2019 Agenda

Dr. Richard Milani brings a unique level of innovation and expertise to his role as Chief Clinical Transformation Officer for Ochsner Health System. He is currently Vice-Chairman of the Department of Cardiology, Professor of Medicine at Ochsner Clinical School – The University of Queensland School of Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana.

His background and research focus on population health with a special interest in chronic disease and medical informatics. He serves as the Medical Director of Innovation Ochsner (iO), a health innovation lab that is a subsidiary of the Ochsner Health System.

After receiving his Internal Medicine training at the University of Florida, Dr. Milani completed fellowships in Critical Care Medicine at the University of Florida, Preventive Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology at Harvard University (Massachusetts General Hospital), and Cardiovascular Diseases at Ochsner Clinic Foundation.

He has authored over 500 medical publications and serves as a frequent lecturer for healthcare systems and Fortune 500 companies. Additionally, he is a reviewer for several medical journals, and is the author of Death and Dollars: Solving the Epidemic of Chronic Disease.

Dr. Jennifer Avegno is a New Orleans native who received her undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame, a Master of Arts in Sociology from Tulane University and her MD from LSU School of Medicine – New Orleans.  She completed her residency at LSU/Charity Hospital Emergency Medicine and joined the faculty at both LSU and Tulane shortly after graduation, where she served as Associate Residency Director and Director of Undergraduate Emergency Medicine Education for both medical schools.  In 2017, she established the Division of Community Health Relations & Engagement in the LSU Section of Emergency Medicine, and as its director worked with institutional, governmental, and other community organizations to facilitate innovative programming, interdisciplinary partnerships, and improved population health outcomes.  Her clinical, program, and research interests include the role of social determinants of health, particularly access and barriers to care; health equity; violence intervention/prevention; sexual assault and human trafficking; and homelessness.  In 2018, she was appointed as the Director of the Health Department for the City of New Orleans, where she works with a dedicated team of public health professionals in addressing critical health needs for the community.  Honors include being named to Gambit’s “40 Under 40,” a CityBusiness Healthcare Hero, and several leadership and teaching awards.

Tom is a Managing Director for Sandbox Industries. He is the Board Chairman for Patientco. He serves as a Board Member of AbleTo, HeartFlow, Octave Bioscience, BehaveCare, and Oncology Analytics. He is a Board Observer of Phreesia, Healthify, and Wellspring Healthcare. Previously on the board of InVivoLink (acquired by HCA) and Nexidia (acquired by NICE). Before joining Sandbox, Tom matched at Yale School of Medicine for residency and completed his first year of medical training at Greenwich Hospital.

During his medical training, he worked on clinical studies at the ISK Institute for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine and on outcomes research at the National Cancer Institute and NYMC’s Cardiothoracic Surgery Department. Tom is on the National Advisory Board of the Desmoid Tumor Research Foundation. Tom holds a BA from Brigham Young University, an M.D. from New York Medical College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is also a Kauffman Fellow.

Rick is the CEO of Aetna Better Health of Louisiana, MCO for Healthy Louisiana’s Medicaid program, responsible for leading the plan to best in class services for more than 117,000 members.

Rick has 33 years’ experience as a strategic/financial/operational executive including 20 years’
experience with health plan related matrix organizations in various roles as CEO, COO and CFO.

He has an extensive health plan background including managed care product development and operations for Commercial, Exchange, Medicaid, and Medicare Advantage product lines. Prior to Aetna, he worked as COO with Health Alliance Medical Plans where he implemented multiple Medicare Advantage risk-sharing agreements in multiple states. He’s worked for multiple provider-owned health plans.

Additionally, he worked for an OB/GYN clinic and Orthopedics clinic. Rick has planned and directed all aspects of a company’s operational policies, objectives and initiatives and has developed business strategies that provided revenue growth and increased profitability.
Rick earned his MBA from St. Louis University and his BSBA from the University of
Evansville. He is also a CPA (inactive) and a Certified Managed Care Executive (CMCE).

Dr. Harlan is a board certified internist primarily practicing at the Tulane University Internal Medicine Practice in Downtown New Orleans.

Dr. Harlan currently serves as Associate Dean for Clinical Services at Tulane University School of Medicine and is the Executive Director of the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine, the first of its kind teaching kitchen operated by a medical school. The center offers an innovative program teaching medical students about diet and lifestyle that bridges the gap between the basic sciences, clinical medicine, the community and culinary education. Medical students work side-by-side in the kitchen with culinary students to teach each other and, most importantly, teach the community and patients how to return to their kitchens and transform their health.

Dr. Julia Jenkins, DO, FAAFP, MMM is a Family Medicine Physician with UnityPoint Clinic and the Medical Director for UnityPoint Accountable Care.

At UnityPoint people are more than patients. We work together as a team to champion high-quality, low-cost care. With annual revenues of $4.4 billion, our providers and services span hospitals, clinics and at home settings across Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin. Our presence in metropolitan and rural communities allows us to innovate through partnerships organizations outside of healthcare, and our family of more than 30,000 team members remains dedicated to shared values that put our people first.

Dr Jenkins has a strong background in both clinical medicine and administration with a focus on outcome-driven leadership and patient-centered care. She is Board Certified in Family Medicine with a Certificate of Added Qualifications in Hospice and Palliative Care. Dr. Jenkins is passionate in her work creating organizational momentum to succeed in the changing medical landscape.  She leads many population health initiatives within UnityPoint.  Her clinical areas of interest include coaching and mentoring providers and clinical team members, utilization of the electronic medical record to improve quality outcomes, and maximizing both patient experience and provider satisfaction.

Arundhati Parmar is VP and Editor-in-Chief at MedCity News. Previously she was senior editor at UBM’s Medical Device + Diagnostic Industry and has been a business journalist for more than a decade. Arundhati has three degrees from three continents – a Bachelor of Arts in English from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India; a Masters in English Literature from the University of Sydney, Australia and a Masters in Journalism from Northwestern University in Chicago. She has sworn never to enter a classroom again.

Rick is CEO of Wellville, a nonprofit he launched with the angel investor Esther Dyson to improve health, equity and financial outcomes in five U.S. communities over 10 years. In addition to leading the national project, Rick serves as advisor to the Wellville community of North Hartford, CT. He was previously senior consultant at ReThink Health and a coach to successful regional health partnerships around the U.S.

Rick is also founder and CEO of Collective Health, which developed the Health Impact Bond®, a pay-for-success (PFS) financing model that leverages future health care cost savings to generate upfront investment in prevention. Collective Health has applied this financing model to in-home asthma management, community paramedicine, and clinical-community strategies that address multiple chronic conditions and serious mental illness.

Rick spent most of his career as a corporate strategist, including nearly a decade at the health insurer Cigna, where he was Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer for the national employer segment. He was a founding partner of Cigna’s Communities of Health venture, a multi-site initiative that convened public and private sector stakeholders to address the social determinants of health. Before that, Rick held strategy roles at Ford Credit, Bank One and KPMG. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and lives with his wife and two children in Simsbury, CT.

Erin Dietsche covers the hospitals and health IT beats for MedCity News. She previously worked as a writer/reporter for Becker’s Hospital Review, where she covered everything from payer issues to health IT to leadership. Erin grew up in Minnesota, graduated from the University of Iowa and now calls Chicago home.

Dennis is responsible for the direction, coordination, evaluation, and management in developing and leading strategic investment. The focus of the initiative is to develop a portfolio of investments that, as a whole, focus on improving the Kansas (and national) healthcare market, enhance the core business of the company and generate revenue. These strategic investments are expected to be integrated into the company as part of its overall long-term strategy. Dennis brings more than 20 years of experience in creating, building and leading high growth enterprises in the United States and abroad. He most recently served as CEO/president of Ulterius Technologies, LLC, Wichita, where he managed all start-up, fundraising, technology development, and sales and marketing activities to launch a new product for the company’s founders. Previously, he was in leadership and board roles for various technology and health-related start-ups in the USA and Europe. He holds two degrees from the University of Kansas: a bachelor’s in business and a master’s in business administration. Depenbusch is outgoing president of the board of trustees for Bishop Seabury Academy, Lawrence, and Chairs the MBA advisory board for the KU’s School of Business. He and his wife reside in Lawrence, Kansas. They have two college-aged sons.

Prior to joining Activate, Gyan worked with Activate’s predecessor fund – Milestone Venture Partners and graduated from the MBA program at the Wharton School of Business.

Before Wharton, Gyan worked for Gather Health, a chronic disease management startup that focused on emerging markets.

Prior to working for Gather, Gyan worked for Citigroup where he built and scaled businesses in foreign exchange derivatives, focusing on complex and technical products. This included Citi’s multi-currency options business, automated foreign exchange derivative market making, FX structured products, and its commodity currency market making business.

Gyan holds a B.A from Columbia University where he double majored in mathematics and economics.

Noah Kressler is an experienced corporate finance and transactional attorney whose practice covers a wide range of capital markets, securities law, emerging company and general corporate matters.

Ms. Agarawal is passionate about empowering people to live life to the fullest by making integrative medicine accessible to people where they are. She started her career as a software engineer in Silicon Valley, working for companies including IBM, Motorola/Google. She then developed the world’s first mobile video technology at a startup later acquired by Skype, this invention continues to change the world even today. She then changed her career into integrative medicine by studying, practicing and conducting research in both eastern and western medicine. She spent the next decade as a researcher, oncology nurse and integrative medicine practitioner at institutions including the Mayo Clinic, Stanford Cancer Center, and UCSF Cancer Center. Her groundbreaking research work on the development of algorithms for clinical impact of integrative medicine was recognized by UCSF and NSF, and she received support from them to start Helpsy, the world’s first Artificial intelligence nurse for wholistic symptom management and navigation (San). San can automatically create a personalized care plans and provide dynamic support to patients through integrative technologies, empowering patients and clinicians alike. Helpsy has served tens of thousands of patients from all over the world and the data generated provides insights that have never been captured or understood before. She is passionate about empowering people in health care to understand and be at the forefront of the technology revolution. She is a nationally recognized speaker and author. She leads innovation initiatives at both SIO and ONS, and serves on the board of NCI PDQ for integrative medicine. She serves on the board of innovation centers and health care startups. She believes women deserve an equal place and is involved in several leadership initiatives to move the needle.

Ivelyse Andino is an Afro-Latina health equity innovator born and raised in The Bronx and the founder and CEO of Radical Health. Ivelyse enjoyed a fledgling career in health tech, pioneering some of its first digital health solutions, including bringing the first mobile app prescribing platform to market and working with global clients such as National Health Service (NHS London) and Kaiser Permanente. While she routinely trained oncologists on new drugs, she found herself unprepared when her mother was diagnosed with cancer. This forced her to directly and intimately confront the systemic healthcare disparities she knew that existed. In founding Radical Health — the first Latina-owned and operated Benefit Corp in NYC — she has sought to combine her expertise in healthcare and her passion as a community organizer. Coming from an historically marginalized community herself, it was important for Ivelyse to initially build Radical Health by bringing together her neighbors around her kitchen table and hearing first-hand from voices — including the undocumented, women of color, elderly, young people, and LGBTQ — who are otherwise (figuratively and) literally never given a seat at the table to have a say in their own healthcare destiny. Through Radical Health, Ivelyse is committed to the task of transforming healthcare by facilitating health literacy and self-advocacy, as well as forging a relationship between meaningful face-to-face conversations with cutting-edge technology.

Star Cunningham’s extensive global business executive experience has taken her to every continent, with the exception of Antarctica, during her career in addition to living in South Africa, Vietnam and New Zealand. She is a recognized expert on “Smart”(M2M Learning) systems and wearable technology. Star is frequently asked by public and private companies and the media to contribute her expertise regarding innovative health management solutions, patient engagement
tools and quantifiable health measures. Star understands technology, understands data and enjoys solving problems. She earned her MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and has led system migration efforts, process re-engineering programs, high-speed Internet product delivery and
enhancement, big data collection and real-time analysis and improving the smartphone end user customer experience.

She also manages 3 chronic conditions. Even though she has been privileged to have access to the best medical care in the world, she has personally experienced the gaps in the system that have led to her experiencing longer hospital stays, medication mistakes and ER visits do to misinformation. She understands and empathizes with those who may not be as well educated, financially able and have access to the best medicine that money can buy. Her conditions have improved, stabilized and remained manageable because she uses a combination of western and eastern medicine. In her opinion, no one has taken on the enormous task of putting all of the
pieces together to understand why people are living longer albeit sicker lives. Through her global problem solving experience and by working with some of the most cutting edge technology in the world, she brings a unique view to the world of medicine. While most solutions are being built in the existing model of medical care, she has built a new solution built on a model that is quantitative, dynamic, agnostic and extremely flexible. She sits on the Board of Advisors for Healthcare Businesswoman’s Association and is a member of Health XL, the leading global platform for digital health collaboration and MATTER, a Chicago based community of healthcare innovators. Star was named to Chicago Crain’s Tech 50, 7 Wonder Women of Chicago, 20 Chicago Software Companies to Watch and Chicago’s
Top Ten Startup Founders Over 40. She has been profiled in Vanity Fair, Inc., Forbes, Crain’s Chicago, Black Enterprise, Physician’s Money Digest and NBC News. She is a contributing writer to Entrepreneur. com and she participates in activities for the Kellogg Executive Women’s Network, Kellogg’s Black Management Association, Northwestern’s entrepreneurship student organization, EPIC, and Northwestern’s chapter of the Society of Women Engineers She is also
actively involved with Girls Who Code and Black Girls Code.

Huzefa has a background in both health care and education. This brings a strong and unique perspective to the leadership team. He is responsible for business development which includes strategy, planning and market development for Certintell. His specialties include strategic multi-year projects, providing educational info and best practices for clients and partners around telehealth. Huzefa is especially passionate about social justice and reducing disparities in health for the underserved and migrant populations.

Matt Holland is the CEO and Co-founder of Synergistic Creations, Inc., a healthcare platform technology company. He is a healthcare professional turned technologist, with an 18 plus year healthcare career across 3 western States.

After many years working on the ground level, supervising and administrating programs across many collaborative health systems, he saw too many gaps in care and huge disparities in the systems he worked in and for. After a time, the dream of the KnKt’d platform was born.

The KnKt’d Health platform connects providers and patients between care appointments, helps to cultivate the patient/provider therapeutic relationship, aids in bolstering patient engagement and brings in robust data to better understand and help guide a person’s journey
to wellness.

Matt and his team firmly believe that people and populations can find better places of wellness, lead happier and fuller lives if given the right tools to do so.

Adam Pardes is an evidence-based entrepreneur, public speaker, and scientific researcher with extensive experience in academic settings and leading SaaS-based product growth. Prior to NeuroFlow, Adam entered the bioengineering doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania and published nearly a dozen peer-reviewed manuscripts, while also consulting for high-growth startups. Since transitioning from academia to industry, Adam has maintained a research-focused approach to leveraging digital technologies to enhance the access, delivery, and effectiveness of mental healthcare, particularly for vulnerable populations including Veterans, children, and Medicare/Medicaid members. Adam is the Principal Investigator for a $225K Phase I STTR grant from the National Science Foundation that was recently awarded to NeuroFlow in collaboration with the Philadelphia Veteran Affairs Hospital.

Sam is the CEO of Intent Solutions of Atlanta, Ga. Previously he was the Founder and President of Zamarripa Capital Incorporated, 2007, a private equity corporation focused on lower middle market companies, primarily in the Southeastern United States. The company provides capital strategies and transaction consulting for executive teams involved in the sale or acquisition of assets in media, financial services and consumer products.

Mr. Zamarripa served two terms in the State Senate of Georgia representing the City of Atlanta, where he served as the Secretary of the State Economic Development Committee and member of the committees on Insurance, Science & Technology and Transportation. He retired from the State Senate undefeated in 2006. Mr. Zamarripa is a Trustee of the Annie E. Casey Foundation of Baltimore, Maryland and a lifetime Trustee of Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York. He is also a member of the Board of Counselors for the Carter Center of Atlanta.  Under the pen name, Samuel Zamarripa, he has completed two novels, publishing his first book of a duology, The Spectacle of Let – the Oliet and Obit, with Floricanto Press in 2017. A second book in the series, The Spectacle of Let – the Soul of a Miracle, along with a companion lexicon was published in 2018.

He holds a BA from New College of Sarasota, Florida, and a Masters of Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship at Syracuse University, Syracuse New York.