WellPoint Named One of 25 “Best Companies for Multicultural Women” By Working Mother Magazine

WellPoint Named One of 25 “Best Companies for Multicultural Women” By Working Mother Magazine

Leslie Porras, 818-234-3368

WellPoint announced today that it has been named one of the 2013 “” by magazine. This honor recognizes WellPoint as one of the 25 U.S. corporations that create and use best practices in hiring, retaining and promoting women of color. This marks the third time WellPoint has received this distinction.

“We are proud that our workforce reflects the multicultural make-up of the customers we serve, including women who make 80 percent of the health care decisions for American families,” said Karin Sarratt, talent management and chief diversity officer at WellPoint. “This recognition is a testament to WellPoint’s commitment to a workforce with strong female representation at all levels of our organization.”

WellPoint supports the hiring and advancement of women – including working mothers – and is dedicated to creating an environment where every associate can succeed. Women’s advancement and success at WellPoint is supported by career and leadership development opportunities and, most importantly, a workplace culture that encourages flexibility, inclusion, wellness and work-life balance. WellPoint’s competitive benefits package includes numerous work-life benefits, many geared specifically to working parents, who comprise the bulk of the workforce.

Carol Evans, president of Working Mother Media, says, “The Best Companies for Multicultural Women know that a truly diverse workforce makes for an effective team, one that’s plugged into the needs and desires of its customers. Grooming female leaders has become a crucial mandate, and great companies are simultaneously weaving diversity into their culture. However, many challenges lie ahead for all U.S. companies to build a pipeline of diverse talent to represent them at every level of decision-making and management.”

The Best Companies for Multicultural Women requires candidates to have at least 500 employees. The winners were selected based on their answers to an extensive questionnaire on representation; hiring, attrition and promotion rates; recruitment, retention and advancement programs; and company culture. The Working Mother Research Institute created a scoring algorithm based on the previous year’s benchmark results to determine the winners. Key findings of the 2013 can be found on workingmother.com.

This recognition follows WellPoint’s recent ranking as number 40 on the 2013 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list and The DiversityInc Top 10 lists of Companies for Veterans and for People with Disabilities and, number 18 on the LATINA 50 Report for opportunities for professional Latinas in the workplace.

magazine reaches 2.2 million readers and is the only national magazine for career-committed mothers; WorkingMother.com () gives working mothers @home and @work advice, solutions, and ideas. This year marks the 28th anniversary of Working Mother’s signature research initiative, the Working Mother 100 Best Companies, and the eleventh year of the Best Companies for Multicultural Women. Working Mother Media, a division of Bonnier Corporation (), includes the National Association for Female Executives (NAFE, ), Diversity Best Practices (), and the Working Mother Research Institute. Working Mother Media’s mission is to serve as a champion of culture change.

At WellPoint, we believe there is an important connection between our members’ health and well-being—and the value we bring our customers and shareholders. So each day we work to improve the health of our members and their communities. And, we can make a real difference since we have nearly 36 million people in our affiliated health plans, and nearly 68 million people served through our subsidiaries. As an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, WellPoint serves members as the Blue Cross licensee for California; and as the Blue Cross and Blue Shield licensee for Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri (excluding 30 counties in the Kansas City area), Nevada, New Hampshire, New York (as the Blue Cross Blue Shield licensee in 10 New York City metropolitan and surrounding counties and as the Blue Cross or Blue Cross Blue Shield licensee in selected upstate counties only), Ohio, Virginia (excluding the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.), and Wisconsin. In a majority of these service areas, WellPoint’s plans do business as Anthem Blue Cross, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, or Empire Blue Cross (in the New York service areas). We also serve customers in several additional states through our Amerigroup subsidiary and in certain markets through our CareMore subsidiary. Our 1-800 CONTACTS, Inc. subsidiary offers customers online sales of contact lenses, eyeglasses and other ocular products. Additional information about WellPoint is available at .