Baylis Beard is the head of Blue Partnerships and Environmental Health and Sustainability at Ascendiun, parent of Blue Shield of California, one of California’s largest health insurers. In her role at the Family of Companies, Beard connects the dots between health and the environment, leading Blue Shield’s environmental sustainability work including mitigation and emissions reduction (cleaning up our footprint), adaptation and environmental resilience (weatherproofing our ‘house’ against risks), and health industry environmental leadership. Since joining Blue Shield in 2019, Beard launched multiple industry initiatives to catalyze further environmental action in healthcare, including the SustainaBlues working group across the national Blues. In 2024, under Beard’s leadership, Blue Shield became one of the first few health insurance plans to commit to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), the most rigorous and clearly defined pathway for companies to reduce their carbon footprint.
Before becoming the head of Environmental Health and Sustainability, Beard led the Innovation Learning and Impact Evaluation team in Health Transformation, evaluating and publishing Blue Shield’s first environmental impact assessment of virtual care (Lifecycle Assessment). Prior to Blue Shield, Beard had a 15+ year, award-winning career in social and sustainable innovation. Beard was a founding advocate, built and became Director of DC SAFE, the main crisis intervention and coordinated response agency for Washington DC metro area (earning awards from the US Navy, Department of Justice, and Office of Victim Services). At DC SAFE, she built over a dozen programs, including Lethality Assessment & Fatality Review Boards, Mass Casualty and Disaster Incident Taskforce, an award-winning shelter, and the city’s first 24/7, bilingual advocate responder program and Emergency Temporary Protection Order process, among others. She also consulted for public health, community health and nonprofits, and served as an advisor for the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission, leading human rights delegations focused on environmental justice and femicide. Realizing her passion for environmental work and addressing the health sector preparation for environmental health crises, Beard pursued her MBA with a focus on Sustainability at University of Southern California (USC) in 2016, receiving a Brittingham Fellowship on environmental and social enterprise. While pursuing her MBA, Beard launched Everyone’s Business Initiative at the USC Marshall School of Business, leading Marshall to become the first top US MBA program to achieve gender parity.
Beard grew up in Arkansas and Central America and is bilingual in English and Spanish. She currently resides in Long Beach, CA. She is passionate about her involvement with a number of nonprofits, including serving on the board of a Midwest non-profit focused on empowering BIPOC, under-served youth through STEM and data science.