digital Health Care start-ups looking to enter the US and Canadian markets. Previously, Mr. Sheehy served as the Chairman of the Board for Laya Healthcare, the second largest healthcare company in Ireland up to 2015.
He also supported other industry-related activities during his career, including working with House of Lords on evaluating the impacts of the aging population on health systems and the overall economies in the UK in 2014.