Jpmorgan taps Walmart exec Pegus for new health venture

NEW YORK: Walmart Inc healthcare executive Cheryl Pegus will join Jpmorgan Chase & Co’s Morgan Health venture as a managing director, with aims to improve employer-sponsored health care.

The move creates a vacancy at the nation’s largest retailer, as rivals like Amazon.com Inc and CVS Health Corp broaden their reach into the US$4 trillion (RM18.2 trillion) US healthcare industry.

It’s also a high-profile hire for Morgan Health, which the bank launched last year after shutting its joint venture with Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway Inc, known as Haven.

Pegus, a cardiologist with a master’s in public health, joined Walmart less than two years ago as executive vice-president of health and wellness to lead the company’s emerging strategy.

During her tenure, the company acquired the small telehealth provider MEMD, launched a new low-cost insulin and signed a deal with Unitedhealth Group Inc to care for Medicare patients at Walmart Health centres.

Pegus called herself “an entrepreneur at heart” in an interview. As a managing director at Morgan Health, she’ll work with the company’s venture group investing Us$250mil (Rm1.14bil) in innovative health companies.

Pegus said she was drawn to the opportunity to develop new approaches to health care that other large employers can replicate.

“The work that we are doing in health care today feels different than pre-pandemic,” she said in the interview. “There’s a sense of urgency of how quickly we can move.”

In addition to investing in startups, Morgan Health is testing new approaches to health benefits and care delivery for Jpmorgan’s own workforce.

Dan Mendelson, Morgan Health’s chief executive officer, said Pegus will bring clinical expertise to the bank’s effort to improve care in areas like mental health, diabetes and other chronic diseases.