Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Nicola Sturgeon was arrested in Scotland, it was a historic night for nonbinary actors at the Tony Awards, and the Fortune 500’s youngest female CEO leads a major health insurer. Have a productive Monday!
– Healthy debate. Sarah London became CEO of Centene in March 2022. Her company is a Medicare and Medicaid insurer based out of St. Louis, ranked No. 25 on the Fortune 500 with $145 billion in annual revenue.
While London began her new role, her peer CEOs in health care were on an M&A spree. As Fortune’s Erika Fry and Maria Aspan wrote for the latest Fortune cover story, Big Health Care has spent the past few years getting bigger. Health care businesses dominate the Fortune 500 with $2.77 trillion in combined revenue, second behind only finance.
Deals like CVS Health’s acquisitions of primary care provider Oak Street Health and home health care specialist Signify Health—which totaled $19 billion—helped grow health care’s share of the Fortune 500 pie.
But Centene has bucked that trend. London has been on a “divestiture spree,” Erika Fry writes in a new piece for Fortune. The company sold off “non-core units” including its pharmacy benefits manager Magellan Rx and its Spanish and Central European businesses.
London is an unusual CEO in another way. Of the 52 women to lead Fortune 500 businesses, 42-year-old London is the youngest. She was appointed to the job after serving as Centene’s vice chairman and SVP of technology innovation and modernization. Before moving to Centene in 2020, she worked for UnitedHealth Group’s venture capital arm.
Now, her peers include CVS’s Karen Lynch and Elevance CEO Gail Boudreaux, the other two Fortune 500 female CEOs who lead health insurers. London has some thoughts on how women leaders may change health care: “It is an industry where a healthy dose of empathy in solution design and how you address problems gets you to a different answer.”
Read the full story here.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Arrest in Scotland. Nicola Sturgeon, the former first minister of Scotland, was arrested on Sunday as part of an investigation into the finances of the Scottish National Party. She was released without charges and called the situation "deeply distressing." Her husband had previously been arrested, and released without charges, as part of the same investigation. New York Times
- Out from Odey. Crispin Odey, the founder of the British firm Odey Asset Management, was accused of sexual harassment and assault by 13 women last week, with allegations covering a 25-year period. Partners at the firm, which has $3.8 billion in assets under management, said Odey would leave the organization and give up his ownership stake. Odey said that "none of the allegations have been stood up in a courtroom" and suggested he would fight the firm's decision. Financial Times
- Historic night. At last night's Tony Awards, Jodie Comer won the award for best leading actress in a play for Prima Facie, in which she plays a lawyer who defends men accused of sexual assault. J. Harrison Ghee and Alex Newell became the first nonbinary actors to win in categories for leading and featured actors in musicals. New York Times
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Decision time. The Supreme Court is expected to rule this month on a case that will decide the future of affirmative action. Experts expect the conservative majority to strike down the practice that allows for race to be a factor in college admissions. Fortune's Ellen McGirt examines the legacy of affirmative action and what such a decision would mean. Fortune
- Equal pay, one day. Saturday was the 60th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act. Meanwhile, a new study shows that the wage gap between men and women is not expected to close until 2056. Axios
- SKKY's the limit. Kim Kardashian presented at a conference in Berlin last week about her private equity fund, SKKY Partners. She told a packed crowd that she's "a storyteller" and is "so excited just to have the opportunity to help [founders] win." Bloomberg
ON MY RADAR
What happened to Great Jones? New Consumer
How I (mostly) got over my mom guilt Time
Samantha's cameo in the Sex and the City sequel and the complexity of female friendships CNN
PARTING WORDS
"Vive la old age!"
—Joni Mitchell, who performed her first announced concert in 20 years on Saturday
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