Sarah Ernst
Sarah Ernst has dedicated 22 years to the healthcare insurance industry, beginning her career in 2004, and currently serves as Senior Manager of Strategy & Business Architecture at Florida Blue. In her role, she acts as the liaison between business stakeholders and technology teams for Blue Cross Blue Shield’s national Blue Card programs, supporting a network that delivers a seamless national experience to members across all independent Blue Cross Blue Shield licensees. Sarah is actively modernizing member services both in Florida and nationally, closing gaps between business needs and technology solutions while managing multiple responsibilities across strategy, operations, and process improvement.
A Lean Competency Systems LCS Black Belt and approximately 75% complete with her Master Black Belt certification, Sarah applies continuous improvement principles to every aspect of her work. She is also pursuing a Bachelor of Business Administration from Rasmussen University, reflecting her commitment to professional growth and strategic expertise. Colleagues recognize her as a forward-thinking leader who bridges complex technical and business challenges, implements process enhancements, and inspires her teams to achieve measurable outcomes while fostering a supportive, inclusive culture.
Beyond her primary role, Sarah serves as chairperson for Gen Next, Florida Blue’s employee resource group for retirees, where she works to enhance the retiree experience through Medicare education and seminars on topics such as fall prevention. She describes this work as deeply meaningful, spending time with what she affectionately calls “her old people” to ensure their well-being. Known for her mentorship, thought leadership, and dedication to elevating those around her, Sarah combines operational excellence with a strong commitment to community, innovation, and continuous improvement in the healthcare insurance industry.
• Lean Competency Systems LCS Black Belt
• Master Black Belt certification (75% complete)
• AI for Work and Life
• Black Belt Certification (BB)
• Green Belt Certification (GB)
• Chairperson, Gen Next Employee Resource Group
What do you attribute your success to?
I never gave up, and I don't take no for an answer. I always feel like there's a solution to every problem, and sometimes you've got to spin that ball around a few times to find the right one. I believe in failing fast and failing forward. We read that book on my team probably once a year and do a book club on it, and we get something different out of it every single time because you just get little nuggets based on positionally where you are. Honestly, as I continue to move up the ranks in leadership, what gets me the farthest is my emotional intelligence and something new that we've been working on that we learned from Esther Perel on relational intelligence. It's about navigating relationships and understanding yourself and your triggers and how you kind of react in those situations, and that has really been helpful for us. I make my team do it with me, too. I drag them through it.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice that I ever got was not to give up. When you are facing what you feel like is the biggest challenge of your career and you're at that cornerstone, you literally have two options. You give up, or you push through. And when you push through, even if you fail, you learn so much from it. I believe that you learn the most through failure. Everything is fixable, right? There's literally nothing anyone on my team can do that I can't fix.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
What I tell my team all the time is read the documents, so take the time, slow down, read, interpret, ask questions. No question is a bad question. And just don't give up, because it's not easy. You know, the healthcare industry is so hard, and so you just have to keep going.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge right now is the cost of care and how do we keep our premiums affordable for our members, because everything is extremely expensive right now and it's not attainable for folks. So the biggest challenges we're facing is the healthcare crisis in general, right? Affordability and accessibility. We're losing providers at an alarming rate because they don't want to be in the network, they don't want to do it anymore. And so, yeah, it's access and affordability that are probably the two biggest things that we're facing.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
For me, transparency is most important. I am very transparent with my team, I don't hold back, I'm pretty direct. But I'm able to be that way because I also lead with my heart, and they all know how much I care about them as people and their success. I always am very clear-cut with them on where, this is what we did, this is why it went well, or this is what we did, and this is why it did not go well, and here's how we can make it better in the future. I'm a big pivoter. We have a lot of jokes on our team where we talk, like, we have that Friends meme that we put up quite a bit where we're like, pivot! Pivot! We gotta pivot! We do that a lot.