Jennifer Velez

Jennifer Velez is the Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey (Horizon BCBSNJ). Prior to joining Horizon BCBSNJ, Ms. Velez served as the Chief Impact Officer of Shatterproof — a national not-for-profit organization dedicated to transforming addiction treatment and reversing stigma. Her work focused on transforming the way addiction treatment is accessed and delivered in the United States.

Ms. Velez is a deeply experienced community health executive whose previous work has focused on improving the societal and economic issues that impact vulnerable communities. Prior to Shatterproof, she served as an Executive Vice President of RWJBarnabas Health, where she led the health system’s interdisciplinary response to the opioid epidemic. During her tenure, she expanded the peer recovery specialist model and medication-assisted treatment as effective interventions to combat the disease of addiction and introduced the community health worker model as an evidence-based, effective workforce model to address social determinants of health.

Ms. Velez joined RWJBarnabas Health in March 2015, as Senior Vice President of Strategy and Planning, after serving eight years as the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Human Services under both Governors Chris Christie and Jon Corzine.