This is apparently my next “article,” because someone needs to do it. The starting point is Centene’s announcement of Bradley Bolivar as its new CIO.
For those who slept through history class, Simón Bolívar was “El Libertador,” the guy who helped lead multiple South American countries to independence from Spanish rule and had a habit of overthrowing the existing order. And now the new CIO is Bradley Bolivar, not Simón, and as far as I know they’re not related. But given what Bradley is walking into at Centene, the name is almost too good. So I’m calling my completely unlicensed prediction of what happens next The Bolivar Revolution.
I went digging because executive press releases tell you approximately nothing. Bolivar comes from Fannie Mae with a legitimately serious résumé in cloud, architecture, data, AI, automation, security, and enterprise transformation. And unlike some executive bios where “AI” magically appeared around November 2022, this guy appears to have actually done some of this sh-t.
The timing is also hilarious. Bolivar isn’t the only senior person leaving Fannie Mae. They’ve been going through major workforce and leadership upheaval, including roughly 1,200 departures in 2025 (8200 in 2024, 7000 now) and another recent purge of senior officials. Some of the latest eliminations were even attributed partly to increasing AI capabilities. So naturally Bradley likely looked around at that widespread organizational hellfire and apparently thought, ”You know where I’d like to go next? Centene.” 😉
Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/articles/trump-administration-dismisses-dozen-officials-194058657.html
Here’s my prediction. There are four ways this could go:
A: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Bolivar inherits Brian LeClaire’s organization, Susan Moon and DXE keep rolling, Accenture keeps collecting checks, “AI” gets stapled onto a few more PowerPoints, somebody invents six new acronyms, and eventually we declare the transformation transformed. (least likely)
B: The new sheriff starts asking questions. Why does this organization exist? Who owns this capability? Why is this outsourced? What exactly does this SOW produce? Where’s the data? How are we measuring value? And my personal favorite: why can’t Centene do this ourselves? Accenture probably isn’t going anywhere, but having to prove your value to the new CIO is a little different from being embedded by the old one, given this is basically the playbook they’ve used a few times before.
C: Fannie Mae South. This is the one to watch. Fannie is shedding experienced senior people at exactly the moment Bolivar takes over Centene technology. If one or two trusted Bolivar lieutenants suddenly change their LinkedIn employer to Centene, grab popcorn. Architecture, data, AI, engineering, security, and digital could start getting redrawn around his operating model rather than the one he inherited. As previously discussed by many, Moon and several others came from Brian LeClaire’s previous orbit. That’s how executive networks work. The interesting question is what happens when the new CIO shows up with a network of his own.
D: The plot twist. Bolivar eventually discovers that eliminating internal expertise, institutional knowledge, measurement, governance, and the annoying people who knew how all the pieces actually worked together wasn’t quite the efficiency play somebody thought it was. Centene quietly rebuilds the same connective tissue under exciting new names, adds three layers of management to it, and probably pays somebody $8-20 million to explain why it’s necessary.
My completely unlicensed crystal ball says B + C eventually produces D. Bolivar didn’t build his reputation maintaining somebody else’s org chart, and Sarah London didn’t say data, technology, and AI will “shape how we operate” because she wanted a caretaker CIO. The first real signal won’t be whatever shiny AI announcement comes next. Watch who follows him from Fannie, which boxes start moving at Centene, and which consulting SOWs suddenly have to explain why they exist.
There is at least one qualification we can probably remove from Bradley’s onboarding checklist: “Ability to navigate highly matrixed organizations.” The guy is leaving Fannie Mae amid leadership turnover, workforce reductions, political intervention, AI-driven job elimination, and general organizational hellfire, and walking directly into Centene.
He doesn’t need matrix training. He needs a helmet and directions to the bathroom.
Welcome to ”OneCenteam,” Bradley. You’ll be fine. 😂🍿