The Sterling Team
The Sterling Management Team
Cora M. Tellez, Chief Executive Officer
A co-founder of Sterling HSA, Cora serves as company CEO. She has 25 years of management experience in health care finance and delivery. Prior to founding Sterling HSA, Tellez was President of the health plans division of Health Net, Inc., an insurance provider that operated in seven states and achieved revenue of $8 billion from health plans. She has also served as President of Prudential's western health care operations; CEO of Blue Shield of California, Bay Region; and Regional Manager for Kaiser Permanente of Hawaii.
Chris Bettner, Executive Vice President of Business Development
With over 19 years of experience in health care sales and management with health insurance carriers, Chris serves Sterling HSA as Executive Vice President of Business Development. Prior to joining the company, Chris was Vice President of Sales for Blue Shield of California. She held similar positions at Lifeguard, FHP, Independence Blue Cross and MetLife.
Bill Rose, Chief Financial Officer
Bill has thirty-five years experience in financial management, principally with health care companies. He served in executive financial positions with Kaiser Permanente in California, Colorado and Oregon. His distinguished career includes serving as the top financial officer for Kaiser’s Northern California Region with revenues in excess of $10 billion.
Nancy Brumfield, Chief Marketing Officer
With almost 30 years of marketing experience in a variety of industries and companies, Nancy has expertise in all facets of consumer and business marketing. She has contributed to the development and growth of small start-up companies and large corporations, including Charles Schwab, the American Heart Association, McCaw Cellular Communications/AT&T Wireless Services, and Sterling HSA. Nancy has been with Sterling HSA since its inception. Prior to joining Sterling, Nancy founded and managed a marketing consulting business where she provided strategic and tactical marketing program design, development and launch management services for clients including Microsoft, Western Wireless, and Extend America (a Nextel alliance).
Michael Eagan, Chief Technology Officer
Michael has been with Sterling HSA since it’s inception in February of 2004. Michael brings over a decade of experience in enterprise software design, development, and implementation to the technical team. Prior to Sterling, Michael served as the Director of Engineering at HealthNet of California in the New Ventures Group, a specialized division of HealthNet focused on developing tools based on new technologies to streamline health care processes for health plan members, physicians, hospitals and employers. Michael received his Bachelor of Arts in Cognitive Science with an emphasis in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley.
Darice Balabanis, Director of Sales, Northern California
Over the last ten years, Darice has worked with well-known Carriers such as MetLife and Cigna. As an Underwriter at MetLife, Darice analyzed and interpreted quote requests to generate proposals for Dental, Life, and Disability. At Cigna, Darice managed short-term disability cases for policyholders, United Parcel Service (UPS), Northwest Airlines, and Supervalu as an Account Manager. Darice has been on both sides of the health benefits spectrum and has gained more than 10 years of industry-related experience along the way. Darice is fully committed to putting that knowledge to work for you to help increase your business.
Darrell Perkins, Director of Sales, Northern California
Darrell brings years of successful insurance industry sales experience to Sterling HSA. Prior to joining the company, Darrell was an Account Director with Colonial Life & Accident Insurance where he created cost-saving benefit strategies for his clients nationwide. While with Colonial, Darrell was honored with numerous sales awards, including the Northern California Rookie of the Year for highest sales.
Nora Blay, Director of Financial Channel and National Accounts
Nora Blay has over 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry, including managed healthcare, disability management and workers' compensation managed care. Because of her healthcare expertise, Nora has served in key management positions for several companies in the industry and is a published author in healthcare journals. Nora now serves as the Director, Financial Channel and National Accounts for Sterling HSA and is responsible for building and managing relationships within the financial services sector. Sterling is the private label HSA administrator for a number of banks offering HSAs to their customers. Prior to joining Sterling, Nora was Director of Sales and Marketing for Sagebrush Solutions, LLC, a health audit company designed to identify, validate and recover claim processing overpayments and fraudulent claim practices. From 1988 through 2004, Nora was an independent healthcare consultant and also served as and officer and consultant for William M. Mercer, Inc. in San Francisco. Nora holds an MBA degree from Golden Gate University in San Francisco, CA.
Lola Christensen, Reimbursement Services
Lola brings great skills and depth to customer service at Sterling HSA. She managed membership accounting departments such as operations, Medicare, small group billing and trust funds for organizations in the health care industry for many years of her career. Lola was also manager of business offices for Kaiser Hospitals in Northern California and Senior Business Consultant for the Kaiser Health Plan IT department.
The Sterling Advisory Board
Joan Haratani
Joan is a partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. She has an extensive trial and pre-trial practice ranging from products liability to securities fraud. Prior to joining Morgan Lewis & Bockius n 2005, Joan was Partner at Shook, Hardy & Bacon; and Crosby, Heafey, Roach & May. Currently, Joan is President of the Board of the Bar Association of San Francisco. She has received numerous awards for both her practice accomplishments and service on behalf of minority practitioners.
Wayne Moon
Another key Advisory Board Member, Wayne has over 40 years of experience in the health care industry. He currently serves as Chairman of RelayHealth Corporation and was Chairman and CEO of Blue Shield of California for seven years. Prior to Blue Shield, Wayne was President, COO and a Director of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals. He has also served in administrative roles with hospitals in Connecticut, Iowa and West Virginia.