Mass Advantage hires five-person executive team, drawing from Steward, Fallon, Shields

Photo | Courtesy of Mass Advantage Mary Hsieh was appointed Mass Advantage's first CEO.

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By Katherine Hamilton

UMass Memorial Health’s new Medicare Advantage health insurance plan, Mass Advantage, announced on Wednesday five hires who will make up its leadership staff.

The new additions, Heather Trafton, Beth Helenius, James Beermann, David Finkelstein, and Maggie Perritt, will work with the recently appointed CEO Mary Hsieh to launch and oversee Mass Advantage, according to the announcement.

Heather Trafton, the former senior vice president and chief operating officer at Texas-based Steward Health Care Network, will serve as Mass Advantage’s COO. She led Steward’s operational expansion across 10 states and worked as a physician assistant for 14 years.

Hired to be the chief sales and marketing officer, Beth Helenius comes from a position as vice president of commercial sales at Worcester insurer Fallon Health. She has also led the Medicare Advantage sales and operations team.

With more than three decades of healthcare experience focused on health insurance plans, James Beermann will serve as CFO of Mass Advantage. He previously served as the president of a provider-sponsored Medicare Advantage plan, guiding the startup to achieve market-leading sales.

David Finkelstein was hired as chief strategy officer and comes to Mass Advantage from a position as operator-in-residence at Stoughton-based Shields Capital, where he developed and launched the firm’s company-building strategy.

Maggie Perritt will serve as Medicare compliance officer. A registered pharmacist with 30 years of healthcare experience, she has previously worked as the corporate compliance officer for a pharmacy benefits manager, a Medicare Advantage organization, and a third-party administrator.