Thomas Higgins

Thomas Higgins was the founding chief executive and is a director at Prosetta Biosciences, Inc. He served as the president and CEO from 2003-2008. Prior to that, he was president and chief operating officer of Business for Social Responsibility. BSR is the leading global resource for businesses seeking to improve their performance in areas of corporate social responsibility.

Higgins served in the administration of President Carter, beginning as a senior executive at HEW, where he was Director of Region VII, and at HHS, as Associate Commissioner of the Social Security Administration. His service culminated as a presidential appointee on the White House Senior Staff, where he served as Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet. He was elected to the Iowa General Assembly in 1972, where he served three terms and was chairman of the Human Resources Committee, before resigning to serve in the Carter administration. In the early 1980s, he was the head of the Health and Social Services Department in Portland, Oregon.

In 1983, he began his private sector career as the founding Publisher and President of The Business Journal in Portland, published by American Cities Business Journals. Subsequently, Higgins became the co-founder and editor-in-chief of HealthWeek, a national newspaper covering health business news in the United States, published by CMP Publications. In 1990, Higgins was recruited as a vice president of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Maryland. He was subsequently elected a Senior Vice President of the company, with broad responsibilities for operations and staff organizations.

Higgins was subsequently a senior vice president of Edison International and its subsidiary, Southern California Edison. Edison is a $15 billion power generation and electric distribution company. During his career with the company, Higgins served on the management committee and helped to set the overall strategy for the company. He had responsibility for several staff functions and was president of Edison Enterprises, an unregulated subsidiary.

Higgins has a distinguished record of community service. He currently serves on the boards of directors of Scan Health Plan, a non-profit Medicare Advantage Plan serving California and Arizona residents; St. Ambrose University, where he graduated cum laude in 1967; The Coalition to Transform Advanced Care; and The SCAN Foundation. In addition, his corporate boards include Amber Kinetics, an energy storage company, Akonni Biosystems, and IIC, an energy software company.