Centene Corporation’s Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary Keith Williamson looks forward to making a positive contribution to St. Louis, and he already is making inroads in his hometown.
“What Centene is doing is working with state governments to make sure that people are getting quality care through Medicaid and related government-funded health care programs,” Williamson said.
“The challenge is to find out how we can serve more people and to give them better access to care but still do it in a very efficient and cost-effective way.”
Centene is a health care management corporation operating health plans in several states, Georgia, Indiana, New Jersey, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin.
Centene also contracts with other health-care organizations to provide specialty services including behavioral health, disease management, managed vision, nurse triage, and pharmacy benefit management and treatment compliance.
Centene’s second quarter revenues were 727.7 million, a 46.9 percent increase over the same period in 2006. Its quarter-end Medicaid managed care membership was 1.1 million.
Williamson oversaw legalities involved with Centene’s recent and major announcement that its corporate headquarters will move out of Clayton into Downtown St. Louis, in Ballpark Village.
“As general counsel I worked with our CEO (Michael F. Neidorff) and was involved in overseeing our outside counsel who handled the eminent domain litigation and the range of negotiations involved in our headquarters deal,” Williamson said.
Williamson heads three major areas of responsibility for Centene – legal (internal legal department and work with outside law firms), federal and state policy/regulatory issues and compliance.
“Because it is such a heavily regulated business, we have a number of policies and procedures and people who are involved in making sure that we are complying with the various laws,” said Williamson.
In the Ballpark Village deal, Centene and its partners formed BW Development Group to construct the new facility, named Centene Centre. Construction on the $250 million complex will begin in the spring of 2008. The group is purchasing two blocks in Ballpark Village, on the corner of Broadway and Walnut Street. Phase one of construction will include approximately 700,000 square feet of office space with street-level retail space and 1,450 parking spaces.
The company said the second phase of construction could include up to 550,000 square feet of space, as needed.
Along with the move Downtown is the prospect of creating additional jobs in St. Louis. Centene expects to bring 1,200 jobs into the Downtown area over the next three to five years.
Sensitivity to diversity
Williamson said diversity is a conscious effort at Centene, from membership of its board of directors to its suppliers and front-line employees.
“We try to recruit people who may have been participants in Medicaid and therefore they have an appreciation and sensitivity to the issues faced by that population,” said Williamson.
“We have really worked and partnered with minority-controlled and owned physician groups and companies. There are a couple of cases where we have entered into contracts to get services from minority-owned companies and actually even some cases where we have made investments to some of those companies to help strengthen them as providers to us.”
Williamson helped to create the Minority Corporate Counsel Association in New York, which later grew into a national organization.
“It provided networking opportunities for both in-house counsel and outside law firms and an opportunity to really encourage law firms and corporations to be sensitive to diversity issues,” Williamson said.
“It created a very successful series of programs designed to recognize what was being done in the diversity area in law and to encourage diversity through best practices that were being followed and by providing a forum to share those best practices.”
Williamson attended Thomas Jefferson High School in St. Louis County, which was a small, private boarding school for boys at the time. He followed his older brother’s footsteps in attending Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he earned a degree in economics and sociology.
He earned his M.B.A. and law degree at Harvard University and an LL. M. in taxation from New York University.
Williamson worked in corporate and tax law in Washington, D.C. and in New York. He spent 18 years at Pitney Bowes in Stamford, Connecticut on the legal and business side before joining Centene.
With less than one year back in the Gateway City following a 30-year absence, Williamson already serves on the board of the Mathews-Dickey Boys and Girls Club and is a member of the Mound City Bar Association and the Association of Corporate Counsel.
“It has been great coming back for me,” he said.
“As I have gotten back in the community, going to different churches and other places, people remember my parents, and that really helps me.”
Williamson said his late mother, Elizabeth Williamson, was dean of admissions in the School of Social Work at Washington University and his late father, Irving Williamson, was a St. Louis newspaperman, working as an editor for the Argus, the Mirror and the Sentinel.
He is maintaining family ties to two St. Louis churches connected to his parents – Antioch Baptist Church, where his father was an active member, and Cote Brilliante Presbyterian Church on his mother’s side.
Williamson describes his advice to young African Americans interested in a career in corporate law as both old-fashioned and relevant.
He said, “I would encourage them to follow their heart, find what they are passionate in and commit themselves to working very hard to obtain the skills and experiences to achieve their dreams.”
