2021 Speakers

R.J. Briscione recently joined the newly formed Social Determinants of Health Strategy & Execution team, within Aetna Strategy & Consumer Experience, where he focuses on national scale partnerships that support CVS Health/Aetna’s “Destination: Health” platform to focus on community health and address social determinant gaps. Prior to this role, R.J. led Medicaid Business Development for Aetna’s East Region, leading teams in all stages of proposal response for multiyear, Medicaid Managed Care Contracts. Recent successes include winning proposals in Virginia and Florida for multiple lines of business as well as large scale implementations of both new and acquired lines of businesses. He joined Aetna in 2016, bringing more than 10 years of experience in healthcare services for government programs as well as large scale management of political campaigns. Prior to joining Aetna, R.J. served as director of Medicaid and Duals Operations in multiple states for Anthem Inc. Prior to working in healthcare, R.J. worked for the Georgia House of Representatives, and spent 10 years with Delta Air Lines in various operational roles. He holds a BS in Aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Dr. Davis has spent the last ten years at the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) where she served as the Director of the Center for Community and Preventive Health, Medical Director and Assistant State Health Officer for the Office of Public Health (OPH).

Dr. Davis is a New Orleans native who earned a Doctorate of Medicine from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a Master’s in Public Health from Harvard University, has extensive experience in clinical care, community engagement and healthcare systems management.

Dr. Myers started at the Cleveland Clinic in June of 2018. His role is new to the clinic and encompasses leadership of the ambulatory practices spanning from pediatrics to geriatrics, the hospitalists, the urgent/express cares, the post-acute physicians, value-based operations, Wellness, Executive Health, the Center for Personalized Genomic Health, the Center for Value Based research, the Center for Functional Medicine, Medical Care @Home, the ACO structure, the 7400 member clinically integrated network, three residency programs, the Geriatrics fellowship, and community relations for the enterprise. In addition, he leads the care model design efforts and the community health strategy for the Cleveland Clinic.

Prior to joining the clinic, Dr. Myers served as Chief Medical Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Texas Health Physicians Group, a 1000-member multispecialty group affiliated with Texas Health Resources. Dr. Myers also served as chair of clinical integration for a 3000 member joint venture CIN with UTSW called Southwestern Health Resources.

A New York City native, Myers is board-certified in family medicine and fellowship trained in advanced obstetrics. Dr. Myers was in private practice in Oklahoma for more than 10 years before moving to Dallas in 2010 to serve as chief medical officer and senior vice president for Methodist Health System. He is the past Chair of the American Hospital Association board level Committee for Clinical Leadership and is currently a Commissioner on the Board of the Joint Commission.

Myers received his undergraduate degree from Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport, where he graduated from Louisiana State University Medical Center. He completed his residency with In His Image Family Practice Residency at Hillcrest Medical Center in Tulsa, Okla., and has completed a fellowship at the University of Oklahoma Obstetrics and Gynecology Department. He also holds a Masters in Health Care Management from Harvard University.

Dr. Ajayi, board certified in family medicine, is co-founder and Chief Health Officer of Cityblock Health, the first tech-driven provider for communities with complex health and social needs–bringing better care to neighborhoods where it’s needed most. Cityblock’s model of care meets individuals where they are, delivering highly personalized primary care, behavioral health care, and social services to its members, with a focus on those who access Medicaid, are dually eligible for Medicaid and Medicare, and others living in lower-income neighborhoods.

Prior to Cityblock, Dr. Ajayi served as Chief Medical Officer of Commonwealth Care Alliance, a nationally renowned integrated health plan and care delivery system for individuals eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid. In this role, she led clinical operations, spearheaded care delivery innovations, and oversaw multi-disciplinary teams of clinicians, community health workers and administrators.

Dr. Ajayi received her undergraduate degree from Stanford University, an MPhil from the University of Cambridge and her medical degree, with Distinction in Clinical Practice, from King’s College London School of Medicine. She completed her residency training at Boston Medical Center and continues to practice primary care focused on patients with chronic, complex and end-of-life needs.

Ami B. Bhatt, MD, FACC, is the Director of the Adult Congenital Heart Disease Program and the Director of Outpatient Cardiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and an active clinical cardiologist, investigator, and educator. She graduated from Harvard College, obtained her doctoral degree from Yale School of Medicine, and trained at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Children’s Hospital of Boston, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in internal medicine, pediatrics, adult cardiology, and adult congenital heart disease (ACHD).

Dr. Bhatt was nationally recognized as an educator by the American College of Cardiology in 2015 and by the American Heart Association in 2016 for ACHD program building and design efforts. Her educational and outreach activities are fueled by her belief that individuals with complex disease deserve collaborative care between tertiary centers and community caregivers. She innovates at the MGH Corrigan Minehan Heart Center in the domains of telemedicine for ACHD patient visits, provider consultation, multimodality teleconferences, and adoption of mobile health technologies for caregivers and patients. Her interest in digital health strategy stems from her beliefs that state of the art, high quality, personalized care can be delivered to individuals in the community and that concierge medicine is possible for everyone.

Harsh Vathsangam is the Co-Founder and CEO of Moving Analytics, Inc., a company that provides virtual cardiac rehab and comprehensive cardiovascular disease management programs to support cardiologists and health plans in improving the health outcomes, quality and cost of care for their members. Developed in partnership with Stanford University, Moving Analytics programs are based on more than 30 years of published research involving over 70,000 patients. Their flagship product is Movn Virtual Cardiac rehab which targets patients after an acute coronary event such as a heart attack or heart surgery. Movn has successfully improved cardiac rehab participation rates, member outcomes and lowered readmission at marque organizations like Kaiser Permanente, Highmark Health Plan, Allegheny Health Network and the Veteran Affairs.

Harsh received his PhD from the University of Southern California working at the intersection of big data and mobile health. He holds an undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Sahil Choudhry is a Managing Director at Cigna, where he co-leads Cigna Ventures and helps inform strategic decisions for the parent organization. He joined Cigna in November 2019, and currently serves as a board observer at Ginger and Octave. Sahil previously held board seats at Cogitativo and Solera Health, and observer seats at ClearDATA and Avalon Healthcare Solutions. Sahil also led the development of a primary care joint venture between Sanitas and BCBS TX, and served on the board of the joint venture.

Previously, he spent 5 years at Health Care Service Corp. (HCSC), managing Corporate Development and Venture Investments for the largest customer-owned health insurance company in the country. HCSC is the Blue Cross Blue Shield plan in Illinois, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Montana. Prior to HCSC, Sahil spent 2 years in equity research at Citigroup, tracking the managed care industry. Sahil started his career at Towers Watson as a consultant in the Health & Group Benefits practice.

Sahil holds a B.S. in Mathematics as well as Computer Science from New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, New Jersey. He is an Associate of the Society of Actuaries.

Elise Miller Hoffman is a General Partner at Cultivation Capital. She invests in promising digital health and life sciences startups in the seed to Series B stage, with a focus on healthcare companies that are solving the pressing problems exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. She supports the Cultivation Capital portfolio as a Board Member at Healthy Bytes, Board Observer at ImageMoverMD, and former Board Observer at NarrativeDx before the company was acquired in 2020.

In addition to her work at Cultivation Capital, Elise is active in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, serving as a Board Member at the St. Louis Equity in Entrepreneurship Collective and an Advisory Council Member at Arch Grants. She can often be found on the campus of her alma mater, Washington University, where she serves as an Investor in Residence at the Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship and a Director of the Holekamp Seed Fund. In the St. Louis community, Elise serves as a Board Member at Forward Through Ferguson and an Advisory Board Member for the Center for Civic Research and Innovation. Elise holds a BA in Spanish Literature and Latin American Studies, and an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis. She has been recognized as a St. Louis Business Journal “30 under 30” awardee in 2018 and an Olin Business School Emerging Leader Award recipient in 2020.

Liz Rockett is an investor in health tech & tech-enabled services at Kaiser Permanente Ventures. She leads the fund’s impact work, and is a leader of its diversity, equity and inclusion re-visioning. She serves on the boards of Big Health and Everytable, as a board observer to Groups, DexCare, and Omada Health, and as a member of the investment committee for Rock Health.

Prior to KP Ventures, Liz ran health impact investing for Imprint Capital, acquired by Goldman Sachs. At Imprint, she developed innovative capital strategies to improve health and strengthen the care system in the US for clients including Acumen America, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Packard Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Before her work in investing, Liz worked in new product development & customer success at the Advisory Board Company (acquired by Optum), TriZetto, and Outcome Sciences (acquired by Quintiles). She has a longstanding love of all things career development, talent strategy, and team culture. She is a proud alum of Princeton University (undergrad) and the University of California Berkeley (MBA & MPH).

Erkeda DeRouen, M.D. is a doubled board-certified Family Medicine and Lifestyle Medicine physician.  She currently serves as Associate Medical Director at 98Point6, a telemedicine startup with a novel approach to accessible, on-demand primary care.  She serves as a thought leader in healthcare innovation. She is passionate about merging the humanistic aspect of medicine with the new field of emerging technology. Dr. DeRouen believes in putting people first, whether that be in patient care, management, or in her personal life. She has been able to utilize her gift of listening, communicating, and connecting the missing pieces to solve complex problems. Her unique skillset includes, but is not limited to healthy equity expertise, service of underserved populations, HIV management, transgender care, and lifestyle medicine. Dr. DeRouen brings a diversity to the realm with a goal to shake up the landscape to provide compassionate care to all who seek it. She finds joy in mentoring, as she believes that one should always share their gifts to uplift others.

Peter Foley is the CEO and founder of LetsGetChecked, a health insights platform which allows consumers to access laboratory testing and clinical support services in the home.

Peter has always been passionate about making healthcare patient-led, and allowing consumers to be part of the diagnostic testing process and not once removed. What sparked the idea for LetsGetChecked was a personal experience which resulted in Peter not having access to diagnostic testing in a time of need.

Prior to LetsGetChecked, Foley worked in a number of consultancy roles, specializing in the fields of healthcare strategy, planning, and facility development, as well as completing a law degree and masters qualification in ICD-10 coding.

As CEO and founder of LetsGetChecked, Peter is committed to putting people in the driving seat and making them part of the diagnostic testing process. The purpose of the company is to give people the knowledge that they need, to live healthier, happier lives.

Sean Slovenski is recognized as a healthcare industry innovator with 30 years of success. As former SVP and President of Walmart Health, Sean led the launch of multi-disciplinary healthcare clinics known as the “Super Centers for Healthcare.” Today, Sean serves as the CEO of BioIQ – a company modernizing the diagnostic testing industry through a national network of labs and customized solutions that support health plans, employers, and consumers. By aggregating testing solutions, optimizing lab capacity, and integrating testing with customers’ needs and strategies, BioIQ helps ensure stability and resilience for employers and health plans by detecting disease to protect their workforces and members.

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.

Stacia A. Cohen, R.N., MBA, is Executive Vice President of Health Services for CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield. Ms. Cohen oversees CareFirst’s Patient-Centered Medical Home and Total Care and Cost Improvement programs, medical and care coordination policies, pharmacy policies, and provider networks.

Prior to joining CareFirst, she was Vice President of Medicare for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, where she was responsible for meeting operating income, enrollment growth, administrative budgeting and key performance targets of the plan’s Medicare market segment. Ms. Cohen has an associate’s degree in Nursing from Western Technical College as well as a Bachelor of Arts in management and a master’s degree in business administration from the College of St. Scholastica. Before beginning her post-secondary education, Ms. Cohen was enlisted as an active duty member of the U.S. Army.

Kevin Dedner serves as Founder and CEO of Hurdle (formerly Henry Health). Hurdle is mental healthcare for invisible barriers. As the leading culturally intentional mental health provider, Hurdle provides a comprehensive suite of mental health services and self-mastery tools to employers and payers to meet their employees and members’ needs. Hurdle’s therapists are trained in an evidence-based technique that improves cultural humility and responsiveness.

An award-winning public speaker, Kevin brings over 15 years of experience in public health, having worked on various issues, including childhood obesity, HIV/AIDS, and tobacco control. He has led strategic planning processes and facilitated convenings on behalf of several clients, including the nation’s largest public health foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. A recovering politico, Kevin has worked on political campaigns and successfully led health policy wins. However, these days, Kevin is focused on transforming the mental health experience for diverse populations.

Kevin is a graduate of the University of Arkansas with a degree in Political Science. He also holds a Master of Public Health from Benedictine University. He is a frequent speaker at health and health technology conferences.

Dani Fallin, PhD, is the Sylvia and Harold Halpert Professor and Chair of the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the only department of its kind housed within a school of public health. She also holds joint appointments in School’s Epidemiology and Biostatistics Departments as well as in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry. She has led multiple federally-funded projects on how environments, behaviors, genetic variation, and epigenetic variation contribute to risk for psychiatric disease, particularly autism. In her role as Chair, she is leading efforts to build a portfolio of research, education, and practice on mental health and the workplace, a critical area for public mental health, including recently founding a Center for Mental Health in the Workplace. She has also contributed to recent literature monitoring the impact of COVID-19 on our nation’s mental health.

She earned her Ph.D. in genetic epidemiology from Case Western Reserve University. She also holds a B.S. from the University of Florida, Gainesville.

Ryan made the rare transition from an options trader at the Chicago Board Options Exchange to a venture capitalist. It helped that while trading he formed a company, RK Inventions, LLC, focusing on bringing innovative products to market. He has four patents issued and numerous more pending. Ryan has licensed out one of his inventions and is in the process of licensing out others. He also is the Co-Founder of Beyond Barriers Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical stage company developing a therapeutic for traumatic brain injury and other disorders of the CNS. After graduating from business school, Ryan joined VCapital (a Chicago-based venture capital firm) where he is currently a Partner. His role at VCapital is to analyze deals for consideration of becoming a portfolio company and then working with the startups once an investment is made. Ryan received his BS at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Ryan earned his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his MBA from the University Of Chicago Booth School Of Business. Ryan and his inventions have been featured on WGN-TV and in numerous publications, and he has been interviewed on NBC for one of his proudest achievements: winning a Rock-Paper-Scissors competition.  He also volunteers for Impact Teen Drivers.

Samuel Lee, MD is a Venture Partner at CincyTech. He is also the co-founder and Chief Business Officer at Eikonoklastes Therapeutics, which is developing a novel immunotherapy for triple negative breast cancer. Dr. Lee is interested in how the multidisciplinary convergence of life science, physical sciences, and computer science can lead to breakthroughs is healthcare.

Marian Nakada, VP Venture Investments for Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, has over 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, starting her career at the laboratory bench at Centocor and moving to a research leadership role before Centocor’s acquisition by Johnson & Johnson in 1999. She transitioned to Janssen Business Development where she executed deals to support the expansion of the Biologics portfolio. She joined JJDC, Johnson & Johnson’s corporate venture group in 2013. She is passionate about leveraging Johnson & Johnson’s capabilities to help her portfolio companies succeed. Marian has a A.B. in Biology from Harvard College and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Pennsylvania and is a past reviewer for the NIH Pharmacology Study Section. She is currently on the Boards of Navitor Pharmaceuticals, Twenty-eight Seven Therapeutics, Ribon Therapeutics as well as the New England Venture Capital Association where she is working to champion change as an active contributor to its Diversity & Inclusion Committee.

Sahil Choudhry is a Managing Director at Cigna, where he co-leads Cigna Ventures and helps inform strategic decisions for the parent organization. He joined Cigna in November 2019, and currently serves as a board observer at Ginger and Octave. Sahil previously held board seats at Cogitativo and Solera Health, and observer seats at ClearDATA and Avalon Healthcare Solutions. Sahil also led the development of a primary care joint venture between Sanitas and BCBS TX, and served on the board of the joint venture.

Previously, he spent 5 years at Health Care Service Corp. (HCSC), managing Corporate Development and Venture Investments for the largest customer-owned health insurance company in the country. HCSC is the Blue Cross Blue Shield plan in Illinois, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Montana. Prior to HCSC, Sahil spent 2 years in equity research at Citigroup, tracking the managed care industry. Sahil started his career at Towers Watson as a consultant in the Health & Group Benefits practice.

Sahil holds a B.S. in Mathematics as well as Computer Science from New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, New Jersey. He is an Associate of the Society of Actuaries.

Amy Len Kobe joined Baird Capital in 2018 and is a member of the Healthcare investment team. Amy is a board member for Cala Health and a board observer for Jumpcode Genomics, Upfront Healthcare, Oncology Analytics, Apervita and AiCure. Before joining Baird Capital, Amy was a venture investor with Baxter Healthcare, focusing on medical devices, monitoring and data analytics opportunities. Before that, she was with Healthbox, focused on tech-enabled products and services for payer and provider systems. She was also previously a management consultant with McKinsey & Company and began her career at Genentech. Amy earned a B.S. and M.S. in chemical engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management. She is also a member of the Economic Club of Chicago.

Garheng Kong, MD, PhD, MBA, founded HealthQuest Capital in 2012 to improve people’s lives through improving healthcare on a significant scale. His vision was to build a best-in-class team of the highest talent and integrity to work with outstanding entrepreneurs to transform healthcare through high growth companies while generating outsized risk adjusted returns for investors.

A physician, scientist, and engineer by training, Garheng has over two decades of experience investing in innovative healthcare companies with a long list of successes (25 IPO/M&A exits). He has represented HealthQuest on the boards of Ajax I, Ajax II, Ajax III, Alcresta, Avedro, Avizia, BardyDx, Castle Biosciences, CleanSlate, Etairos, ENT Specialty Partners, Everlywell, HealthChannels, Magnolia Medical, Perspectum, Pulmonx, Spirox, TigerConnect, Trice Medical, Venus Concept, and CareMetx/VirMedica.

Some of his notable past successes include IPO’s with Avedro (AVDR), Castle Biosciences (CSTL), Cempra (CEMP), Alimera (ALIM), Applied Genetic Technology Corp. (AGTC), AmWell (AMWL), Proteon (PRTO), Pulmonx (LUNG), Histogenics (HSGX), TransEnterix (TRXC) and Venus Concept (VERO). His investments going on to successful M&A transactions include: Ajax I (Medtronic), Avedro (Glaukos), Avizia (AmWell), Calibra Medical (J&J), Cellective (AstraZeneca), Serenex (Pfizer), Athenix (Bayer), NovaMin (GSK), Aldagen (Cytomedix), Salveo Specialty Pharmacy (United Health), SARCode (Shire), Spirox (Stryker), and Virmedica (CareMetx).

Garheng’s interests and industry footprint are broad as he also serves on boards of LabCorp (LH), Alimera Sciences (ALIM), StrongBridge (SBBP), Be The Match, Duke University Medical Center, and has served as Chairman on nine boards. He is an Aspen Institute Health Innovators Fellow, Kauffman Fellows Mentor, and member of YPO.

Garheng received undergraduate degrees in both Chemical Engineering and Biological Sciences from Stanford, while on an athletic scholarship. He then earned a MD, PhD and MBA from Duke University, graduating at the top of his class in each instance. His early career included stints at GlaxoSmithKline, McKinsey and a medical device start-up, TherOx, before joining Intersouth Partners and then Sofinnova Investments. He is married to his physician wife (a board certified cardiac electrophysiologist), has 3 children, and was a nationally ranked volleyball player (and avid “foodie”).

Austin Duke currently serves as Senior Venture Associate at UnityPoint Health Ventures where he helps lead all investment activities including sourcing, diligence, execution and post-investment support. Austin brings more than 10 years of biomedical research and development experience along with a deep understanding of the opportunities and challenges presented to startup companies.

Prior to joining UnityPoint Health, Austin served as Chief Science Officer at Nexeon MedSystems Inc, where he led scientific, clinical and regulatory activities in support of the development and commercialization of Nexeon’s neurostimulation technology platform. Prior to Nexeon, Austin served as Vice President of Emerging Therapies at Rosellini Scientific and co-founded Nuviant Medical. Austin obtained his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University and his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from North Carolina State University.

John leads Machine Learning Products in Mayo Clinic’s ML Innovation and Enablement group. His team applies a values-based system design approach that ingrains Mayo Clinic’s values into ML initiatives, and aligns to standards such as The Belmont Report and IEEE 7000™. John is also a member of the Mayo Clinic AI Ethics Council. Before joining Mayo Clinic in 2019, John created award-winning products for 20 years in Silicon Valley for healthcare, enterprise and consumer markets.

Shiv Rao is the co-founder and CEO of Abridge, a company focused on bringing context and understanding to every medical conversation. Abridge uses machine learning to help people understand the details of their health — from the high level care plan down to the details of their diagnoses, procedures, or medications.

Prior to Abridge, Shiv led the provider facing investment portfolio at UPMC Enterprises. He is also a faculty member and practicing cardiologist at UPMC’s Heart and Vascular Institute and completed his medical education and training at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the University of Michigan.

Rob is a Partner at Endeavour Vision focused on medical technology investments. Rob has been on the deal team for investments in IntelyCare, Nalu and Rapid Micro Biosystems and Relievant Medsystems.

Rob joined Endeavour Vision after 15 years at Boston Scientific, which has been one of the most active acquirers in medical technology in recent years. In his role as Vice President, Corporate Business Development, Rob was responsible for leading the identification, assessment and execution of Business Development transactions for Boston Scientific’s Interventional Cardiology, Peripheral Intervention and Rhythm Management divisions. This included acquisitions, divestitures, minority investments and joint ventures.

Prior to his Business Development role, Rob held leadership positions in commercial strategy and marketing at Boston Scientific. Rob also previously worked at The 3M Company where he was an Engineering Project Leader.

Rob holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University and an MBA and a Masters in Engineering Management from The Kellogg School of Management.

Paul oversees Arboretum’s investment process and leads the firm’s operations. His portfolio investments focus on capital-efficient health IT and service companies applying technology to underserved markets. Paul currently serves as a board director for BioIQ, VYDENCE Medical, and Delphinus Medical and is the former Chief Operating Officer for CerviLenz (now Lucina), where he led the design of the company’s first commercial product from concept to launch.

Prior to joining Arboretum, Paul worked at Ford Motor Company holding management positions within product development, manufacturing, and business strategy. He currently serves on the National Advisory Board for the Institute for Healthcare Policy & Innovation at the University of Michigan.

Paul earned a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan and an MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

Amrinder Singh is a Director within Medtronic’s Venture Capital group. In this role, he
supports medical device, diagnostics, and healthcare services & solutions portfolio
companies operationally and at the board level.

Prior to joining this team, Mr. Singh led Business Development & Strategy for
Medtronic’s services & solutions businesses across the Americas Region & EMEA
where he focused on developing and implementing value-based health care strategies
for the organization. Prior to that Mr. Singh was with the Corporate Strategy group at
Medtronic.

Before joining Medtronic, Mr. Singh held Product Management and Engineering
positions at Thoratec Corporation, a leading medical device company focused on late
stage heart failure.

Mr. Singh graduated from University of California, Davis in Biosystems Engineering, and
earned his MBA from Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management.

François de Brantes serves as senior vice president, episodes of care, at Signify Health. He leads customer development of the Medicare Advantage, self-insured employer and commercial payer markets. He has spent close to two decades working to transform the U.S. healthcare system by improving incentives for providers and consumers in order to encourage value-based decisions.
Prior to joining Signify Health, he served as vice president of Altarum, a national nonprofit. From 2006 to 2016, he was executive director of the Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute (HCI3), a not-for-profit company that designed programs to motivate physicians and hospitals to improve the quality and affordability of healthcare delivery. The organization, which merged with Altarum in December 2017, was responsible for the Bridges to Excellence and PROMETHEUS Payment programs, which compensate and reward clinicians that focus on episodes of care and performance measures. Prior to HCI3, Mr. de Brantes was COO of the eHealth Initiative, which promotes adoption of health IT in the U.S. He led the development of eHI’s HIE Value and Sustainability Model, a method to value services offered by health information exchanges. Early in his career working in General Electric’s corporate healthcare department, he was involved in many strategic programs that created, connected and supported active consumers, and he defined market mechanisms to reward providers for better performance.

Mr. de Brantes holds a master’s degree in economics and finance from the University of Paris IX-Dauphine and a master’s degree in business administration from the Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College.

Jorge has a law degree from the Inter American University of Puerto Rico, a master’s degree in law from the Catholic University of Puerto Rico, a doctor’s degree in law from the University of Valladolid and a master’s degree in healthcare administration from the University of Iowa.

Jorge’s professional experience includes 16 years in legal practice, specializing in healthcare law, and 16 years as healthcare administrator, which includes positions as CEO at three hospitals in Puerto Rico and COO of a US-invested international healthcare consortium based in Santiago, Chile.

Jorge is married with Dr. Karineé Candelario, a pediatrician, and has two adult sons, José and Guillermo. Jorge enjoys reading, movies, hiking and his three dachshunds.

As a Doctor of Pharmacy and 20-years veteran of managed care markets, Javier Gonzalez brings a deep and diverse background to his role as Chief Growth Officer at Abarca. As CGO, Javier oversees industry relations, commercial operations, pharmacy network, and analytics. He is also leading Abarca’s initiative to pursue new and innovative rebate contracts.

Before joining Abarca, Javier held senior roles in leading healthcare companies, including HospiScript (a subsidiary of OptumRx) and ProCareRx. He managed clinical pharmacy services, prior authorization programs, formulary management, and disease state management programs.

A frequent speaker and contributor to industry and trade outlets, Javier has published papers on Medicare Part D, clinical drug reviews, hospice, and other issues.

Allison Kalloo, MPH is a patient recruitment specialist. She is the founder of Clinical Ambassador, iParticipate and CliniVIVRE aimed at expanding minority access and impacting diversity, equity and inclusion in clinical research. She formerly held various positions in the private, public, and non-profit health sectors. With a personal mission to bridge cultural divides and break the engagement stalemate in clinical studies, Ms. Kalloo now leads a team to deliver culturally relevant, patient-centric communication solutions to make sense of science, support study participation from front to back, and sample the candid impressions of real patients and the research-naïve lay public. Her agency also works with clients to support the success of their clinical studies through mock trials and customized patient interviews to forecast compliance and completion. She is now one of newest members of the Medable PAC (Patient Advisory Council). Ms. Kalloo is a graduate of The Madeira School, North Carolina Central University, and Yale School of Public Health.

Douglas “Doug” Langa is Executive Vice President, North America Operations and President of Novo Nordisk Inc. (NNI). Since March 2017, Mr. Langa has held full business responsibility for Novo Nordisk’s largest sales region, the U.S. and Canada, representing more than half global revenue and more than 6,000 employees. Under his leadership, Novo Nordisk has launched five new products in the US (FIASP®, Rebinyn®, Ozempic®, Rybelsus® and Xultophy®) and implemented a completely new operating model. He also serves on the Board of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

Prior to leading North American operations, Mr. Langa served as Senior VP, Market Access, where he was responsible for securing formulary access with key payer customers. Under his leadership, the Market Access account executive team received numerous third-party recognitions for their performance, allowing a broad range of patients with chronic diseases to access Novo Nordisk brands.

Mr. Langa first joined Novo Nordisk in 2011 as the Senior Director, Managed Markets, where he was responsible for strategy development and execution across the diabetes portfolio. Previous positions include Senior Director of Payer Marketing at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), as well as various roles of increasing responsibility at Johnson & Johnson within Managed Markets, Sales Leadership, and Marketing. He has over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and medical device industry.

Mr. Langa graduated from Widener University, earned his MBA from Fordham University, and holds professional certificates from The Wharton School and Harvard Business School.

Dr. Cynthia Verst is president, Design and Delivery Innovation, for the Research & Development Solutions organization at IQVIA. Previously, Cynthia served as president, Clinical Operations for the Research and Development Solutions organization. With more than 20 years of biopharmaceutical industry experience, Cynthia has a proven track record of operational excellence and innovation. Before being appointed president of Clinical Operations in 2015, Cynthia served as president of Real-World & Late Phase Research at Quintiles. In 2014, she was named one of the top women in biotech by FierceBiotech, an annual award that spotlights 15 female leaders in life sciences, academia, and regulatory roles. Cynthia currently sits on the Boards of Q2 Solutions, ACRO and DIA.

Prior to joining Quintiles, she served as senior vice president, Global Late Phase Research for OptumInsight (a division of UnitedHealth Group), where she and her team successfully established a new global Late Phase Research Business Unit. Cynthia began her career in biopharma at Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals as section head in its North American Medical and Technical Affairs group, successfully leading the Phase IIIB/IV research requirements of marketed products.

Cynthia holds a doctorate and bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy from the University of Cincinnati, a master’s degree in Structural and Cellular Biology from the University of Illinois, and bachelor’s degrees in Biology and Chemistry from Northern Kentucky University.

Carrie brings over 15 years of healthcare experience from several vantage points within the healthcare industry. Prior to joining McKesson Ventures, she served as Vice President, Strategy and Business Development for Omada Health, where she focused heavily on all elements of commercial strategy and partnerships. Her MV investments include Evidation Health, Koneksa Health, Lambert Vet Supply, Propeller Health and Xealth.

Prior to Omada, Carrie held roles within McKesson’s Strategy & Business Development team, advancing innovation strategies aimed at hospital pharmacy and clinical trial patient recruitment. She began her career in drug development managing oncology clinical trials in big pharma and biotech.
Williams holds a MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley and a BS in biology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. After more than a dozen years in the Bay Area, she is now back in the Boston area, where she lives with her husband, daughters and their golden retriever, Fenway. A piece of her heart will always be in San Francisco, so maybe it’s time to rename the dog “Oracle”.

Ryan made the rare transition from an options trader at the Chicago Board Options Exchange to a venture capitalist. It helped that while trading he formed a company, RK Inventions, LLC, focusing on bringing innovative products to market. He has four patents issued and numerous more pending. Ryan has licensed out one of his inventions and is in the process of licensing out others. He also is the Co-Founder of Beyond Barriers Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical stage company developing a therapeutic for traumatic brain injury and other disorders of the CNS. After graduating from business school, Ryan joined VCapital (a Chicago-based venture capital firm) where he is currently a Partner. His role at VCapital is to analyze deals for consideration of becoming a portfolio company and then working with the startups once an investment is made. Ryan received his BS at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Ryan earned his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his MBA from the University Of Chicago Booth School Of Business. Ryan and his inventions have been featured on WGN-TV and in numerous publications, and he has been interviewed on NBC for one of his proudest achievements: winning a Rock-Paper-Scissors competition.  He also volunteers for Impact Teen Drivers.

Akhil Saklecha is the Managing Director of Cleveland Clinic Ventures where he leads investments into startup companies for one of the world’s top healthcare systems. He currently sits on the boards of Cardionomic, Cleveland Diagnostics, Enhale Medical, Enspire DBS, Mitria Medical, Navigate Cardiac Structures, Neurotherapia, and Zehna Therapeutics.

Prior to joining Cleveland Clinic Ventures, Akhil was a Partner at Artiman Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm with over $1.2 billion under management. While at Artiman, he led investments in early-stage start-up companies and served on the boards of Cellmax Life, Oncostem Diagnostics, Slive, ApplyBoard, DateMySchool, and HomeUnion. In addition to his Board of Director roles, he also served as CEO of Slive, an early stage diagnostics company. Prior to joining Artiman, Akhil served in administrative roles at Aultman Hospital in Ohio as Medical Director of the hospital’s regional transfer program and Chairman of the Emergency Department and Level II Trauma Center. He was also CEO of Canton Aultman Emergency Physicians, a professional services firm that provides physicians, mid-level providers, and coding expertise to multiple hospitals and urgent care centers. In this same time period, Akhil participated at the local, state, and national levels of governing institutions within emergency medicine, healthcare quality, information technology, managed care, and emergency medical services.

Akhil is Board-certified in Emergency Medicine and is a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians. He continues to practice emergency medicine at Cleveland Clinic on a part-time basis where he remains connected to clinical care, patients, and physicians. Akhil graduated from the combined accelerated B.S./M.D. program at Northeast Ohio Medical University. He completed his residency in Emergency Medicine at Summa Health System and holds a M.B.A. from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Liz Todia is a Senior Associate at Mutual Capital Partners, a Cleveland-based venture capital firm focusing on medical device and B2B software companies located in the Midwest. Her role includes managing deal flow, leading due diligence, and supporting portfolio companies. She is a graduate of the University of Dayton where she received a B.S. in Entrepreneurship and Finance with honors. Prior to joining MCP, she spent two years managing the Flyer Angels Fund, a $1 million seed investment fund investing in early stage, Ohio-based technology companies. Liz is currently the Executive Co-Chair of VentureNext, a professional peer group of rising venture capital investors that represents over 85 funds and a collective $700B AUM. She is also a member of the Crotty Center Advisory Council at the University of Dayton, the West Side Catholic Center Associate Board and the JumpStart Leaders Council.

Ellen Herlacher is a healthcare investor with over a decade of experience in investment management, healthcare operations and corporate strategy. Before joining LRVHealth in 2020, Ellen was director of Tufts Health Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Tufts Health Plan. Prior to joining Tufts, she held roles including manager of Emerging Businesses at Athenahealth, investment manager at Goldman Sachs and consultant at Bain & Company. Ellen earned a B.A. from Cornell University and M.B.A. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Peter is a native of Louisville, Kentucky where he has been in medical practice as an Orthopedic Surgeon since 2005. For two years he owned and operated Wellness 360, a center dedicated to wellness of body, mind, and spirit using holistic health practices such as yoga, massage, meditation, and health coaching.

In April 2015, he began teaching meditation and mind training at the Drepung Gomang Center for Engaging Compassion as part of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s vision for a program in secular ethics. In keeping with that mission, he has taught hundreds of students there the foundations of joyful, peaceful living.

As of 2017, he has turned his full attention to teaching mindfulness, meditation, and paths to empowered living to promote health, well-being, and authentic happiness. He is currently completing a PhD in Mind- Body Medicine at Saybrook University and is beyond thrilled to be a part of the team at BehaVR.

He is the author of No Magic Pill: Be Happier and Healthier Now, Just As You Are.

Lesly Kelly is a doctorally prepared nurse researcher who has a career in examining nurse and patient outcomes associated with clinician well-being. Her dynamic portfolio of funded research includes studies on nurse burnout, the healthcare work environment, and leadership behaviors. She is passionate about translating research and educating future clinicians on wellbeing through implementing strategies to decrease the consequential effects of burnout. In her role as Lesly Kelly is a Nurse Scientist at CommonSpririt Health and an Associate Clinical Professor at Arizona State University Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation. Dr. Kelly obtained her BSN and PhD from the University of Arizona College of Nursing and her Postdoctoral Fellowship from the University of Pennsylvania Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research.

Felicia Speed is the Vice President of Social Work Services for Fresenius Medical Care North America, the nation’s leading network of dialysis facilities. She currently provides oversight and guidance to social workers across the country and has been working as a dialysis social worker in various capacities for almost 20 years. After obtaining her Bachelor’s in Social Work from Winthrop University and Masters in Social Work from the University of Georgia in 1999, she accepted a position as a social worker for Anderson Dialysis Clinic. Since that time, she has dedicated her career to addressing psychosocial barriers among dialysis patients with kidney failure by improving social work competency. Felicia has also been successful in collaborating with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to improve patient-provider relationships. Her greatest accomplishment is simply improving the quality of life of a dialysis patient.

B.J. Boyle is Senior Vice President and General Manager, Acute and Payer Markets at PointClickCare. In his role, B.J. is responsible for leading a team that is focused on enabling hospitals, health systems, and their long-term and post-acute care (LTPAC) partners to better communicate, collaborate, and share critical patient data. With more than 10 years’ experience and expertise in population health and analytics, B.J. is best positioned to lead the development and design of PointClickCare’s Integrated Care Coordination and cross-continuum solutions. Prior to joining PointClickCare, B.J. held the position of Director of Solution Strategy and Development for Cerner Extended Care, and Director of Product Management for Resource Systems. B.J. holds a BS in Information Systems from University of Mount Union, MBA from Point Park University, and Executive Certificate in Healthcare Leadership from University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Sarah Krüg is the founder of the Health Collaboratory, a global innovation hub that paves the path for participatory co-design and collaboration in healthcare, with a focus on amplifying the voice of the patient and care/support partner in the design, development and continuous improvement of healthcare innovations. The Health Collaboratory has launched various innovations such as Prescription to Learn®, a Health GPS, and the Patient Shark Tank®, among others. Through the Patient Shark Tank ®, over 19,000 patients and care/support partners across disease states have evaluated innovations across the globe, including technology, education, research, and policy.

Sarah is the CEO of CANCER101, a patient advocacy organization whose mission is to help patients and care/support partners navigate the cancer journey and partner with their healthcare team to make informed decisions. She is also the Acting Executive Director and Past President of the Society for Participatory Medicine, a patient: clinician member driven organization, whose mission is to enable collaborative partnerships between patients and healthcare professionals. She serves on the board of the National Organization for Rare Disorders. Sarah is the author of “A Roadmap to Wellness” with another book to launch in 2021. She is also a global speaker and recently gave a TEDx talk called “The Patient: Doctor Tango”.

She previously held the position of Global Education Director as well as Patient Advocacy Lead at Pfizer. She also established the Global Investigator Initiated Research Program at Pfizer. Prior to joining Pfizer, Sarah spearheaded the development of the Disease Management Clinical Pathways and conducted clinical research at Memorial Sloan- Kettering Cancer Center.

Michael leads the Platform Division at athenahealth and is accountable for business outcomes and innovation of an international, 300+ person product team. As the underlying foundation for athenahealth’s offerings, this is the innovation engine for the company and, in many ways, the industry overall. As both a leader of internal innovation and product and services for athenahealth’s customer base consisting of 10,000 practices serving more than 40% of the US population, Michael has adeptly led transformation and growth of the company’s offerings in four key areas over his 8 years at athenahealth.

Michael initiated and leads development of athenahealth’s commercial platform product offering, a toolkit of 700+ APIs, analytical data, technical services and integration tools for innovative and technology-centered provider organizations. He identified the market need for third-party integrations and subsequently executed a cross-functional initiative to build on the athenahealth platform as a new business outlet that serves leading consumer, value-based, and virtual care organizations seeking to provide high-quality care, as well as transform how care is delivered. This new Platform Services product line grew to $10M book of business in its first year, and currently sells into healthcare initiatives of Fortune 50 companies.

As part of his Platform leadership role, Michael leads athenahealth’s teams chartered with developing common services for other internal athenahealth product teams, including the company’s tools for enabling public cloud development. By focusing athenahealth’s platform efforts on services specific to the needs of healthcare organizations, the company now operates generally available (GA) public cloud services that span its national client base for patient and provider identity management, auto-updating device integration application, a universal patient login system, and a new react-based design system for athenahealth’s web UI development. These product innovations have decreased the friction and administrative burden on athenahealth’s client practices, improved the clinical experience, and simplified patients’ access to their data. Notably, these changes enable athenahealth customer practices to be treated as a true network, reducing the data silos in health care.

Also, Michael is the leader of the athenahealth Marketplace (initially known as More Disruption Please), which was the first open, API-driven marketplace where third-party developers and customers could build and sell turnkey, tightly integrated applications in healthcare. By focusing on partners as customers of athenahealth’s platform, the number of third-party organizations offering applications on the marketplace doubled in two years to over 300, with more than 50% of athenahealth’s clients participating in the program, resulting in a 10X increase in API call volume to over 2 billion a month.

Lastly, Michael has scaled athenahealth’s emerging payer business to “invite the payers to participate” at the point of care. Michael’s leadership decreased payer-provider administrative work by scaling athenahealth’s payer exchange services 10X to 5M clinical messages per month over 2 years, drastically reducing inefficiency between payers and providers. He is also leading the development of new capabilities with some of the largest payers in the U.S. on a “time of service” initiative to bring interactive information from payers to providers at the point of care. While still early, this will streamline and automate selection of providers from a preferred network, pre-authorization, understand and close care gaps, and provide information about the care a patient has received outside of the practice in real time. This results in better patient outcomes, an improved patient experience and ultimately will help drive down the cost of healthcare in America.

Cheryl is a former General Partner at BlueRun Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm focused on seed and series A opportunities. Her background includes mergers and acquisitions along with brand management and marketing. She brings a diverse skillset to investing in and supporting early stage opportunities across consumer and enterprise applications. Some of Cheryl’s investments include Hello Heart, Sendwithus, and ZeeMee. Cheryl is an advisor to Stanford’s Biodesign program and the class for mobile health. She is also an advisor to L’Oreal’s Women in Digital Program. Prior to BRV, Cheryl has worked across innovation and retail marketing roles at Clorox and The Sharper Image. She also worked on over 20 M&A transactions at Broadview International. Cheryl has a B.A. from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from Kellogg School of Management where she was a Forte Foundation Scholar.

Steve Tolle is a partner with HLM Venture Partners. He brings 30 years of commercial healthcare technology expertise in the areas of strategy, business development, and product management. Steve has spent his career helping to develop and manage some of the most important themes in healthcare innovation and investment today, including artificial intelligence, diagnostic imaging/medical devices, electronic health records, population health, managed care and value-based pharmaceutical pricing.