Karla Mizelle

Karla Mizelle is Senior Vice President, Chief Operations and Member Experience Officer for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (Blue Cross NC). In this role, she leads work to create a more connected and innovative customer experience, including IT, Operations, Project Delivery Mobilization, and Portfolio Services and Quality. She is also responsible for advanced analytics, analytics products and practices, our overall digital strategy and the end-to-end member experience.

Karla is a passionate and results-driven leader with more than 25 years of experience in operations, customer experience, process improvement, digital strategy and business automation in the financial and manufacturing industries. During her 15-year career at General Electric (subsequently Genworth Financial), Karla completed GE’s Financial Management Program, obtained her Six Sigma Black Belt, and held various leadership roles in Finance and Operations. She overhauled several large-scale repeatable processes and led numerous strategic initiatives that materially reduced cycle times, increased capacity, and delivered up to $2.7 billion annual loss mitigation savings and ~$50 million in cost reduction. Karla also co-developed and executed the company’s patented digitization framework, recognized as a model for business transformation across GE Capital. 

Karla joined First Citizens in 2010, where she conceptualized and led the Bank’s Digital Transformation journey, while evolving the company’s delivery strategy from being late followers to becoming highly competitive. Her team implemented innovative capabilities that transformed the customer experience including digital account opening, mobile banking and digital banking for businesses, digital payments, financial management tools, intelligent deposit ATMs, a new .com website, and expanded self-service features.

Karla graduated Magna Cum Laude from Duke University in 1995 with a B.A. in Comparative Area Studies and a certificate in Markets & Management. She was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and graduated from high school in Puerto Rico. Karla is married with two children.