Renée Finley is the Founder and Past President of GuideWell Innovation with a mission of transforming the health industry by rapidly accelerating health innovation. In this role, Finley provides leadership to GuideWell’s Innovation Center in Lake Nona, a global epicenter of health excellence, where thought leaders converge to address current state issues, evaluate emerging trends, and commercialize new solutions that are reshaping the health industry. In this role, Finley led industry changing research and development, and served as the executive champion for key innovation partnerships including the Lake Nona Institute and Healthbox, an entrepreneurial accelerator and investment fund for health care startups. Additionally, she was responsible for promoting and enabling an enterprise-wide culture of innovation and imagination for GuideWell and its family of companies including, Florida Blue, the Blue Cross Blue Shield plan in Florida.

Prior to this role, Finley served in an 18-month appointed position for the Jacksonville Mayor’s office to establish and lead the first ever Office of Public Private Partnerships, where she was responsible for encouraging the use of public-private partnerships to support the mayor’s priorities, as well as facilitating state, national and international initiatives and research regarding the use of public-private partnerships for the provision of public services and public facilities.

Finley has held a number of leadership positions at Florida Blue, most recently as vice president of corporate and market strategy where she was responsible for leading corporate and enterprise market strategy, integrated market intelligence and marketing planning and controllership. Finley’s other leadership positions include vice president of health business market segments; president of Incepture, a subsidiary of Florida Blue; CEO and managing director of Novitas Health, LLC., an alliance between Florida Blue and Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield; a Principal for business and alliance development at Navigy, a Florida Blue subsidiary; and as director of IT strategy and architecture. Prior to joining Blue Cross Blue Shield, Finley was Assistant Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta with accountability for automation systems and network management for the southeast banks of the 6th Federal Reserve District.

Finely is active in the community and was named as one of the Top 25 Women of Influence in North East Florida in 2011 and was recognized in 2008 as United Way’s Campaign Chair of the Year for her leadership role in the largest employee campaign in Northeast Florida. She serves on the executive committee of the PineCastle board of directors and chairs the advocacy subcommittee for Women in Local Leadership’s Success By Six Program for the purpose of advancing early childhood development. She also serves on the Board of the Florida Theater, the Florida Blue Foundation, the Jax Regional Health Collaborative, the CIC Wealth Advisory Board, the JU Alumni Board and the advisory board of the JU Davis College of Business. Additionally, she provided leadership to the Marketing Diversity Business Council and was an America’s Health Insurance Plans minority development mentor.

Finley holds a Master of Business Administration from Jacksonville University and has completed executive development programs at University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business. Additionally, she received her certification from Wharton for Strategic Thinking and Management for Competitive Advantage and participates as a Wharton Fellow.