2020 and Beyond: A Healthcare Innovation Odyssey – DAY 1

Alan J. Murray is president of Empire BlueCross BlueShield’s commercial plan in New York. Alan possesses an in-depth knowledge of the healthcare industry and specifically the New York market which greatly benefits our consumers, customers and provider partners in New York. Prior to joining Empire, he most recently served as the founding President and CEO of Northwell’s CareConnect Insurance Company, Inc., the first provider-owned commercial insurance plan in New York State.

Preceding his career at CareConnect, Alan held the position of Vice President, New York Market Lead at United Healthcare for more than four years and spent five years at Anthem preceding that as Regional Vice President, New York Provider & Ancillary Network Development.

Alan earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 2005 from Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom and served as a Second Officer in the British Merchant Navy for six years. He lives in Syosset, NY with his wife, three children and two dogs.

Daniel Kraft is a Stanford and Harvard trained physician-scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, and innovator. With over 25 years of experience in clinical practice, biomedical research and healthcare innovation, Kraft has served as Faculty Chair for Medicine at Singularity University since SU’s inception, and founded and is chair of Exponential Medicine, a program that explores convergent, rapidly developing technologies and their potential in biomedicine and healthcare. Following undergraduate degrees from Brown University and medical school at Stanford, Daniel was Board Certified in both Internal Medicine & Pediatrics after completing a Harvard residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital & Boston Children’s Hospital, and fellowships in hematology, oncology and bone marrow transplantation at Stanford. He has multiple patents on medical device, immunology and stem cell related patents through faculty positions with Stanford University School of Medicine and as clinical faculty for the pediatric bone marrow transplantation service at University of California, San Francisco.

Daniel was selected as a fellow of the inaugural 2016 class of the Aspen Institute Health Innovators Fellowship and is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Daniel’s academic research has focused on: stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, stem cell derived immunotherapies for cancer, bioengineering human T-cell differentiation, and humanized animal models. Clinical work focuses on: bone marrow / hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for malignant and non-malignant diseases in adults and children, medical devices to enable stem cell based regenerative medicine, including marrow derived stem cell harvesting, processing and delivery. He also implemented the first text-paging system at Stanford Hospital. Dr. Kraft recently founded IntelliMedicine, focused on enabling connected, data driven, and integrated personalized medicine. He is also the inventor of the MarrowMiner, an FDA approved device for the minimally invasive harvest of bone marrow, and founded RegenMed Systems, a company developing technologies to enable adult stem cell based regenerative therapies. Daniel is an avid pilot and has served in the Massachusetts and California Air National Guard as an officer and flight surgeon with F-15 & F-16 fighter Squadrons. He has conducted research on aerospace medicine that was published with NASA, with whom he was a finalist for astronaut selection.

Other professional activities:

• Founder, IntelliMedicine & RegenMed Systems
• Inventor of the FDA approved MarrowMiner
• Adviser to the X PRIZE Foundation (Life Sciences), helped conceive and design the Medical Tricorder XPRIZE, and is Bold Innovator for Cancer XPRIZE.
• Adviser to Rock Health, Qualcomm Life, Nokia and several life sciences and Healthcare-IT startups
• Kauffman Fellow

Education:

• Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry, Brown University
• Medical Doctor, Stanford University School of Medicine
• Residency: Harvard Combined Residency in Internal Medicine & Pediatrics
• Fellowships: Stanford, Hematology/Oncology & Bone Marrow Transplantation

Mariya Filipova is a healthcare transformation catalyst leading world-class high-impact initiatives. Her work helps organizations dynamically sense, develop, pilot and scale new solutions and disruptive business models. Mariya’s superpower is fostering creative collaboration among established and new entrants in healthcare to address major challenges we face today, and develop new solutions that benefit us all. 

Mariya’s personal journey as a patient fuels her passion for lasting change in healthcare. She has been recognized by Business Insider (BI’s 30 under 40) and The Harvard Business School Association of Boston, for her leadership and impact. Currently the Anthem Inc. Innovation Ambassador, Mariya previously served as Anthem’s vice president of innovation where she focused on the adoption of emerging technologies and new business models to accelerate Anthem’s transformation to a digital-first enterprise. 

Prior to Anthem, Mariya worked with Deloitte where she led initiatives focused on adopting and scaling exponential technologies in care delivery, patient experience and drug discovery. In addition, Mariya drove the development, go-to-market and scaling of the Future of Work Program Office , a portfolio of investments across the Americas,  APAC, and EMEA that uses exponential technologies (e.g. blockchain, artificial intelligence) to redefine the future of work.

Mariya holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Economics, summa cum laude, from Mount Holyoke College. As an active alumna, she serves on the Board of Governors for the Harvard Business School Association of Boston. Mariya currently resides in Boston, MA.

Daniel Kraft is a Stanford and Harvard trained physician-scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, and innovator. With over 25 years of experience in clinical practice, biomedical research and healthcare innovation, Kraft has served as Faculty Chair for Medicine at Singularity University since SU’s inception, and founded and is chair of Exponential Medicine, a program that explores convergent, rapidly developing technologies and their potential in biomedicine and healthcare. Following undergraduate degrees from Brown University and medical school at Stanford, Daniel was Board Certified in both Internal Medicine & Pediatrics after completing a Harvard residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital & Boston Children’s Hospital, and fellowships in hematology, oncology and bone marrow transplantation at Stanford. He has multiple patents on medical device, immunology and stem cell related patents through faculty positions with Stanford University School of Medicine and as clinical faculty for the pediatric bone marrow transplantation service at University of California, San Francisco.

Daniel was selected as a fellow of the inaugural 2016 class of the Aspen Institute Health Innovators Fellowship and is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Daniel’s academic research has focused on: stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, stem cell derived immunotherapies for cancer, bioengineering human T-cell differentiation, and humanized animal models. Clinical work focuses on: bone marrow / hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for malignant and non-malignant diseases in adults and children, medical devices to enable stem cell based regenerative medicine, including marrow derived stem cell harvesting, processing and delivery. He also implemented the first text-paging system at Stanford Hospital. Dr. Kraft recently founded IntelliMedicine, focused on enabling connected, data driven, and integrated personalized medicine. He is also the inventor of the MarrowMiner, an FDA approved device for the minimally invasive harvest of bone marrow, and founded RegenMed Systems, a company developing technologies to enable adult stem cell based regenerative therapies. Daniel is an avid pilot and has served in the Massachusetts and California Air National Guard as an officer and flight surgeon with F-15 & F-16 fighter Squadrons. He has conducted research on aerospace medicine that was published with NASA, with whom he was a finalist for astronaut selection.

Other professional activities:

• Founder, IntelliMedicine & RegenMed Systems
• Inventor of the FDA approved MarrowMiner
• Adviser to the X PRIZE Foundation (Life Sciences), helped conceive and design the Medical Tricorder XPRIZE, and is Bold Innovator for Cancer XPRIZE.
• Adviser to Rock Health, Qualcomm Life, Nokia and several life sciences and Healthcare-IT startups
• Kauffman Fellow

Education:

• Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry, Brown University
• Medical Doctor, Stanford University School of Medicine
• Residency: Harvard Combined Residency in Internal Medicine & Pediatrics
• Fellowships: Stanford, Hematology/Oncology & Bone Marrow Transplantation

Dr. Paul Testa is the Chief Medical Information Officer at NYU Langone Health. In this capacity Dr. Testa serves as the clinical informatics physician leader; stewards telemedicine initiatives; and shepherds programs in the areas of clinical quality, digital patient and clinician experience, predictive analytics and informatics research. He works closely with physician and nursing informatics groups to transform and advance how NYULH delivers care via new technologies which the NYU Langone continues to implement and optimize with innovative new health IT start-ups and established partners. Dr. Testa informatics team played a critical role in NYULH earning the 2017 HIMSS Davies Award in addition to the EMRAM Stage 7 designation for both inpatient and ambulatory. Most recently, Dr. Testa supported the launch of NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s AAMC accredited clinical informatics fellowship.

Dr. Testa serves as an Assistant Professor in the Ronald O. Perelman Department of Emergency Medicine at NYU Langone Health. He lectures and publishes on topics in health care information technology, risk management, and emergency medicine. 

Prior to entering the field of clinical medicine, Dr. Testa practiced law in New York and Boston providing counsel to academic medical centers. After graduating from Middlebury College in Vermont, he earned a JD at Boston College Law School, a MD at Dartmouth Medical School, and a Masters of Public Health with a concentration in public health law at Harvard University.

Isaac Wagner is Sr. Director of the Strategy Analytics group at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. We employ software engineering, design, operations research, data science, and analytics to advance the strategic and clinical objectives of the institution.  Strategy Analytics won the INFORMS Prize for "repeatedly applying the principles of advanced analytics and operations research / management science in pioneering, varied, novel, and lasting ways." Isaac has an MS in mathematics from New York University, has published on comparative effectiveness and cost research, and is passionate about developing novel ways to use data to rethink how we deliver cancer care.

Richard Barakat is an internationally recognized surgeon and clinical investigator who was Chief of the Gynecology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering from 2001 to 2013 and held the Ronald O. Perelman Chair in Gynecologic Surgery. Dr. Barakat was the lead investigator on several influential research projects at MSK, including a study to compare the benefits of laparoscopic versus standard surgery for patients with endometrial cancer, a study evaluating symptomatic lower-extremity lymphedema in women treated for uterine corpus cancer, and a study testing the efficacy of the Gynecologic Cancer Lymphedema Questionnaire in detecting lower-extremity lymphedema symptoms. Dr. Barakat is author or co-author of more than 340 peer-reviewed articles and numerous textbook chapters and is also an editor of a surgical atlas on gynecologic cancer and of the latest edition of Principles and Practice of Gynecologic Oncology, one of the leading texts in the field.

In addition he served as a member and examiner for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and for five years served as Vice Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Committee of the Gynecologic Oncology Group. He was President of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology from 2013 to 2014 and past President of the International Gynecologic Cancer Society (2014-2016). From 2013 -2017, he served as Director of the MSK regional network.

In 2018 Dr. Barakat joined Northwell Health to lead all cancer services and research

and serve as professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell.

Marco Diaz is Senior Vice President, Global Head of Benefits for News Corp. He is responsible for setting the overarching US benefits strategy in conjunction with the various business divisions with oversight to UK and Australian operations as well. Benefits include a broad suite of Health & Welfare plans, retirement plans such as defined contribution, defined benefit and non-qualified.

Prior to News Corp, Marco worked for Thomson Reuters 2000 where he oversaw the Americas benefits function.

Van H. Dunn, MD, is the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of the 1199SEIU Benefit Funds, which provide comprehensive self-insured, self-administered healthcare benefits to more than 400,000 healthcare workers, retirees and their families. As CMO, Dr. Dunn oversees the Funds’ clinical, care management and analytics functions, and is responsible for pursuing health and wellness initiatives and value-based strategies.

Prior to joining the Funds in 2016, Dr. Dunn served as Senior Vice President for Medical and Professional Affairs and CMO at NYC Health + Hospitals, and as CMO for MetroPlus Health Plan. He practiced as a primary care physician for many years before embarking upon a career that shaped public policy at the state and federal levels. He was an attending physician at Boston City Hospital (now Boston Medical Center) and later an assistant dean and assistant professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Dunn also served as Deputy Commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and as Senior Health Policy Advisor to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, advancing policy and legislation relating to healthcare reform, health promotion, disease prevention, women’s and minorities’ health, disparities in healthcare and biomedical research, among other critical initiatives.

Dr. Dunn received a Bachelor of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Doctor of Medicine from Cornell University Medical College (now Weill Cornell Medical College) and a Master of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health (now the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health).

Born in the Bronx and raised in White Plains, New York, Dr. Glover has spent the greater part of her adult life following her interests in science, health and improving life for the underserved.  

After graduating from Howard University with a BA in History, Dr. Glover worked at Essence Magazine and then as an Account Executive for Verizon. She followed her curiosity about medicine and ultimately attended SUNY Downstate College of Medicine and obtained a Master of Public Health from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health via the highly competitive Macy Scholars Program.

Currently Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Dr. Glover teaches psychopharmacology and aspects of psychotherapy to Internal Medicine and Family Medicine residents. She is the Director of Adult Behavioral Health for Montefiore Medical Group.  In this position, she guides a system-wide collaborative care based program and provides direct psychiatric care to medically and psychosocially complex patients at a primary care site in the Bronx. Dr. Glover has authored a peer-reviewed article on mental disorders in primary care, contributed to a textbook on psychiatric treatment in primary care and has extensive experience in psychopharmacology and substance abuse treatment. 

Dr. Glover has also contributed to various media outlets on a range of topics related to mental health and wellness.  She uses mindfulness-based techniques in both her psychiatry practice as well as her career coaching for women and professionals of color. 

Robert Bunch joined Anthem, Inc. in 2001 and currently serves as Chief Operating Officer (COO) & Chief Client Officer (CCO) for Anthem National Accounts. In these roles, he is responsible for developing Anthem’s National Accounts growth strategy in direct and matrix shared service areas and accountable for the retention and growth of national employer customers.  Robert is focused on leveraging the company’s capabilities to develop leading edge solutions that provide superior health and financial outcomes for its clients, deliver best-in-class business performance, and, ultimately, differentiate National Accounts from its competitors.

Prior to assuming the COO position, Robert was the Regional VP of Sales and Account Management where he was responsible for the P&L and profitable membership growth for the Individual and Small Group market and the State of Georgia Health Benefit Plan (SHBP). He was responsible for planning and strategy for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia to align the work required to deliver the annual plan membership and financials, as well as the future adjacent growth strategies for longer-term success. 

Throughout his career at Anthem, Robert has held various leadership positions including sales, account management, product development; government and regulatory compliance; systems integration; and business migration activity, along with responsibility for various systems and application programming teams.

Before coming to Anthem, Robert worked as a consultant in the Government and Public Services sector with specific responsibility for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) programs. In this role, he had responsibility for the successful delivery of a multi-state Medicare Part A claims system migration, and business process reengineering tasks for multiple State Medicaid agencies. Robert had also worked as an application programmer in the banking and credit card industries.

Dr. Craig Hersh is the Senior Clinical Officer and Regional Vice President for Anthem, as well as Chief Medical Officer for Empire BCBS.  He is a Board Certified physician in Family Medicine and held additional qualifications in Sports Medicine- at one time serving as a Team Physician for the NY Giants.  Prior to joining Anthem he worked as a Vice President for Accolade, a company specializing in patient engagement and navigation.  Previously he worked as a Chief Medical Officer at Holy Name Medical Center and as a Medical Director for both Aetna and Wellcare.  He is a graduate of Tulane University and the SUNY Upstate Medical School in Syracuse, NY. 

Dr. Deb Friesen is an Internal Medicine physician who trained at the University of Colorado, including a Chief Residency year. She was in private practice for 11 years before joining Kaiser Permanente 14 years ago. As part of the Colorado Permanente Medical group she was on the Board of Directors for 5 years and was Board Chair for two of those years.

She has partnered with National Accounts for 12 years, telling the story of Kaiser Permanente's integrated care and coverage model to C-suite executives, articulating the KP Value Proposition as demonstrated by utilization data, clinical data outcomes, and customer analytics. She also consults and presents on wellness and workplace health, chronic care management, preventive and maintenance care, medication adherence, and behavior change, to customers and in numerous conference settings.

Dr. Friesen recently joined the National Sales and Account Management organization full-time. She is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians (the professional society of Internal Medicine) and recently graduated with honors with her MBA through the University of Denver.

Rhonda L. Randall, D.O., is the Chief Medical Officer of UnitedHealthcare Employer & Individual, the nation’s largest business serving the health coverage and well-being needs of nearly 28 million Americans. Dr. Randall collaborates with U.S. employers who are looking for quality, cost-effective, long-term solutions to health benefits for their employees and retirees. She also leads the clinical strategy development for these businesses to improve quality outcomes, ensure affordability and improve health and well-being. Additionally, Dr. Randall supports the clinical strategy for UnitedHealth Group through her work in the corporate office of Medical Affairs and as a senior medical advisor to the UnitedHealth Foundation.

Since 2003, she has held clinical leadership roles in many of the enterprises businesses including: care delivery, Medicaid Long-Term Care, Medicare Special Needs Plans and Medicare Supplement. Following the 2003 passage of the Medicare Modernization Act that created the Part D prescription drug program, Dr. Randall was instrumental in developing UnitedHealthcare’s first Part D plans. In 2008, Dr. Randall transitioned to UnitedHealthcare Medicare & Retirement, serving first as regional chief medical officer for the Northeast, later concurrently as vice president and national medical director of medical management as well as the deputy chief medical officer of Evercare Hospice and Palliative Care. From 2010 to 2013 she served as Chief Medical Officer for Medicare & Retirement and then as Chief Medical Officer for UHC’s Retiree Solutions and National Accounts. Dr. Randall’s leadership enabled the business to deliver unmatched clinical quality, facilitating market leadership in Group Medicare Advantage and achieving impressive 4.5 Star ratings for the businesses National PPO plans.

Dr. Randall is a fellowship-trained geriatrician and is board certified in family practice. Her background includes years of practice in hospice and palliative medicine. Dr. Randall earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, PA, and was honored in 2011 as one of the college’s Alumni of Distinction. She earned her medical degree from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. Dr. Randall completed her internship, residency, chief residency and fellowship at Florida Hospital in Orlando. She has served as volunteer clinical faculty in geriatrics for Florida Hospital’s Residency program and Florida State University College of Medicine. Dr. Randall has published papers on stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, polypharmacy and normal pressure hydrocephalus. Dr. Randall has served on the First Coast Carrier Advisory Committee for Medicare Local Coverage Determinations. She is a two-time recipient of UnitedHealthcare’s innovation awards, some of the business’ highest honors, first in 2005 for her leadership in disaster planning and again in 2006 for her contribution to a clinical workgroup that developed new a model of care for people with advanced illness and end-of-life needs. She has been a champion for Florida’s frail elders in the public policy arena, working with policymakers to expand long-term care home and community-based services. She has also collaborated with state agencies to update regulations so seniors who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid can receive hospice services from the comfort of their homes instead of a nursing home. She is a member of the Florida coalition on Physicians Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment as well as the national Coalition to Transform Advanced Care.

Dr. Randall currently serves as President of the Florida Medical Directors Association and a member of the house of delegate as well as the nominating committee for the American Medical Director’s Association. She also serves as the Chair of the Board for St. Charles Borromeo Catholic School in Orlando, FL.

Kathleen Harris is the Founder of Cornfield Point Consulting LLC, a boutique firm based in the metro New York City area. Her areas of focus include advising digital health startups; care navigation; healthcare cost transparency; near site, on site and virtual health clinics; and population health.

Prior to starting her consulting firm, Kathleen was Vice President of Benefits for Time Warner Inc.  She was elevated to this role in 2011 and was responsible for defining and implementing the Company’s health and welfare, retirement and wellness strategies.

In her role, Harris streamlined health and welfare and retirement benefits globally across every business of the Company.  In addition to being responsible for Time Warner’s benefit plans, Harris designed and implemented leading edge wellness and care management programs that provided support to Time Warner employees with complex, acute and chronic conditions.  She also introduced several policies such as bonding leave, surrogacy reimbursement, and egg freezing reimbursement.

Harris is an Advisor to the Board of Directors of the Northeast Business Group on Health.

Prior to joining Time Warner in 2006, Harris spent four years as a Senior Consultant and Client Delivery Lead of the Group and Healthcare Practice at benefits consulting firm Watson Wyatt.  During her time at Watson Wyatt she worked with several F500 clients on benefits and wellness initiatives and served as a subject matter expert for: absence and disability; onsite clinics; and wellness program design.

Previously, Harris worked as a Health and Welfare Consultant at Towers Perrin.

Harris holds a B.S degree from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington and an M.P.H. from Yale University’s School of Public Health.

Lindsay Jubelt, MD, MS is Chief Population Health Officer for Mass General Brigham. Dr. Jubelt also serves as the Chief Medical Officer for the Mass General Brigham’s insurance entity AllWays Health Partners.

After earning her Bachelor of Arts degree at University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Jubelt completed medical school at Stony Brook School of Medicine with residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She returned to University of Pennsylvania to obtain a Master of Science degree in Health Policy. This educational foundation allowed Dr. Jubelt to pursue her first passion of treating patients while also creating innovative ways for people to experience healthcare.

Clinically, Dr. Jubelt finds tremendous value in creating meaningful partnerships with her patients, developing a plan of care together based on each individual’s unique habits, needs, and goals. She uses the most modern evidence to guide her treatment and educate her patients on appropriate lifestyle choices for long-term success.

Rick Nettles, Vice President of Medical Affairs, Janssen Infectious Diseases, leads the US Infectious Diseases Medical Affairs team, which enables Janssen to bring critical, market-leading therapies to people living with HIV. He and his team also work closely with global R&D colleagues in support of research that spans both vaccines and therapeutics. He is a key spokesperson for Johnson & Johnson on the company’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Rick has more than 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Notre Dame and a medical degree from Duke University. He completed his internal medicine residency at Duke University Medical Center and his infectious diseases fellowship from Johns Hopkins University. 

Elizabeth Blowers-Nyman, MPH is Executive Director, New Products Policy for Merck Vaccines. Since starting this role in August 2020, Elizabeth is responsible for leading global efforts to create an enabling policy environment and healthy vaccination ecosystem to facilitate sustained access to Merck’s new and innovative vaccines.

Previously, Elizabeth served as Executive Director, U.S. Vaccine Public Policy and Government Relations for Merck.  In this role, she led U.S. federal, state and local-municipality public policy, advocacy and government relations. She was responsible for overarching U.S. public policy strategy to optimize vaccine uptake in the United States and for driving an evidence-based framework for vaccine policy.

Elizabeth has a comprehensive set of experiences supporting population health initiatives, including the delivery and uptake of vaccines globally. With Merck, she has led vaccine policy capacity-building projects in Indonesia and collaborations with Japan. She also served as a United States Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal. Her core assignments in Nepal supported Female Community Health Volunteers and the planning, implementation, and evaluation of Nepal’s first nationwide polio eradication initiative.  She also has experience in public health and immunization delivery initiatives in Paraguay, Ecuador, and Costa Rica. During graduate school, Elizabeth worked for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Measles Elimination Activity.

Elizabeth holds a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree with a concentration in Health Policy and Management from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from Boston College. 

Elizabeth volunteers extensively, including as a National Advisory Board member for Amigos de las Americas (“AMIGOS”). She has previously served as Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Foundation of AMIGOS and as a member on the International Board of Directors for AMIGOS. 

Elizabeth lives with her husband and son in Philadelphia, U.S. In her free time prior to the pandemic, Elizabeth enjoyed travelling the world, meeting people, trying new foods and adventures, and collecting paintings. During this time of social distancing, she has been more focused on gardening, hiking, and indoor bicycling (“spinning”).

Karthik Ganesh is the CEO at EmpiRx Health, the industry’s only value-based PBM with a clinically-focused and tech-enabled approach to bending the Rx cost curve. Karthik is a senior healthcare executive with a solid track record of comprehensively scaling, transforming and maximizing value at healthcare service companies while driving dramatic before-and-after results across all facets of the organization - growth and retention, financials, business operations, technology, and culture.

Karthik has experience running PBM, health plan (commercial and provider-sponsored), Third-Party Administration, and value-based care enablement companies. Prior to EmpiRx Health, Karthik was the SVP and founding operating leader of CareAllies, a Cigna subsidiary focused on value-based care enablement. Prior to CareAllies, Karthik was the EVP and Chief Operating Officer of QualCare (acquired by Cigna), a large provider-sponsored and tech-enabled Third-Party Administrator, that specialized in powering and operating health plans, Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), and joint payer-provider strategies. Karthik’s background includes broad leadership roles at Aetna and Express Scripts, and senior management consulting roles at Deloitte and EY. He is recognized as a healthcare thought leader and has been published and featured in leading industry journals. He has a Masters from Kansas State University and is a Six Sigma Black Belt.