Twin Cities | UnitedHealth Group and Optum Advisory

Consulting delivery and relationship management in healthcare.

In healthcare since 2013 with health insurance payers, PBMs, and pharmacies. I set scope, timelines, success metrics, and governance with client executives, then coordinate pharmacy, analytics, operations, and digital work through implementation. I maintained 5–6 direct reports for several years and still mentor people from that team as well as others where I can provide value.

Portrait of Justin Lochner

Consulting

Client work, delivery, and the teams around it.

The clients were health insurance payers, PBMs, and pharmacies. The seat covered the account, the recommendation, and the implementation that followed.

Client relationships

Senior partner to named health-plan and PBM leaders. Source the work, keep expectations current, and stay the contact after the decision.

Delivery

Define scope, timelines, and success metrics, then convert the recommendation into sequenced work across mail, retail pharmacy, and PBM solutions.

Pharmacy and trend

Nearly 40% of solutions in the book related to Pharmacy Actuarial and Trend Management. I qualified when those teams would succeed. I did not own their delivery.

Governance

Coordinate pharmacy, technology, analytics, actuarial, operations, and finance. Surface delivery risk before scale, and keep sponsors aligned on both sides.

Investment decisions

Supported $15M–$60M initiative portfolios inside the Optum Rx Strategy Management Office, including the comparison process leaders used to decide what got funded.

People leadership

Maintained 5–6 direct reports for several years. Still mentors people from that team and others where I can provide value. Uses AI-enabled tooling for documentation, reporting, and decision support.

Experience

Thirteen years at UnitedHealth Group.

Optum Advisory, 2013 - Present. Consulting delivery across Optum Rx, Optum, and UnitedHealth Group for health insurance payers, PBMs, and pharmacies.

  1. 2022 – 2026

    Optum Rx Client Partner · Business Development & Strategy Lead

    Senior partner to named health-plan and PBM leaders. Defined scope, timelines, and success metrics, then converted recommendations into action across mail, retail pharmacy, and PBM solutions. Coordinated pharmacy, technology, analytics, actuarial, operations, and finance, and kept sponsors aligned on both the delivery and client sides. Sold and managed an AI integration that consolidated inconsistent operational data into performance reporting. Maintained 5–6 direct reports for several years. Nearly 40% of solutions sold into the book related to Pharmacy Actuarial and Trend Management; the work was qualifying when those teams would succeed, not owning their delivery.

    Contributed to 33% client-book growth in year one, incremental annual growth, and 60% year-over-year growth in 2026.

  2. 2020 – 2022

    Associate Director · Value Realization Program Lead

    Led the enterprise value-realization portfolio inside the Optum Rx Strategy Management Office. Supported investment decisions across $15M–$60M strategic initiatives in pharmacy, analytics, and operational transformation. Stood up the comparison process leaders used to decide what got funded.

  3. 2018 – 2019

    Senior Consultant · UHG Enterprise Marketing Operations

    Identified an estimated $50M in enterprise digital-conversion savings through print-taxonomy analysis. Packaged the findings as an investment case and operating playbook, including the Nationwide B2B Experience Center Playbook.

  4. 2017 – 2018

    Project Lead · Enterprise Risk Management Process Build

    Scoped, priced, sold, and delivered a ground-up ERM documentation program — mapping stress-testing methodologies and catastrophic-loss scenarios into governance leadership could actually use. Owned the cycle from thesis to close.

  5. 2016 – 2017

    Consultant · Consumer-Facing Digital Product Owner

    Owned the product roadmap for MedicareMadeClear.com — requirements, vendor delivery, testing, and experience upgrades. Used engagement data to prioritize the backlog.

    +22% year-over-year email engagement.

  6. 2015 – 2016

    Senior Analyst · Revenue Reconciliation Process Owner

    Owned master-data management against $12B in monthly client-specific product revenue across Optum businesses. Automated reconciliation and recovered 20+ hours per month of analyst time. Partnered with developers and business leads on the MDM ecosystem — matching disparate client records, automating survivor records, and working primary keys.

  7. 2013 – 2014

    Analyst · Insurance Retail & Process Optimization

    Supported structured prioritization of 80+ HealthNet medical-management recommendations by cost and impact. Improved retail insurance intake through documentation capture and streamlined pre-registration. With junior peers, scoped and delivered an Excel scheduling program that replaced a costly web tool and stayed in use for years.

Education

Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing & Finance

Augsburg University, 2009–2013. Tutor in finance, economics, marketing, and MIS. Augsburg Stewards philanthropy leader. Student-athlete.

Tools I live in

Excel (advanced modeling and automation) · PowerPoint (executive and board narratives) · Power BI, Tableau, Domo · Salesforce · Teams / Copilot

Contact

Open to consulting, delivery, and client-partner roles with health insurance payers, PBMs, and pharmacies.

I live in the Twin Cities. Cancer care is personal context — my father had stomach cancer — not a limit on the roles I will consider.

Email jklochner@gmail.com

Phone 320.761.2925

Location Twin Cities, Minnesota

Web justinlochner.com

LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/justin-lochner