Leslie A. Behnke
Vice President Six Sigma Business Excellence, CIGNA
In late 2002, Leslie Behnke joined CIGNA to deploy Six Sigma Business Excellence, an enterprise-wide Six Sigma quality initiative based upon a unique, holistic model. This model has won recognition at numerous national quality conferences. It comprises an integrated system of business management and governance tools, Lean/DMAIC/Kaizen, DFSS and reinforcement-based leadership principles. Using this model, Leslie has led a successful initiative yielding accelerated business results for CIGNA, with a total annualized financial impact over $200M and climbing rapidly. Based on these results, CIGNA’s CEO received the 2007 Six Sigma CEO of the Year award from Worldwide Conventions and Business Forums. CIGNA also won the 2006 Quality Recognition Award from ASQ’s Hartford Section.
Prior to joining CHC, Leslie led the global deployment of Six Sigma, total cycle time reduction and total customer satisfaction strategies for over a decade at Motorola. Leslie pioneered early work in applying Six Sigma in a service environment through the Steps to Service Quality process. Initial application of this process lead to over $35 million in operating profit and later drove strategic partnerships with key customers, suppliers and governments.
Leslie twice received Motorola’s highest recognition for best-in-class performance in quality - The CEO Quality Award. First was for the innovation and successful implementation of Six Sigma in a service environment, and second for a Six Sigma launch of a new manufacturing facility in Shanghai, China. Leslie and her teams also received USA Today’s Quality Cup Award and also with Chineses Quality Control Association’s Leading Enterprise Award for partnership in developing service quality standards in China.
Leslie attended the Universite de Bordeaux, France, and the University of California Berkeley where she received undergraduate degrees in information science and French.
Leslie continues to lead and drive quality and cultural change throughout CIGNA. CIGNA provides health care products and services, group disability and life and accident insurance in the United States.
