About
Since 2013, The Cigna Group has invested in a bold and enduring response to one of its most critical strategic needs: building a strong, enterprise‑ready pipeline of senior leaders capable of navigating complexity in a rapidly evolving global healthcare environment.
Few leadership programmes run for more than a decade. Fewer still continue to evolve in real time. Designed to build enterprise‑ready senior leaders for a complex global organisation, Cigna’s Technology & Operations Senior Leadership Program (TOSLP) is an 18–24 month, high‑touch leadership journey combining intensive executive coaching, deep senior‑leader exposure and a life‑changing global cultural immersion. Here’s how its longevity, depth and responsiveness have strengthened succession, leadership continuity and enterprise capability at the most senior levels of the organisation.
The Cigna Group identified a need for a senior leadership development programme at a pivotal moment in its evolution. As technology and operations became increasingly central to enterprise strategy, the organisation saw an opportunity to upskill, develop and empower high-potential senior leaders in the business.
Rather than adopting a short‑term or modular approach, Cigna made a deliberate decision to invest in a long‑term, deeply personalised leadership journey. The aim was not only to build skills, but to support sustained behavioural change, strengthen leadership continuity, and create a trusted pipeline of senior leaders prepared for roles that are often undefined, demanding and highly complex.
Cigna and Impact have partnered since 2013, designing and delivering an integrated senior leadership journey that has evolved in step with the organisation’s strategic context.
The programme combines several distinctive elements:
A long‑form, adaptive leadership journey - Spanning 18–24 months, the programme gives leaders the time and space to practise, embed and sustain new behaviours in the flow of their real work. While the overall architecture remains consistent, each cohort is shaped in real time to reflect what leaders are facing in the business.
Executive coaching as a continuous anchor - Participants receive personalised 1:1 executive coaching throughout the programme, enabling them to apply insight directly to live leadership challenges, deepen self‑awareness and accelerate meaningful behavioural change.
Experiential learning rooted in real work - The programme blends immersive leadership challenges, peer consulting and targeted skill sessions. Learning is practical, reflective and supported by managers and mentors for immediate application.
Global cultural immersion - A global market and cultural immersion in a developing healthcare context (often India) is a ‘life-changing’ and defining feature. This 7–10-day experience deepens cultural awareness, builds empathy and connects leaders to Cigna’s purpose.
Transformative mind-body-spirit leadership module - A non‑traditional, human‑centred module focused on resilience, wellbeing, and personal values gives leaders space to explore how their mindsets, physical wellbeing and internal drivers influence their leadership effectiveness.
Strong enterprise and senior leader involvement - Senior executive engagement creates alignment, accountability and visibility. Alumni remain involved as mentors and advocates, strengthening continuity and sustaining impact beyond each cohort.
Together, these elements create a leadership experience that is deeply personalised, highly adaptive to Cigna’s current reality and distinctly human‑centred.
Over more than 13 years of continuous delivery, the Technology & Operations Senior Leadership Program (TOSLP) has delivered sustained, measurable impact against Cigna’s core leadership needs: enterprise readiness, adaptability for evolving roles, and long‑term leadership continuity at senior levels. Outcomes are tracked through succession planning, role movement and retention data, providing clear evidence of organisational value.
At a level where opportunities naturally narrow, TOSLP has strengthened leadership stability and continuity, creating a trusted pool of senior leaders able to operate beyond functional boundaries.
- 35% of participants achieved a significant promotion to a higher leadership band.
- 9% expanded their enterprise scope through role moves within the same band.
- 25% of alumni are currently identified in Cigna’s succession pipeline as potential successors to their current leaders.
- The programme has experienced zero voluntary drop‑outs, despite its long‑term commitment and intensity.
Participants demonstrate stronger enterprise thinking, improved business acumen and greater cross‑functional influence, supported by exposure to senior leadership and enterprise‑level challenges. Alumni have applied enterprise‑level thinking developed through the programme to deliver tangible operational improvements, including a redesign of a high‑cost billing process that reduced processing time by approximately 99% without additional resourcing.
Over more than a decade of continuous delivery, TOSLP has delivered measurable, sustained impact for both leaders and the wider organisation.
As one senior Cigna leader reflects:
“TOSLP is one of the few programs I've experienced that genuinely changes how leaders think, not just what they know. The unique combination of executive exposure, structured self-assessment, coaching, and real cross-enterprise collaboration created a development experience that I still draw from today – I’m proud to be an alumna.”
The results of the review confirmed that the number of managers who present strategic and developing styles increased by over 20%. Moreover, the programme had a very positive impact on the inter-departmental / cross-functional cooperation, which is very important in such a large and diverse company as Polpharma."