The emerging leaders of this generation are helping to overcome barriers to care access and health equity. These individuals are leaders within healthcare companies that work to bring innovative products, initiatives and strategies to patients. Becker's is delighted to honor these emerging leaders in healthcare, who are 40 years old or younger and are positively impacting their healthcare companies.
Note: This list is not an endorsement of included leaders or healthcare companies. Leaders cannot pay for inclusion on this list. Leaders are presented in alphabetical order. We extend a special thank you to Rhoda Weiss for her contributions to this list. If you have a leader you'd like to suggest, please feel free to contact Anna at the email address below.
Thanks to a high volume of nominations this year, we are releasing multiple categories for this list. Please keep an eye out for our upcoming provider emerging leaders list.
Contact Anna Falvey at afalvey@beckershealthcare.com with questions or comments.
Harrison Bane. American Group President of Surgery Partners (Brentwood, Tenn.). Mr. Bane is responsible for strengthening the operating system and interoperability of processes as president of Surgery Partners' American Group. He ensures strong controls, sound implementation of operational priorities and operational discipline, as well as an efficient and effective scalable operating infrastructure to support organizational growth and quality patient care. Mr. Bane has introduced a region-based support model and mobilizing care support function, resulting in local service delivery. In addition to his role with Surgery Partners, he is also a member on the boards for Francis Ouimet Scholarship Fund and Hebrew Senior Life. Prior to his current role, Mr. Bane served as president of Steward Health Care's North Region.
Andrew Royce Bauer. CEO at Voyce (Sunrise, Fla.). Mr. Bauer leads voice with the goal of breaking down barriers between healthcare providers and limited-English speaking patients. He has led Voyce to immense growth in the last seven years by offering access to communication tools for patients who do not speak English. Mr. Bauer manages the overall operations and resources of Voyce, communicating between the board, corporate employees and the general public. He also upscaled and led community outreach programs during the COVID-19 pandemic to adequately care for clients. Under his leadership, Voyce has partnered with major hospitals, health systems, clinics and medical facilities across the country, resulting in 7 million conversations a year for those facing language barriers.
John Beadle. Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Aegis Ventures (New York City). Mr. Beadle is responsible for building and scaling major healthcare companies. Under his leadership, Aegis launched a $100 million partnership with Northwell Health that is delivering innovative digital healthcare and new AI to patients to improve quality and access to care and reduce health disparities. Mr. Beadle also continues to build and cultivate relationships with other health systems. He is also part of the founding studio team that launched Hume AI, the world’s leading empathetic AI toolkit for researchers and developers, which recently raised $12.7 million in funding.
Brandon Bendes. President and CEO of Woven Orthopedic Technologies (Manchester, Conn.). In his role as president and CEO of Woven Orthopedic Technologies, Mr. Bendes handles all strategic and operational initiatives for the company. He is the company's principal representative, deftly managing stakeholder relationships, including shareholders, board members, employees, customers, and partners. He also oversees both financial and human capital. Under his leadership, Woven has experienced significant growth and now offers products in over 8 countries.
Virgilio Bento. Founder and CEO at Sword Health (New York City). Mr. Bento drives the overarching mission, vision and strategic direction for Sword. Since its launch in 2020, Sword has raised over $300 million and served 2,500 employers and health plans globally. Mr. Bento oversees the company's fiscal health and is heavily involved in its products. He builds and leads the executive team while fostering a culture of high performance and accountability. He also oversees board member and investor relations, making necessary adjustments for financial health. He also currently holds more than 16 product patents and has authored 40 research papers.
Matt Bozile. Managing Director of Enterprise Applications at Pivot Point Consulting (Brentwood, Tenn.). Mr. Bozile leads Pivot Point Consulting's enterprise applications practice, which encompasses healthcare IT systems, associated training components, project management and IT leadership. During his tenure at Pivot Point, he has created a screening methodology that evaluates each candidate to create a unique consultant fingerprint. He has also focused on implementing a client success manager program. Mr. Bozile brings 12 years of healthcare IT experience to his role.
Joseph Brence. Head of Clinical Strategy at Medbridge (Bellevue, Wash.). Mr. Brence has spearheaded the development of innovative strategic initiatives for Medbridge, keeping up with the rapidly evolving healthcare market and championing Medbridge's technological innovations. He has championed several innovations, including a nurse onboarding analytical dashboard, software for remote monitoring of patients and a digital patient checklist. He also launched a skills and competency manager that has already reduced onboarding costs by $600,000.
Marissa Brittenham. Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer of Surgery Partners (Brentwood, Tenn.). As Surgery Partners' executive vice president and chief strategy officer, Ms. Brittenham is responsible for the development and implementation of the organization's short and long term strategic goals. In her role, she manages and leads strategic planning, oversees portfolio asset management and optimization, establishes and maintains key partnerships, and leads both the integration team and managed care organization. During her time with Surgery Partners, Ms. Brittenham has brought strategy focus towards value-based care and increased healthcare accessibility. Previously, she was head of growth for partnerships at Cityblock Health.
Danielle Burkhalter. Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer of Surgery Partners (Brentwood, Tenn.). As senior vice president and chief human resources officer, Ms. Burkhalter is responsible for leadership and oversight of all HR strategy and operations within Surgery Partners alongside the collective HR leadership team, colleagues, field operations and key stakeholders. In her time in the role, she has elevated HR within Surgery Partners to a strategic driver and enabler of overall strategy and growth at the organizations. In addition, she has incorporated diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives through an HR lens, and has established a data-driven approach to people management. Ms. Burkhalter joined Surgery Partners in 2018 and previously served as vice president of talent for the organization. She also has prior experience in various HR roles across UnityPoint Health.
James Buttleman. Regional Director of Safety for Medxcel (Indianapolis). Mr. Buttleman leads a team of safety and emergency management professionals at Medxcel. He and his team work to create and sustain a safe environment of care for patients, associates, visitors, volunteers and vendors, while also preventing, mitigating, preparing for and responding to any emergencies or disasters. Mr. Buttleman's work was recognized with Medxcel's FMOS Award, which honors organizations with a regulatory compliance rate of 95 percent or higher, in the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years.
Paul Byrne. Chief Product Officer of UV Angel (Grand Haven, Mich.). Mr. Byrne is chief product officer at UV Angel, a technology company creating products to continuously treat bacteria, fungi and mold in occupied spaces using ultraviolet light technology. Since joining UV Angle, Mr. Byrne has led the creation of a cloud-based platform and connected devices to combat the industry's reliance on hardware solutions. With previous experience in IBM's healthcare and pharmaceutical division, he has also brought the prevention of hospital-acquired infections into focus at UV Angel. Mr. Byrne has driven business development of UV Angel and increased infection prevention through partnerships with the Washington Commanders NFL team, government entities and numerous national hospitals.
Sarah Goss. Director of Operations at Ancore Health (Brentwood, Tenn.). At Ancore Health, Ms. Goss leads teams to develop solutions for a wide variety of projects, ranging from redesigns of provider compensation plans to financial and operational assessments. She works closely with team members to incorporate strong operational processes and encourages the team to think creatively and passionately about solutions. She brings to the role a decade of experience driving financial sustainability in healthcare companies through accurate, transparent reporting and analytics and by fostering trust between administration and providers.
John Fryer. Chief Revenue Officer of Lumeris (St. Louis, Mo.). Mr. Fryer leads teams that help health systems and providers develop and launch solutions that allow them to implement risk-based models of value-based care. Previously, he served as senior vice president, during which time he established partnerships that have come to represent more than 1 million members moving into a value-based care model. He has also led teams to devise strategies that drive growth and ensure long-term organizational stability. He first joined Lumeris in 2017, quickly receiving successive promotions. In 2022, he was named president of Tribus, a value-based care accelerator. He is also passionate about driving an inclusive and diverse culture at Lumeris. When he first joined, less than 10% of team members were women. That number has since grown to 40%.
Phil Giarth. Senior Vice President of Value-Based Care and MSO Performance at CareMax (Miami). Mr. Giarth serves as senior vice president of value-based care and MSO performance at CareMax, where he handles contracting, credentialing, payer operations, provider relations and more. Upon joining the company, he revamped its risk adjustment program to expand payer relationships from three local payers to over 10, ultimately garnering an additional 15,000 patients during the following open enrollment period. Since then, he has been integral in the company's national five-year strategy. He helped expand CareMax's footprint and facilitated multiple key acquisitions through CareMax’s expansion.
Zack Gray. Founder and CEO of Ophelia (New York City). Mr. Gray is CEO and founder of Ophelia, a telemedicine organization dedicated to treating opioid addiction with medication-assisted treatment and without traditional rehab. Mr. Gray founded Ophelia after losing a loved one to opioid overdose, and is dedicated to bringing medication-assisted treatment to the 80 percent of Americans who struggle with opioid use disorder without access to care. Since Ophelia saw its very first patient in 2020, the organization has reached many milestones, including expanding its services across 29 states, establishing a comprehensive graduate-level nurse practitioner training program, and joining health plan networks including Empire BCBS, Healthfirst NY, MVP Healthcare, Capital Blue Cross, TriCare East and more. Prior to founding Ophelia, Mr. Gray served as Head of Growth for Level Solar, a residential solar startup.
Ankit Gupta. CEO and Founder of Bicycle Health (Boston). Mr. Gupta founded Bicycle Health in 2017 with the goal of broadening access to opioid use disorder treatment. Today, the company is the nation's leading telehealth provider of integrated medical and behavioral treatment of opioid use disorder, serving 32 states directly, partnering with 51 insurance companies and scaling its treatment model with a $50 million Series B fundraising round. Mr. Gupta is a passionate advocate for evidence-based virtual care using a holistic treatment approach.
Ryane Jackson. Vice President of Community Benefits at Houston Methodist. Ms. Jackson is the vice president at Houston Methodist's office of community benefits, where she leads efforts to increase access to healthcare and social services for underserved and underrepresented communities. Her work to achieve said efforts includes cultivation of nonprofit partnerships, guiding charitable strategic investments and supporting overall health equity for communities within the health system's Greater Houston service area. She currently manages partnerships with nearly 90 local charities and the Community Benefits Grant and DEI grant programs. Ms. Jackson has also developed and operationalized Houston Methodist's employee volunteer program I CARE in Action, which has contributed more than 35,000 volunteer hours to 40-plus nonprofits from its 11,000 employee volunteers since its inception. In addition, she co-chairs the Social Determinants of Health subcommittee, in collaboration with IT and innovation teams, to identify social determinants of health within Houston Methodist's patient population via the system's EMR. Prior to her current role, Ms. Jackson was director of global education and training at Houston Methodist.
Sam Jactel. Founder and CEO of Ayble Health (Boston). Mr. Jactel is founder and CEO of Ayble Health, a precision health platform which assists patients with chronic gastrointestinal conditions to manage their care beyond medication. The platform sources patient biographical, diet, allergy, lifestyle and symptom information and GI behavioral health data set and uses machine learning algorithms to provide personalized, predictive care for every person. As CEO, Mr. Jactel oversees Ayble's strategy and growth by managing academic partnerships with top research institutions such as Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Massachusetts General Hospital, University of Washington and Northwestern University, as well as commercial partnerships with large employers and health plans. Additionally, he works with patients through an advisory board and the company's clinical advisors and uses input to guide product development and standard of care. Under his leadership, Ayble has become the first and only gastroenterology company to be accredited by the American Nutrition Association and the Validation Institute.
Hakan Kardes. Chief Technology and Experience Officer of Alignment Health (Orange, Calif.). As chief technology and experience officer, Mr. Kardes works to build a culture of innovation and transformation in the oversight of approximately 450 employees at Alignment Health, a health maintenance organization partnered with Medicare Advantage. His team is responsible for data, technology, AI strategy and execution, and consumer-centric operations in the delivery of positive outcomes and experiences for senior patients. Mr. Kardes co-led the development of Alignment's proprietary technology platform, AVA, which provides care teams with more accurate, organized and actionable insights into patient data, and utilizes AI-led technology to power over 35 modules and applications for an integrated data solution. The AVA Personalized COVID-19 Assessment tool, also developed by Mr. Kardes and his team, was utilized by Alignment heavily during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as a questionnaire analysis of individual risk for COVID-19 infection. Before assuming his role at Alignment, Mr. Kardes was vice president of data science and advanced analytics at Cambia Health Solutions.
Vijay Kedar. Founder and CEO at Tomorrow Health (New York City). Mr. Kedar is the CEO and co-founder of Tomorrow Health, which restores the home as a primary place for care by improving how home-based care is ordered, delivered and paid for. One in four Americans have a need for home-based care. Currently, the industry lacks infrastructure needed to connect providers with patients and suppliers. Tomorrow Health aims to connect all involved through a technology-driven matching process. It tracks and manages every step of at-home care, from billing to prescriptions. Mr. Kedar has led the company to $92.5 million raised and 125 health system partnerships. He also brokered a partnership with Geisinger Health Plan.
Kevin Keenahan. Chief Product Officer at Net Health (Pittsburgh, Pa.). Mr. Keenahan guides Net Health's strategy for product development and improvement. He oversees the identification and development of technology offerings while expanding existing partnerships with health facilities. His background in biomedical engineering allows him insights into the internal product development process. Mr. Keenahan initially co-founded Tissue Analytics in 2014 after seeing an outdated manual process for measuring severe wounds. He quickly gained industry recognition, and Tissue Analytics was acquired by Net Health in 2020. The algorithm he developed helps to analyze millions of images in seconds to automatically measure a wound’s size and colorimetric composition. It’s 90 percent more accurate than manual, ruler-based measurements, which have a 40 percent error rate.
Robert Krayn. Co-Founder and CEO of Talkiatry (New York City). Mr. Krayn is the co-founder and CEO of Talkiatry, a top provider of in-network virtual psychiatric care and one of the nation's largest psychiatric practices. Under his leadership, Talkiatry has grown into a nationally licensed practice that accepts patients in 45 states, employing over 300 full-time psychiatrists and 350 additional staff members. Understanding that finding a psychiatrist that accepts health insurance is a massive barrier to care, Mr. Krayn has worked tirelessly to build in-network partnerships with over 60 health insurance plans.
Stephanie Le, MD. Assistant Medical Director of The New Jewish Home (New York City). As assistant medical director, Dr. Le leads a medical team of 10 Mount Sinai Health System-associated physicians and nurse practitioners who work full-time at The New Jewish Home. She also oversees more than 60 patients on two long-term care floors and a sub-acute floor, and is an instructor at the health system for the next generation of physicians including geriatric fellows, medical students and residents in geriatric and palliative care. Dr. Le is dual certified in both palliative care and geriatrics, and is committed to implementing innovative strategies for caring for senior patients. Her recent efforts at TNJH have included a new palliative care screening tool, standardized treatment practices through EMR analysis, a novel staffing model to support employees coping with burnout and training the next generation of care professionals in the best practices.
Matthew Loper. CEO and Co-Founder at Wellth (Los Angeles). Mr. Loper oversees strategy, sales, business development and finance for Wellth. He is passionate about creating positive behavior change in patients with chronic conditions. Through his leadership, Wellth's payer and provider partners have seen a 42 percent reduction in inpatient utilization, a 29 percent reduction in emergency department utilization and a 16 percent improvement in medication adherence. About 91 percent of its members interact with the application daily. Mr. Loper led the company to achieve a $20 million Series B fundraising round.
Patrick Maguire. Vice President of Provider Network Operations and Engagement at Medical Home Network (Chicago). Mr. Maguire became vice president of provider network operations and engagement at Medical Home Network, a provider collaborative serving Medicaid and Medicaid Expansion populations in Chicago, in July 2023. Previously, he served as associate vice president of provider network operations and value based initiatives, a role in which he led operations of MHN's care transformation services enabling the MHN ACO, which is owned by 16 community-based, nonprofit provider organizations. He led the support of MHN ACO care teams through coordination of people, processes and technologies enabling value-based care. He has managed, negotiated and contributed to contracts for improvement in access to care, including maternal health coaching, hypertension management and diabetic retinopathy diagnosis. In addition, Mr. Maguire spearheaded the company's initiative to contract a network of 11 institutions for involvement in the 2022 performance year of the CMS Direct Contracting Entity for Medicare. This endeavor was subsequently transformed into a fresh agreement under the CMS REACH ACO program. Mr. Maguire has worked with MHN since 2013, with a short break in 2015 to consult for Practice Management Resources Chicago.
Blake Marggraff. CEO of Lightbeam Health Solutions (Irving, Texas). As Lightbeam Health Solution's CEO, Mr. Marggraff leads the company's strategic direction and operations. He drives the company's goal of delivering high-quality solutions that improve patient outcomes and reduce healthcare costs. In order to achieve this, he guides Lightbeam in incorporating world-class population health and analytics technologies, engagement strategies, and predictive models like clinical and health equity AI. Prior to his current role, Mr. Marggraff co-founded and served as CEO of CareSignal, which was acquired by Lightbeam Health Solutions in 2021.
Justin McMartin. Manager of Product Management and Clinical Interoperability at Surescripts (Arlington, Va.). Mr. McMartin is manager of product management and clinical interoperability at Surescripts, a health IT company supporting electronic transmission of prescriptions and general health information exchange. He supports and leads his team of product professionals in advancing healthcare technology and clinical interoperability through the Surescripts record locator and exchange, care event notifications and clinical direct messaging solutions. Mr. McMartin's leadership of the clinical products team has ultimately facilitated Surescripts' 2.54 billion patient medication history transactions and 174.8 million clinical direct messages between clinicians across the network in 2022. In 2019, he was awarded the Excellence in Action award from the company, and assumed the role of a trusted partner for the Carequality advisory council.
Ryan McQuaid. Co-founder of PlushCare and Executive Vice President of Product and Member Marketing at Accolade (San Francisco). Mr. McQuaid serves as executive vice president of product and member marketing at Accolade, the leader in personalized healthcare. His journey with the company began in 2021, when the virtual primary care and mental health care company he co-founded, PlushCare, was acquired by Accolade for $450 million. He continues to lead PlushCare as a business unit of Accolade. Under Mr. McQuaid's guidance, the PlushCare team's therapy business more than doubled between 2022-23 and grew its chronic care programs by nearly 70 percent year over year, leading to its current standing at 550,000 members. Among other awards, Mr. McQuaid earned gold for the Grand Globee 2022 American Best In Business Awards in the “Leadership in Transforming Customer Engagement” category.
Mark Newman. Co-Founder and CEO of Nomi Health (Orem, Utah). Mr. Newman is the co-founder and CEO of Nomi Health, a nationwide healthcare programs and payments company that aims to reduce the complexity and cost of healthcare. Under his leadership, the company serves over 3,000 customers, manages over $150 billion in healthcare spend and has delivered over 15 million patient care interactions. Mr. Newman's work demonstrates his unwavering commitment to supporting patients, especially the underserved, in tangible ways.
Hardik Patel, MD. System Director of Infection Control and Employee Health at Prospect Medical Holdings (Los Angeles). Dr. Patel is responsible for planning, developing and executing infection prevention and employee health services programs, policies and procedures for hospital licenses. He ensures compliance with CMS, public health department and other applicable regulatory, licensing and accrediting agencies. He also collaborates with local health departments on ongoing surveillance, prevention and control of infectious and communicable diseases. He oversees best practice implementation for health systems on infection prevention. Dr. Patel is also a trained physician and board-certified in infection control.
Brandon Quigley. National Director of Operations at Medxcel (Indianapolis). Mr. Quigley's position as national director of operations at Medxcel involves guiding stakeholders in the development, coordination and implementation of cross-department programs. He directs key initiatives such as value optimization plans, process deployment, performance metric development, and customer and employee engagement strategies. Mr. Quigley brings 15 years of operational leadership experience to his role.
Adam Russell. Vice President of Strategy and Partnerships at Healthy.io (Boston). Mr. Russell leverages strategic expertise to drive organizational growth and manage relationships at Healthy.io, which uses smartphones as clinical-grade medical devices. Mr. Russell leads the company's global strategy, directing the C-suite and providing timely and relevant advice to the board. His leadership helped the company close a $50 million funding round. He also establishes strategic partnerships with payers, providers and health systems. Some major partnerships he developed include BlueCross BlueShield of Idaho, the National Kidney Foundation, CKD Management Solutions and Boehringer Ingelheim.
Andrew "AJ" Schultz. Chief Product and Strategy Officer at PatientPoint (Cincinnati). In his role as chief product and strategy officer, Mr. Schultz unifies and elevates the collective product, content and brand vision of PatientPoint. PatientPoint solutions, which deliver technology-enabled patient education, currently impact 750 million patient visits annually via 140,000 unique provider relationships. Since joining the company in September 2022, Mr. Schultz had led the integrated teams in continually innovating and bringing to market solutions that help providers access, manage and deliver personalized experiences and education.
Ajay Shah, PhD. Co-Founder and CEO at Cytovale (San Francisco). Dr. Shah is the co-founder and CEO of Cytovale, a diagnostic company focusing on advancing early detection of fast-moving and immune-mediated diseases. He is responsible for the company's strategic direction, team management structure, funding, strategic partnerships, and technological and clinical development. Cytovale was founded just 10 years ago and has since grown to a 60-person operation. Dr. Shah previously co-founded two other medical device companies, one of which was acquired in 2012. He has had a major hand in developing the IntelliSep test, a flagship diagnostic test for sepsis. Sepsis is the number one cause of death in U.S. hospitals, with nearly 350,000 deaths each year. As many as 80 percent of those could be prevented with rapid diagnostic testing. Dr. Shah led the company through clinical studies to FDA approval for IntelliSep.
D.J. Sullivan. Chief Strategy Officer of HSG Advisors (Louisville, Ky.). As chief strategy officer, Mr. Sullivan oversees network integrity, physician strategy, and manpower development service lines at HSG Advisors. He brings experience from both acute and post-acute care settings to his work in data analysis for hospital executives. Since joining HSG, Mr. Sullivan has played a pivotal role in the hiring, retention and management of critical team members. In addition, he has facilitated the planning, development and implementation of the company's client portal, which has allowed for increased value in consulting services. Mr. Sullivan is also the managing director of claims data analytics, the leading revenue growth driver for HSG. Prior to working with HSG, Mr. Sullivan served as innovations project manager at Amedisys Home Health & Hospice in Louisville, Ky.
Christine Swisher, PhD. Chief Scientific Officer of Project Ronin (San Mateo, Calif.). Dr. Swisher serves as Project Ronin's chief scientific officer, a role that entails directing multidisciplinary teams of data scientists, statisticians, clinical informaticists, and machine learning experts to build technologies that solve challenging clinical problems. During her time at Project Ronin, she has delivered AI-based systems that support clinical decision-making and informatics as well as natural language processing innovations that make sense of messy healthcare data, which ultimately demonstrated a causal impact on clinical and institutional outcomes. Currently, she and her team are building a cancer insights engine that enables personalized, evidence-based clinical decision-making. Dr. Swisher holds over 20 patents on machine learning and AI, and serves as an advocate for safe and ethical AI use.
Lindsay Zimmerman, PhD, MPH. Vice President of the Bartosch Patient Activation Institute at Upfront Healthcare (Chicago). Dr. Zimmerman serves as vice president of Upfront Healthcare's Bartosch Patient Activation Institute, where she leads research and pioneers technologies to increase patient access to care. Her work in the role has included successful efforts to increase appointment booking, follow up compliance and digital literacy, and addressed issues such as language barriers and internet access. Recently, Dr. Zimmerman led Upfront's work with OSF Healthcare, which allowed the development of a scalable intervention to close breast cancer screening care gaps. The efforts led to a 3.7 percent increase in mammogram screening rates among the initial target group, and an ultimate 52 percent of all OSF mammogram patients scheduling appointments within two weeks of receiving their last digital nudge. Prior to working with Upfront, Dr. Zimmerman served as director of research at Cook County Health in Chicago.