New Director of Financial Planning & Analysis Announced by (HPSJ) Health Plan of San Joaquin

03/10/2016

(French Camp, CA) – Health Plan of San Joaquin (HPSJ) has announced that Ben Austin has joined HPSJ as the new director of financial planning and analysis.  Austin comes to HPSJ as a leader who has developed and implemented effective company-wide change management initiatives, process improvements and business development strategies for increasing operating performance.  He has deep knowledge and experience in planning, budgeting and forecasting, with a solid track record in recruiting, developing and coaching teams to support organization goals and values. 

“For the past six years, I have focused on the healthcare landscape, believing that access to quality care can only be achieved in an environment of sustainable business operations that are geared to serving members, while supporting the staff that make financial stewardship possible,” said Austin.

“As HPSJ continues to work diligently to maintain good financial position backed with strong financial analytics, Ben Austin brings a wealth of experiences and tools to help keep us moving forward,” added HPSJ Chief Financial Officer Michelle Tetreault.

Most recently Austin was on assignment at Kaiser Permanente Hospital (Santa Clara, California) as director of decision support and analytics.  He previously had been senior finance manager at Kaiser Permanente Insurance Company (Oakland), and he was finance manager at Universal American, a Medicare Advantage plan (Houston, Texas).  Earlier in his career, he held management consultant positions with Grey Wolf Drilling Company (Houston) and FedEx Services (Silicon Valley, California), and he was chief financial officer for Seneca Real Estate Development (Oakland). 

Austin received his bachelor of arts in business administration – with minors in economics and philosophy – from Southwestern University (Georgetown, Texas).  He then went on to earn a master of business administration from California State University, East Bay.  In 2008, Austin co-authored “Validation of the Moral Competency Inventory Measurement Instrument: Content, Construct, Convergent and Discriminant Approaches,” for the publication Management Research Review (Volume 33).  The paper was awarded Best Track Paper for Management.  He has continued professional development through Stanford University School of Medicine (Compassion Skills Training), University of Chicago Booth School of Business (business planning), and Stanford Graduate School of Business Executive Education (Decision Science).