People

WellPoint Inc. on Monday named Venkata Rajamannar Madabhushi as the new head of its Medicare business unit, replacing Brian Sassi, whom the company dismissed last month. Rajamannar also will oversee WellPoint’s international, marketing and product innovation divisions, as well as its corporate development functions. He will not direct WellPoint’s Medicaid and individual insurance plans, as Sassi did. Instead, those divisions are now headed up by Ken Goulet, who is CEO of WellPoint's commercial business unit. Before joining WellPoint, Rajamannar, who goes by the nickname "Raja," served as chief innovation and marketing officer at Humana Inc., a WellPoint competitor based in Louisville. He also spent 15 years in senior-level business management and marketing roles at Citigroup.

Indianapolis-based AIT Laboratories named Ron Thieme to succeed company founder Michael Evans as president and CEO. Thieme had been serving as vice president and chief information officer of AIT since 2007. Thieme holds bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from Purdue University.

Indiana University Health promoted Ryan Kitchell to be its chief financial officer. Kitchell, 38, replaces Marvin Pember, who left in July to take an executive position with Philadelphia-based hospital system Universal Health Services Inc. In November, Kitchell was named president of IU Health Plans after his predecessor Alex Slabosky retired. Kitchell first joined IU Health in September 2010 as treasurer, overseeing investments, cash management and corporate real estate. Before that, he worked more than five years for Gov. Mitch Daniels, first as public finance director and then as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Kitchell holds an economics degree from Indiana University and an MBA degree from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.