By AWE Staff
Rebecca Mechanik is Vice President, Operations for Catamaran, a $15 billion pharmacy benefits management company that helps organizations and the communities they serve take control of prescription drug costs. She is a dynamic operational leader with 30 years of work experience in the Pharmacy Benefit Management and Pharmaceutical industries. She began her career in financial planning and analysis and spent several years leading teams that supported operating functions, focusing on process improvement. She made the transition to operations about 15 years ago and since then has led large operational functions, including mail order pharmacies, call centers and plan administration teams. During that time, her focus has been on operational integration and transformation.
Rebecca has three areas of responsibility as Vice President of Operations, which include benefit administration, print fulfillment and manual claims processing. These teams deliver critical services to members and clients. Rebecca joined Catamaran in 2006, just as they were charting a course to transform from a pharmacy software company to a pharmacy benefits management company. During the last eight years, she has lead or established many different functional areas as the company grew from 300 employees to over 4000. Her key accomplishments include the growth and integration of the call center operation following multiple acquisitions and aggressive organic growth.
Prior to joining Catamaran, Rebecca was a Vice President/General Manager at CaremarkRx, also a pharmacy benefit management company, managing their mail order pharmacy in Ft. Lauderdale Florida. After turning around the underperforming operation, she opened a new fully automated pharmacy and migrated production successfully to the new site on time and within budget. She also opened a new fully automated mail order pharmacy in Phoenix during this same period. Additionally, Rebecca previously held various finance leadership positions at CaremarkRx and G.D. Searle, a pharmaceutical company.
In each of these roles, Rebecca brought her talent to organize and prioritize the ideas of her team to achieve results. Through a methodical, process-focused approach she is able to set direction for performance improvement initiatives. She creates a culture of initiative, accountability and collaboration within the team to organize and complete projects. As a leader, she helps her team work through obstacles, deliver outcomes that improve operational effectiveness, best leverage talent and create strong foundations that can be built upon.
Rebecca has a Master of Management from the Kellogg School at Northwestern and a bachelor’s degree in Economics Summa Cum Laude from Tufts University.