Richard Schwartz serves as CEO of Health Evolution, where he has been since the beginning of 2021. He is passionate about surfacing opportunities to promote positive change in health care and is privileged to work with this extraordinary community of cross-industry CEOs and other leaders best positioned to do just that.

Richard served as Executive Officer of the Advisory Board Company from 2002 to 2018, where he led the firm’s health care practice as Chief Operating Officer. In that capacity he was responsible for expanding the firm’s capabilities – spanning research, consulting, and data/analytic software services – bringing them to bear on 4000+ member organizations’ most pressing issues and driving strong results.

Prior to joining the Advisory Board, Richard worked at a boutique consulting firm advising Fortune 100-size companies on policy issues, a bio-technology center, and a policy think-tank. He received a B.A. degree from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from Duke University. He is married with three children.

Gregory E. Deavens, CPA*, CGMA, is president and chief executive officer for Independence Health Group (Independence), parent of Independence Blue Cross, one of the nation’s leading health insurers.

Under his leadership, Independence has made a strategic priority of advancing equitable, whole-person health, which encompasses integrating physical and behavioral health and reducing racial and economic health disparities. The company is deeply committed to helping create a fair and effective health system that provides access to quality, affordable care for all. The organization also has focused on partnerships dedicated to reducing the cost of medications for the benefit of members and employer customers.

Mr. Deavens has been named to Modern Healthcare’s 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare, Savoy magazine’s Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate America, and Philadelphia magazine’s Most Influential People in Philadelphia, among other honors. He also received the Excellence in Governance award from Modern Healthcare in recognition of his contributions as chair of the board of directors for Hartford HealthCare from June 2020 to June 2023.

He assumed the role of CEO at Independence in January 2021. Mr. Deavens joined the company in 2017 as executive vice president, chief financial officer, and treasurer. Prior to that, he held senior financial roles at MassMutual, NY Life, Cigna, and GE Capital. He began his career in public accounting with Price Waterhouse, where he specialized in financial services while working in the firm’s New York, London, and St. Louis offices.

Mr. Deavens is chair of the board of directors at the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia. He also serves on the boards of Alegeus Technologies, America’s Health Insurance Plans, BCS Financial Corporation, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, and National Institute for Health Care Management. He serves on the PNC Bank advisory board (Philadelphia Region) and as a commissioner for the Pennsylvania Early Learning Investment Commission and the America 250PA Commission. As part of his responsibilities at Independence, he serves on the board of Independence Health Group and as chair of the board of directors at AmeriHealth Caritas.

In addition, Mr. Deavens is a trustee of the Barnes Foundation, on the board of directors of the African American Museum in Philadelphia, and an honorary trustee of the Amistad Center for Art & Culture.

He is a certified public accountant (CPA inactive)* and a member of the Executive Leadership Council, the National Association of Corporate Directors, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and the Missouri Society of Certified Public Accountants.

Mr. Deavens holds a bachelor of science degree in accounting from Florida A&M University and was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Manor College in 2024.

Pat Geraghty is President and Chief Executive Officer of GuideWell, a $30 billion not-for-profit mutual insurance holding company headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla. A mission-driven health solutions enterprise, GuideWell is a family of companies focused on transforming health care.

GuideWell comprises Florida’s Blue Cross Blue Shield plan, Florida Blue, which is the leading health insurer in Florida; Triple-S Management, Puerto Rico’s Blue Cross Blue Shield plan and a leading health care services company on the island; GuideWell Health, a portfolio of integrated care delivery organizations providing primary and urgent care at more than 100 Florida medical centers and affiliate clinics, which includes Florida Blue | Sanitas Medical Centers; Emcara Health, which partners with primary care providers to extend care into the home; GuideWell Source, which provides administrative services to federal health care programs; and WebTPA, a market leading administrator of self-funded employer health plans. The company holds majority or significant interests in a range of health solutions companies including Lucet, a behavioral health care company that provides technology-enabled support to payers, providers, and health plan members.

GuideWell serves 38.5 million people across 50 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, including more than 6 million individuals in Florida.

Geraghty was the architect of the strategic restructuring that created GuideWell from the foundation of an 80-year-old health insurance company, transforming it into a health solutions organization at the forefront of reimagining the future of health in America. The GuideWell restructuring is considered a model of strategic reinvention and is featured as a capstone business case in the curriculum of Harvard Business School.

Under Geraghty’s leadership, the enterprise has received multiple recognitions for being an exceptional employer, including Florida Blue being formally certified as a Great Place to Work in 2023. Florida Blue has also been recognized as a Fortune Best Workplace for Women; a Forbes magazine 2023 Best Employer for Diversity; and was named to four different Newsweek Rankings in 2023 as “America's Greatest Workplaces 2023;” “America's Greatest Workplaces 2023 for Women;” “America's Greatest Workplaces 2023 for Parents & Family;” and “America's Greatest Workplaces 2023 for Diversity.” Florida Blue was also recognized by J.D. Power as #1 in member satisfaction among commercial health plans in Florida.

A dynamic speaker, Geraghty is considered an expert voice on a range of health care topics including health care reform, next-generation payment strategies, innovation in health care, and the benefits of wellness and prevention programming.

Geraghty is active in leading professional and community organizations. He is a member and past chair of the Florida Council of 100, a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization of Florida business leaders who advise the state’s governor on how to improve the economic growth of the state and the economic well-being of its residents.

He also serves as chair of the board for AHIP, an organization that represents health insurance providers across the country; and a member of the boards of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, including immediate past chair of its Health Policy & Advocacy Committee (HPAC); National Institute of Health Care Management (NIHCM), a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the effectiveness, efficiency, and quality of America’s health care system; and Tampa Electric Co. (TECO). Pat is also a member of the Executive Committee for the Healthcare Leadership Council, a forum for health care leaders to lead the future of health. His work with United Way, MaliVai Washington Youth Foundation and the American Cancer Society are among his most important commitments outside his board engagements.

Geraghty holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Colgate University and a Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, degree from Florida Southern College. He also has completed executive education programs at Harvard University School of Public Health and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Omar Lateef serves as president and CEO of Rush University System for Health and Rush University Medical Center. He has been recognized internationally as a health care visionary, leader and practitioner. 

Rush has set the nation’s standard in health care quality and safety, modeled excellence in clinical leadership both regionally and nationally, and maintained its deep and long-standing commitment to health equity. Rush leaders, along with others across the nation, educate the world’s top health care professionals. Rush believes in serving its patients and communities by addressing the root causes of disease through strong partnerships and innovative research. 

All three Rush hospitals repeatedly have received high marks for quality and patient experience from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Vizient has ranked Rush University Medical Center No. 2 among 107 academic medical centers for quality and accountability in 2024 and has been ranked by Vizient in the top 10 for 11 consecutive years. The medical center has earned a spot on the U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals Honor Roll five consecutive times.

Priya Singhal, M.D., M.P.H. is an accomplished physician scientist and business C-suite leader committed to developing drugs across diverse therapeutic areas that can transform the lives of patients and their caregivers. Over her drug development career, Priya has significantly contributed to more than 100 programs and led the worldwide approvals of more than 12 first in class and best in class products. Since January 2023 she is the Biogen Executive Vice President (EVP), Head of Development. Priya has accountability of the entire Biogen clinical and marketed portfolio and oversees capital allocation of a multibillion-dollar budget. Dr. Singhal rejoined Biogen in 2020 to lead Global Safety & Regulatory Sciences as well as Japan and China R&D and was promoted to Interim Head of R&D in 2021 prior to being confirmed in January 2023. She had several roles of increasing responsibility at Biogen during her prior tenure from 2012 – 2018 and made significant leadership and technical contributions to the Biogen portfolio, R&D strategy and governance as well as the filings and approvals of nine products. Prior to her return to Biogen in 2020, Dr. Singhal served as Head of R&D and Manufacturing at Zafgen Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company leveraging its proprietary knowledge of MetAP2 systems biology to develop novel therapies for patients aWected by a range of metabolic diseases. From 2008 – 2012 she held roles of increasing seniority at Vertex Pharmaceuticals managing the Hepatitus C portfolio and served as the Vice President, Medical AWairs for the HCV and Cystic Fibrosis portfolio. She began her drug-development carer at Millennium Pharmaceuticals where she led benefit-risk for Velcade and other projects in the development portfolio. Preceding her career in the Biotechnology Industry, Dr. Singhal completed her M.P.H. in International Health at Harvard School of Public Health and obtained her training in Internal Medicine in Mumbai India. Priya is an invited speaker at Academic and Industry Forums and a guest faculty member at Harvard Medical School.

Adam has nearly 20 years of experience in entrepreneurship and innovation in the private sector and in the U.S. Government. As the child of a primary care physician and a speech pathologist, Adam’s parents instilled in him the importance of caring, family, and community, and he saw how magic the time is between providers and their patients and the change that this can make in someone’s life.

Adam founded three healthcare companies including Landmark Health, a company delivering around-the-clock medical care to chronically ill patients. From there, Adam took on major roles in the U.S. Government, including Director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), where he worked on value-based care for the United States. Adam was also a founding member of Operation Warp Speed, unanimously confirmed by the Senate as the first CEO of the International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and a negotiator in the historic Abraham Accords.

After his government tenure, Adam started Rubicon because he wanted to build healthcare companies to transform how care is delivered in America, as he saw the power of bringing the private and public sector together to solve our nation’s greatest healthcare challenges.

Adam lives in Nashville with his wife, Shira, and their four children.

Dr. Chris Chen is Chief Executive Officer of ChenMed, a premier physician-led, technology-enabled healthcare organization. A champion for equitable health outcomes, ChenMed is transforming the care of underserved, overlooked seniors.

Dr. Chen is a bold innovator leading a revolution in healthcare through a global full-risk model; custom-designed physician training programs; and a proprietary technology platform, purpose-built for value-based care. He has led ChenMed to remarkable outcomes – equalized health inequities, 30-50% fewer hospitalizations, and high net promoter scores.

Since becoming ChenMed’s CEO in 2009, Dr. Chen has built the decades old, highly successful ChenMed model into a scalable organization now spanning dozens of cities across many states.

ChenMed’s unique approach, proprietary technological capabilities, and results have led it to be named to Newsweek’s “Most Loved Workplaces” list, Fortune Magazine’s “Change the World” list, as well as earning recognition by the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.K. National Health System. ChenMed has also been featured in publications such as Modern Healthcare, Health Affairs, Forbes, The Economist, Wall Street Journal, New England Journal of Medicine, The Guardian, and Medical Economics – which named ChenMed, “Best Primary Care System in the U.S.”

Under Dr. Chen’s leadership, ChenMed has also won multiple best places to work awards, including being certified a “Great Place to Work®” by the Great Place to Work Institute in 2021 and honored as the only primary care medical practice on the IDG Insider Pro and Computerworld “Best Place to Work in IT” list.

Brought up in South Florida, Dr. Chen graduated from the University of Miami’s Honors Program in Medicine. He went on to complete his medical training at Beth Israel Deaconess, a Harvard University teaching hospital, after which he completed a fellowship in cardiology at Cornell University Medical College in Manhattan, New York. A board-certified cardiologist, Dr. Chen sees patients at the company’s Miami Gardens, Florida medical center.

Eric Evans has served as Chief Executive Officer and Director of Surgery Partners, Inc. since January 2020. He previously held the title of Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer since April 2019. Mr. Evans has nearly 20 years of experience in a range of operating and strategic roles in healthcare services. Mr. Evans previously served as President of Hospital Operations for Tenet Healthcare. In his role, he was responsible for 68 acute care hospitals, 161 hospital-affiliated facilities, more than 2,200 employed providers and other related healthcare services and functions within the company. His early career at Tenet consisted of various positions, including CEO of Tenet's Texas Region and market leadership roles as well as Chief of Staff to the CEO. Mr. Evans also serves as Director for Teladoc Health, QuVa Pharma, the Nashville Health Care Council, the American Heart Association of Middle Tennessee, and the SPOON Foundation. He earned his MBA from Harvard Business School and his Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Management from Purdue University.

With over 36 years of experience in health care, Dawn Maroney is a nationally respected leader and innovator, known for positioning health care organizations for success in the competitive and evolving Medicare, Medicaid, and underserved markets.

As President of Alignment Health, Dawn oversees day-to-day operations with a strong focus on clinical performance, service excellence, sales execution, and provider engagement across all markets. Her operational leadership drives cross-functional alignment between clinical outcomes, Stars performance, digital member experience, and financial sustainability. Known for her COO-like approach, Dawn fosters enterprise-wide operational excellence, accelerate market responsiveness, and drives scalable performance across all business lines.

As CEO of Alignment Health Plan, Dawn oversees the company’s growth, compliance,pharmacy, and expansion strategies, including sales, product development, market launches,acquisitions, and partner management. She leads the development of innovative Medicare Advantage products, leads direct response campaigns, and manages the coordination of sales planning and execution across Alignment’s extensive provider, health system, and broker networks, ensuring seamless integration and impactful market performance.

Dawn’s leadership has earned national recognition for Alignment Health Plan, including multiple Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA) Awards for excellence in medication adherence and pharmacy quality. Most recently in 2025, Alignment was selected from 633 contracts,demonstrating her team’s commitment to delivering high-value care.

Prior to joining Alignment, Dawn served as Chief Medicare Officer at Blue Shield of California(formerly Care1st Health Plan), where she oversaw more than 400,000 Medicare and Medicaid lives across California, Arizona, and Texas. Under her leadership, the plan doubled its membership, significantly improved its CMS Star Rating, and delivered sustained revenue growth and retention improvements.Dawn’s strategic mindset, operational discipline, and member-first approach continue to power Alignment Health’s mission: to lead with purpose and deliver better care for all seniors.

Hal is an Operating Partner at Khosla Ventures focused on healthcare and life science companies. He has served as a senior executive and board director in the provider, payor and pharmaceutical-medical device industries.

His track record includes strategically transforming and providing operational leadership as executive vice president and chief medical officer of CVSHealth/Aetna. He launched AetnaCare, a first of its kind ecosystem of personalized health solutions, beginning in the home, through a series of partnerships that brought together accountable care organizations, health systems, pharmaceutical and device companies, including Merck and Medtronic, through value-based contracts.

Hal also served as CEO of the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center where he led innovative partnerships with companies including One Medical, Dispatch Health, Alternate Health Solutions and Teladoc Health. As CEO of Penn State Health, he led the creation of innovative joint ventures and partnerships with Select Medical, United Surgical Partners International (USPI) and Highmark.

He is on the board of directors of Envision Healthcare and Research America, and was a board member of Select Medical, USPI and Vyteris, as well as seven health systems. In addition, he is a member of the Curai Health advisory board and was on the advisory boards of Johnson & Johnson and USPI. He has served on committees of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine and Health Evolution.

A former medical school dean and a researcher in septic shock, ARDS and medical devices, Hal has published over 100 papers, abstracts, book chapters and commentaries. He  received his bachelor’s and medical degree from the University of Rochester and has a master of science in life science engineering from Tufts University. He completed  his residency at Northwestern University Medical Center and was a Eudowood fellow in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and also a post-doctoral fellow in environmental health science at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.

Eliza “Pippa” Shulman, DO, MPH, is one of the world’s foremost authorities on providing advanced care in the home. She joined DispatchHealth’s leadership team during the company’s merger with Medically Home, where she served as Chief Medical Officer and Chief Strategy Officer. As the clinical architect behind many of Medically Home’s most innovative models, Dr. Shulman helped shape what is now part of DispatchHealth’s approach high-acuity care in the home.

Throughout her decades-long career, Dr. Shulman has consistently made an impact as a dynamic leader focused on change. She brings a rare combination of clinical, systems, and policy expertise. In addition to her operational and clinical leadership, she has worked closely with federal legislators from both major parties to support the development and passage of legislation that enables sustainable payment models for hospital alternative care. Her unique perspective has been featured at the invite-only Mayo Clinic Platform Conference, where she has led discussions on the future of healthcare innovation.

She completed her training at the combined NH-Dartmouth Family Medicine Residency and Dartmouth Hitchcock Leadership Preventive Medicine Residency—programs that cultivate physician leaders in systemic care transformation. Dr. Shulman is triple-board-certified in family medicine, preventive medicine, and hospice and palliative medicine.

Dr. Omar Lateef serves as president and CEO of Rush University System for Health and Rush University Medical Center. He has been recognized internationally as a health care visionary, leader and practitioner. 

Rush has set the nation’s standard in health care quality and safety, modeled excellence in clinical leadership both regionally and nationally, and maintained its deep and long-standing commitment to health equity. Rush leaders, along with others across the nation, educate the world’s top health care professionals. Rush believes in serving its patients and communities by addressing the root causes of disease through strong partnerships and innovative research. 

All three Rush hospitals repeatedly have received high marks for quality and patient experience from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Vizient has ranked Rush University Medical Center No. 2 among 107 academic medical centers for quality and accountability in 2024 and has been ranked by Vizient in the top 10 for 11 consecutive years. The medical center has earned a spot on the U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals Honor Roll five consecutive times.

Edmondo Robinson is the Founder and CEO of Downeast Digital and a national leader in digital health and innovation with over 25 years of experience in health care delivery, management, and leadership. A practicing academic hospitalist, Dr. Robinson cares for patients while teaching students and trainees as part of the Hospital Medicine service at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida.

Previously, Dr. Robinson served as Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Officer at Moffitt Cancer Center where he founded and led the Center for Digital Health as well as co-founding CancerX. Prior to that, Dr. Robinson was the Chief Transformation Officer and Senior Vice President of Consumerism at ChristianaCare, one of the largest health systems in the mid-Atlantic.

Dr. Robinson is a professor of Internal Medicine and Oncologic Science at the University of South Florida’s Morsani College of Medicine. He serves as a Director of the Board of Ardent Health, Trustee of the Board of the University of Vermont Health Network, and Chair of the National Advisory Council for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians, a senior fellow of the Society of Hospital Medicine, and an Aspen Institute Health Innovators Fellow. He holds a medical degree from the University of California, Los Angeles; an MBA with an emphasis in health care management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania; and a master’s degree in health policy research from the University of Pennsylvania.

Ms. Yang is an experienced senior executive in four publicly traded companies, appointee in two Presidential Administrations, and public and private company board director. She has extensive experience in digital transformation, global expansion, technology, healthcare, consumer media, and M&A at some of the world’s most valued and admired companies.

She currently serves on the boards of GE Healthcare (NASDAQ: GEHC), Doximity (NYSE: DOCS), and CommonSpirit Health. She advises institutional investors and privately held companies in the technology and healthcare. Until September 2022, she was General Manager of Amazon Web Services, Healthcare, where she led the world’s most broadly adopted cloud platform to achieve 60-70% YoY growth for one of the highest margin healthcare businesses at the Fortune 2 company.

Previously, she served at Ascension as Chief Strategy Officer for Population Health and Managing Director for Ascension Holdings International, where she helped build two successful businesses in value-based care and global supply chain, respectively. She also was an executive at The Advisory Board Company, Discovery, and AOL Time Warner. Her government work includes service as Senior Advisor to the FCC Chairman on Broadband, appointee to White House Task Forces on Health IT and on Broadband, and U.S. Special Coordinator for China Rule of Law at the U.S. State Department.

Her recent awards include Modern Healthcare Top 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare and Fierce Healthcare Top 10 Women of Influence. A Council on Foreign Relations member and Rotary Scholar, she graduated from University of Virginia (B.A., Phi Beta Kappa) and Stanford Law School (J.D., President (Editor-in-Chief) of Stanford Law Review).

Dr. Omar Lateef serves as president and CEO of Rush University System for Health and Rush University Medical Center. He has been recognized internationally as a health care visionary, leader and practitioner. 

Rush has set the nation’s standard in health care quality and safety, modeled excellence in clinical leadership both regionally and nationally, and maintained its deep and long-standing commitment to health equity. Rush leaders, along with others across the nation, educate the world’s top health care professionals. Rush believes in serving its patients and communities by addressing the root causes of disease through strong partnerships and innovative research. 

All three Rush hospitals repeatedly have received high marks for quality and patient experience from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Vizient has ranked Rush University Medical Center No. 2 among 107 academic medical centers for quality and accountability in 2024 and has been ranked by Vizient in the top 10 for 11 consecutive years. The medical center has earned a spot on the U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals Honor Roll five consecutive times.

Edmondo Robinson is the Founder and CEO of Downeast Digital and a national leader in digital health and innovation with over 25 years of experience in health care delivery, management, and leadership. A practicing academic hospitalist, Dr. Robinson cares for patients while teaching students and trainees as part of the Hospital Medicine service at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida.

Previously, Dr. Robinson served as Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Officer at Moffitt Cancer Center where he founded and led the Center for Digital Health as well as co-founding CancerX. Prior to that, Dr. Robinson was the Chief Transformation Officer and Senior Vice President of Consumerism at ChristianaCare, one of the largest health systems in the mid-Atlantic.

Dr. Robinson is a professor of Internal Medicine and Oncologic Science at the University of South Florida’s Morsani College of Medicine. He serves as a Director of the Board of Ardent Health, Trustee of the Board of the University of Vermont Health Network, and Chair of the National Advisory Council for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians, a senior fellow of the Society of Hospital Medicine, and an Aspen Institute Health Innovators Fellow. He holds a medical degree from the University of California, Los Angeles; an MBA with an emphasis in health care management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania; and a master’s degree in health policy research from the University of Pennsylvania.

Ms. Yang is an experienced senior executive in four publicly traded companies, appointee in two Presidential Administrations, and public and private company board director. She has extensive experience in digital transformation, global expansion, technology, healthcare, consumer media, and M&A at some of the world’s most valued and admired companies.

She currently serves on the boards of GE Healthcare (NASDAQ: GEHC), Doximity (NYSE: DOCS), and CommonSpirit Health. She advises institutional investors and privately held companies in the technology and healthcare. Until September 2022, she was General Manager of Amazon Web Services, Healthcare, where she led the world’s most broadly adopted cloud platform to achieve 60-70% YoY growth for one of the highest margin healthcare businesses at the Fortune 2 company.

Previously, she served at Ascension as Chief Strategy Officer for Population Health and Managing Director for Ascension Holdings International, where she helped build two successful businesses in value-based care and global supply chain, respectively. She also was an executive at The Advisory Board Company, Discovery, and AOL Time Warner. Her government work includes service as Senior Advisor to the FCC Chairman on Broadband, appointee to White House Task Forces on Health IT and on Broadband, and U.S. Special Coordinator for China Rule of Law at the U.S. State Department.

Her recent awards include Modern Healthcare Top 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare and Fierce Healthcare Top 10 Women of Influence. A Council on Foreign Relations member and Rotary Scholar, she graduated from University of Virginia (B.A., Phi Beta Kappa) and Stanford Law School (J.D., President (Editor-in-Chief) of Stanford Law Review).

Aneesh Chopra is the Chief Strategy Officer at Arcadia, a healthcare data platform that in 2024 acquired CareJourney, the company Chopra co-founded a decade prior. In his role at Arcadia, Chopra advocates for interoperability and data-driven approaches that help providers, payers, and employers make smarter decisions to succeed in the shift to value-based care. Chopra helps the industry better manage costs and improve care quality with a winning combination of precise insights derived from more than 300 million beneficiaries and over 2 million providers nationwide and a fast, scalable, and interoperable platform with operational tools to act on opportunities.

Chopra’s influence and leadership in technology includes extensive experience in the public sector. He served as the first U.S. Chief Technology Officer under the Obama Administration, where he spearheaded initiatives to modernize the nation’s healthcare system using electronic health records and health information exchanges. These efforts strengthened the data infrastructure used in healthcare delivery reform, ultimately helping the industry progress toward a more connected and efficient healthcare ecosystem.

Chopra also served as Virginia’s Secretary of Technology under Governor Tim Kaine, where he championed the growth of the state’s technology sector, enhanced educational opportunities through technology, and drove innovation in government operations. As a public servant, Aneesh fostered better public-private collaboration, a theme central to his 2014 book, “Innovative State: How New Technologies Can Transform Government.”

Chopra’s significant contributions to the fields of technology and healthcare have cemented his reputation as a forward-thinking leader committed to leveraging technology for the public good. He’s been recognized by Modern Healthcare as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare and one of the top 25 “Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers” by Government Technology magazine.

Chopra serves on the boards of IntegraConnect, Virginia Center for Health Innovation, and the George Mason Innovation Advisory Council. He earned his master’s degree in public policy from Harvard Kennedy School and holds a bachelor’s degree in health policy from Johns Hopkins University.

Amy Gleason is the Acting Administrator of the U.S. DOGE Service and Strategic Advisor to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), where she leads national initiatives to modernize healthcare technology and improve data interoperability. Previously, she served as Chief Product Officer at Russell Street Ventures, where she led digital health innovation at Main Street Health and CareBridge. Amy also served with the U.S. Digital Service at the White House, where she created the national COVID-19 database and led major efforts such as the Pandemic Ready Interoperable Modernization Effort (PRIME) and Data at the Point of Care. She began her career in nursing and has spent her career advancing healthcare through technology. Amy brings a deeply personal perspective to her work, shaped by her experience as a caregiver to her daughter, who was diagnosed with a rare disease at age 11.

Richard Schwartz serves as CEO of Health Evolution, where he has been since the beginning of 2021. He is passionate about surfacing opportunities to promote positive change in health care and is privileged to work with this extraordinary community of cross-industry CEOs and other leaders best positioned to do just that.

Richard served as Executive Officer of the Advisory Board Company from 2002 to 2018, where he led the firm’s health care practice as Chief Operating Officer. In that capacity he was responsible for expanding the firm’s capabilities – spanning research, consulting, and data/analytic software services – bringing them to bear on 4000+ member organizations’ most pressing issues and driving strong results.

Prior to joining the Advisory Board, Richard worked at a boutique consulting firm advising Fortune 100-size companies on policy issues, a bio-technology center, and a policy think-tank. He received a B.A. degree from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from Duke University. He is married with three children.

Marty Bonick is president and chief executive officer of Ardent Health Services. Ardent is one of the largest private health systems in the U.S. with over $4.6 Billion in net revenue, encompassing 30 hospitals and more than 200 sites of care across six states. Ardent employs more than 26,000 people, including over 1,300 employed providers who collectively care for more than 2.7 million patient encounters each day.

A veteran health care leader, Mr. Bonick brings nearly 25 years of experience driving business growth through innovation and quality improvement across a variety of health care settings. With experience in for-profit, non-profit, public, and privately held companies, he has held senior management roles in large tertiary and academic medical centers, multi-site systems of inpatient hospital and outpatient facilities, and physician services organizations.

Prior to his appointment as president and CEO of Ardent Health Services in 2020, Mr. Bonick served as CEO of PhyMed Healthcare Group, a national provider of anesthesia and pain management services; division president at Community Health Systems (NYSE: CYH), where he led operations for a $4.5 billion healthcare portfolio; and CEO of Jewish Hospital and senior vice president of operations for Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s Healthcare in Louisville, Kentucky. Mr. Bonick began his health care career at Hillcrest HealthCare System in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was acquired by Ardent Health Services during his tenure.

Mr. Bonick is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives and serves as a member of the boards of the Federation of American Hospitals (chairman), the Via College of Medicine – Auburn Advisory Board, Community Health Corporation, and ProUnlimited. He holds dual master’s degrees from Washington University in St. Louis in healthcare administration and information management and a bachelor’s in psychology from the University of Illinois.

Dr. Terry Gilliland was named Geisinger’s new president and chief executive officer in 2024. He has extensive healthcare experience and has held senior executive roles spanning healthcare delivery and payer organizations. Most recently, Dr. Gilliland served as chief medical officer and chief science officer at Cogitativo, a healthcare-focused artificial intelligence and machine learning company. Prior to that, he served as executive vice president of Healthcare Quality and Affordability at Blue Shield of California and senior vice president and chief medical officer of Sentara Healthcare. Earlier in his career, Dr. Gilliland held various leadership roles at the Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group and the Colorado Permanente Medical Group within Kaiser Permanente, in addition to being a practicing general surgeon.

Dr. Gilliland received his Bachelor of Science in Biology from Stanford University, his Doctor of Medicine from the University of California, Los Angeles, and his Master of Science in Management from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Patrice A. Harris, MD, MA, a psychiatrist from Atlanta, became the 174th president of the American Medical Association in June 2019, and the organization’s first African-American woman to hold this position. Dr. Harris has diverse experience as a private practicing physician, public health administrator, patient advocate and medical society lobbyist.

Dr. Harris currently spearheads the AMA’s efforts to end the opioid epidemic and has been chair of the AMA Opioid Task Force since its inception in 2014. During her presidency, Dr. Harris will continue to lead the task force as it works across every state to eliminate barriers to treatment, provide patients with access to affordable, non-opioid pain care, and fight the stigma faced by those with substance use-disorders.

Having served on the AMA Board of Trustees since 2011, and as chair from 2016 to 2017, she has long been a mentor, a role model and an advocate. Prior to serving on the board, Dr. Harris honed her broad knowledge and deep understanding of health care issues through various leadership roles. At the AMA these included having served for many years on the AMA Council on  Legislation, including a term as chair, and on multiple AMA task forces on topics such as health information technology, payment and delivery reform, and private contracting. Beyond the AMA she has held positions of leadership with the American Psychiatric Association, the Georgia Psychiatric Physicians Association, the Medical Association of Georgia, and The Big Cities Health Coalition, where she chaired this forum composed of leaders from America’s largest metropolitan health departments.

Growing up in Bluefield, West Virginia, Dr. Harris dreamt of entering medicine at a time when few women of color were encouraged to become physicians. Dr. Harris spent her formative years at West Virginia University, earning a BA in psychology, an MA in counseling psychology and, ultimately, a medical degree in 1992. It was during this time that her passion for helping children emerged, and she completed her psychiatry residency and fellowships in child and adolescent psychiatry and forensic psychiatry at the Emory University School of Medicine.

Two themes that govern Dr. Harris’s professional life are a passion to improve the lives of children and service to others. A recognized expert in children’s mental health and childhood  trauma, Dr. Harris has led efforts on both local and national levels to integrate public health, behavioral health and primary care services with supports for employment, housing and education.

A distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Harris continues in private practice and currently consults with both public and private organizations on health service delivery and emerging trends in practice and health policy. She is an adjunct assistant professor in the Emory Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and an adjunct clinical assistant professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Morehouse School of Medicine.

Sarah Iselin is president and chief executive officer of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, one of the largest independent Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in the country with 3 million members and 20,000 employer customers. Sarah has a long history with the company, serving earlier in her career as president of its foundation and as the company’s chief strategy officer and senior vice president of strategy, policy, and community partnerships. Before returning to Blue Cross, Sarah was the executive vice president and chief operating officer at Blue Shield of California, and she also held a variety of executive leadership roles at GuideWell/Florida Blue and Optum. In addition, Sarah served twice in the Patrick Administration, first as commissioner of the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy and again to lead the state’s efforts to turnaround the implementation of its health insurance exchange website. Sarah sits on the boards of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, the Boston Green Ribbon Commission, and the National Institute of Health Care Management. She received a Master of Science degree in health policy and management from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Sarah is the proud mother of three young adults who live in various parts of North America.

Amy Abernethy, M.D., Ph.D., is cofounder of Highlander Health, an organization focused on advancing evidence generation for the new era of medical innovation. As an oncologist, serial entrepreneur, and standard setter, Dr. Abernethy is a champion for speeding the pace at which safe and effective treatments reach patients, and for progressive and responsible use of our healthcare system’s data.

Dr. Abernethy is the former principal deputy commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. While there, Dr. Abernethy led initiatives in advancing clinical evidence generation and personalized healthcare and also served as the agency’s acting chief information officer.

More recently, Dr. Abernethy served as chief medical officer and president of product development at Verily, Alphabet’s precision health business, leading the company’s development and delivery of solutions that connect clinical research and care. Earlier roles include that of Flatiron Health’s first chief medical officer and chief scientific officer, as well as: professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine; director of the Center for Learning Health Care at the Duke Clinical Research Institute; and, director of the Duke Cancer Care Research Program at the Duke Cancer Institute. An avid learner and teacher, and a hematologist/oncologist and palliative medicine physician, Dr. Abernethy has authored over 500 publications.

As the medical center’s chief executive since 2009, Dr. Balser has led remarkable growth over the past decade, expanding patient visits to nearly 3 million per year from the Mid-South and communities nationwide with annual net revenues increasing from $2 billion to over $7 billion. The highest-ranked adult and children’s hospitals in the Southeast by US News, VUMC employs over 40,000 people and houses the world’s highest volume cardiac transplantation program, the Mid-South’s largest NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center, and a host of destination clinical programs. As dean, Dr. Balser also oversees the VU School of Medicine, ranked #5 nationally among research intensive medical schools in US News. Over two decades he has spearheaded an agenda to bring personalized medicine from research concepts to bedside care, integrating advances in biomedical informatics, discovery science, and precision genomics. Recognized as the nation’s academic leader in health information technology, the NIH Data and Research Support Center for the US Precision Medicine “All of Us” Program is based at VUMC.

In 2016 Dr. Balser guided VUMC through an historic restructuring process, separating the medical center legally and financially from Vanderbilt University through a $1.2B public debt issuance and forming an independent, not-for-profit corporation that continues its historic academic affiliation with the university. He has led acquisitions growing VUMC from two to five regional campuses with seven hospitals and over 1700 licensed inpatient beds, while expanding the employed medical practice to 3000 clinicians providing care in over 200 outpatient facilities, the largest in the Mid-South. VUMC houses one of the nation’s distinguished medical education programs with over 1100 residents and fellows training in over 200 specialties. The School of Medicine ranks among the nation’s top NIH grant recipients, with over $900M in annual research awards supported by government, foundation, and industry sponsors. Among the nation’s most accomplished infectious disease research centers, VUMC has led key discoveries delivering vaccines and treatments for COVID-19, including Remdesivir (Gilead) and Evusheld (AstraZeneca). Through its wholly owned biotech subsidiary Nashville Biosciences, and in partnership with Illumina and a number of pharmaceutical partners (The Alliance for Genomic Discovery), VUMC is leveraging its massive-scale DNA resource linked to over 300,000 deidentified health records (BioVU) to build the nation’s largest whole-genome sequenced discovery resource for both academic and commercial use.

Dr. Balser was a director for Varian Medical Systems (VAR) until its acquisition by Siemens and presently is a director of CVS Health (CVS), serving on its Medical Affairs and Audit committees. He also serves on the boards of VUMC, Tulane University, and the Nashville Healthcare Council. Elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2008, since 2018 he has been a governing council member, chairing the 2020 and 2022 (50th Anniversary) annual meetings and co-leading a sector review on healthcare organization performance during COVID-19.

A graduate of Tulane (B.S Engineering), and a 1990 graduate of Vanderbilt (MD/PhD pharmacology), he undertook internship on the Osler Medical Service, residency in anesthesiology, and fellowship in cardiac anesthesiology and critical care at Johns Hopkins. Joining the Hopkins faculty in 1995, he practiced cardiac anesthesiology and surgical ICU medicine while leading an NIH-funded research program aimed at the genomic underpinnings of cardiac rhythm disorders. He returned to Vanderbilt in 1998, became chair of anesthesiology in 2001 and VUMC’s chief research officer in 2004. In 2008/09, he was named dean of medicine and vice chancellor for health affairs with executive responsibility for Vanderbilt’s medicine-related programs, responsibilities that continue since 2016 as President and CEO of VUMC and dean of the VU School of Medicine.

Ricky Bloomfield, MD, is Oura’s Chief Medical Officer, where he sets the vision for Oura’s global healthcare programs and partnerships, guides the company through ever-changing healthcare regulations and leads the company’s expansion in healthcare solutions. He also enables cross-functional collaboration across the organization to drive the direction of new hardware and software features to scale healthcare ambitions.

Dr. Bloomfield brings expertise in medicine, digital health, clinical informatics, and navigating the U.S. healthcare system. He joins Oura from Apple, where he served as Clinical and Health Informatics Lead. During his tenure, Dr. Bloomfield led the launch of several features, including Apple’s Health Records on iPhone and iPad.

Before joining Apple, Dr. Bloomfield was the director of Mobile Technology Strategy at Duke University Health System, where he explored the world of clinical informatics, the intersection of technology and healthcare. There, he discovered a problem worth solving: health data interoperability. To address this, he led a team to implement the first API on an Epic-based electronic health record (EHR) that used the emerging FHIR standard, with the goal of helping patients, clinicians, and researchers easily access health-record data. At Duke, he also collaborated on the largest app-based autism research study of its kind and worked as a hospitalist in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics.

Jackie Gerhart, MD is the Chief Medical Officer at Epic and a practicing family medicine physician with a focus on digital health and clinical innovation. She helps shape clinical strategy and works closely with healthcare organizations to implement and scale technologies that improve patient care. Her work includes advancing the use of ambient voice for documentation and applying EHR data to improve patient outcomes and medical knowledge. As the lead clinical researcher for Epic Research, her studies—published on EpicResearch.org—have informed agencies including the FDA, CDC, and the White House.

Dr. Gerhart also serves on the National Academy of Medicine’s Digital Health and AI Action Collaborative and the Evidence-Based Medicine Action Collaborative. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she practices primary care. She earned her medical degree from the Mayo Clinic and completed residency at a Federally Qualified Health Center in Madison, WI. With a background in biomedical engineering and neuroscience, she is dedicated to reducing barriers to care and aligning technology, policy, and clinical practice.

Hal is an Operating Partner at Khosla Ventures focused on healthcare and life science companies. He has served as a senior executive and board director in the provider, payor and pharmaceutical-medical device industries.

His track record includes strategically transforming and providing operational leadership as executive vice president and chief medical officer of CVSHealth/Aetna. He launched AetnaCare, a first of its kind ecosystem of personalized health solutions, beginning in the home, through a series of partnerships that brought together accountable care organizations, health systems, pharmaceutical and device companies, including Merck and Medtronic, through value-based contracts.

Hal also served as CEO of the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center where he led innovative partnerships with companies including One Medical, Dispatch Health, Alternate Health Solutions and Teladoc Health. As CEO of Penn State Health, he led the creation of innovative joint ventures and partnerships with Select Medical, United Surgical Partners International (USPI) and Highmark.

He is on the board of directors of Envision Healthcare and Research America, and was a board member of Select Medical, USPI and Vyteris, as well as seven health systems. In addition, he is a member of the Curai Health advisory board and was on the advisory boards of Johnson & Johnson and USPI. He has served on committees of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine and Health Evolution.

A former medical school dean and a researcher in septic shock, ARDS and medical devices, Hal has published over 100 papers, abstracts, book chapters and commentaries. He  received his bachelor’s and medical degree from the University of Rochester and has a master of science in life science engineering from Tufts University. He completed  his residency at Northwestern University Medical Center and was a Eudowood fellow in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and also a post-doctoral fellow in environmental health science at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.

Eliza “Pippa” Shulman, DO, MPH, is one of the world’s foremost authorities on providing advanced care in the home. She joined DispatchHealth’s leadership team during the company’s merger with Medically Home, where she served as Chief Medical Officer and Chief Strategy Officer. As the clinical architect behind many of Medically Home’s most innovative models, Dr. Shulman helped shape what is now part of DispatchHealth’s approach high-acuity care in the home.

Throughout her decades-long career, Dr. Shulman has consistently made an impact as a dynamic leader focused on change. She brings a rare combination of clinical, systems, and policy expertise. In addition to her operational and clinical leadership, she has worked closely with federal legislators from both major parties to support the development and passage of legislation that enables sustainable payment models for hospital alternative care. Her unique perspective has been featured at the invite-only Mayo Clinic Platform Conference, where she has led discussions on the future of healthcare innovation.

She completed her training at the combined NH-Dartmouth Family Medicine Residency and Dartmouth Hitchcock Leadership Preventive Medicine Residency—programs that cultivate physician leaders in systemic care transformation. Dr. Shulman is triple-board-certified in family medicine, preventive medicine, and hospice and palliative medicine.

Patrice A. Harris, MD, MA, a psychiatrist from Atlanta, became the 174th president of the American Medical Association in June 2019, and the organization’s first African-American woman to hold this position. Dr. Harris has diverse experience as a private practicing physician, public health administrator, patient advocate and medical society lobbyist.

Dr. Harris currently spearheads the AMA’s efforts to end the opioid epidemic and has been chair of the AMA Opioid Task Force since its inception in 2014. During her presidency, Dr. Harris will continue to lead the task force as it works across every state to eliminate barriers to treatment, provide patients with access to affordable, non-opioid pain care, and fight the stigma faced by those with substance use-disorders.

Having served on the AMA Board of Trustees since 2011, and as chair from 2016 to 2017, she has long been a mentor, a role model and an advocate. Prior to serving on the board, Dr. Harris honed her broad knowledge and deep understanding of health care issues through various leadership roles. At the AMA these included having served for many years on the AMA Council on  Legislation, including a term as chair, and on multiple AMA task forces on topics such as health information technology, payment and delivery reform, and private contracting. Beyond the AMA she has held positions of leadership with the American Psychiatric Association, the Georgia Psychiatric Physicians Association, the Medical Association of Georgia, and The Big Cities Health Coalition, where she chaired this forum composed of leaders from America’s largest metropolitan health departments.

Growing up in Bluefield, West Virginia, Dr. Harris dreamt of entering medicine at a time when few women of color were encouraged to become physicians. Dr. Harris spent her formative years at West Virginia University, earning a BA in psychology, an MA in counseling psychology and, ultimately, a medical degree in 1992. It was during this time that her passion for helping children emerged, and she completed her psychiatry residency and fellowships in child and adolescent psychiatry and forensic psychiatry at the Emory University School of Medicine.

Two themes that govern Dr. Harris’s professional life are a passion to improve the lives of children and service to others. A recognized expert in children’s mental health and childhood  trauma, Dr. Harris has led efforts on both local and national levels to integrate public health, behavioral health and primary care services with supports for employment, housing and education.

A distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Harris continues in private practice and currently consults with both public and private organizations on health service delivery and emerging trends in practice and health policy. She is an adjunct assistant professor in the Emory Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and an adjunct clinical assistant professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Morehouse School of Medicine.

Amy Abernethy, M.D., Ph.D., is cofounder of Highlander Health, an organization focused on advancing evidence generation for the new era of medical innovation. As an oncologist, serial entrepreneur, and standard setter, Dr. Abernethy is a champion for speeding the pace at which safe and effective treatments reach patients, and for progressive and responsible use of our healthcare system’s data.

Dr. Abernethy is the former principal deputy commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. While there, Dr. Abernethy led initiatives in advancing clinical evidence generation and personalized healthcare and also served as the agency’s acting chief information officer.

More recently, Dr. Abernethy served as chief medical officer and president of product development at Verily, Alphabet’s precision health business, leading the company’s development and delivery of solutions that connect clinical research and care. Earlier roles include that of Flatiron Health’s first chief medical officer and chief scientific officer, as well as: professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine; director of the Center for Learning Health Care at the Duke Clinical Research Institute; and, director of the Duke Cancer Care Research Program at the Duke Cancer Institute. An avid learner and teacher, and a hematologist/oncologist and palliative medicine physician, Dr. Abernethy has authored over 500 publications.

Aneesh Chopra is the Chief Strategy Officer at Arcadia, a healthcare data platform that in 2024 acquired CareJourney, the company Chopra co-founded a decade prior. In his role at Arcadia, Chopra advocates for interoperability and data-driven approaches that help providers, payers, and employers make smarter decisions to succeed in the shift to value-based care. Chopra helps the industry better manage costs and improve care quality with a winning combination of precise insights derived from more than 300 million beneficiaries and over 2 million providers nationwide and a fast, scalable, and interoperable platform with operational tools to act on opportunities.

Chopra’s influence and leadership in technology includes extensive experience in the public sector. He served as the first U.S. Chief Technology Officer under the Obama Administration, where he spearheaded initiatives to modernize the nation’s healthcare system using electronic health records and health information exchanges. These efforts strengthened the data infrastructure used in healthcare delivery reform, ultimately helping the industry progress toward a more connected and efficient healthcare ecosystem.

Chopra also served as Virginia’s Secretary of Technology under Governor Tim Kaine, where he championed the growth of the state’s technology sector, enhanced educational opportunities through technology, and drove innovation in government operations. As a public servant, Aneesh fostered better public-private collaboration, a theme central to his 2014 book, “Innovative State: How New Technologies Can Transform Government.”

Chopra’s significant contributions to the fields of technology and healthcare have cemented his reputation as a forward-thinking leader committed to leveraging technology for the public good. He’s been recognized by Modern Healthcare as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare and one of the top 25 “Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers” by Government Technology magazine.

Chopra serves on the boards of IntegraConnect, Virginia Center for Health Innovation, and the George Mason Innovation Advisory Council. He earned his master’s degree in public policy from Harvard Kennedy School and holds a bachelor’s degree in health policy from Johns Hopkins University.

Suchi Saria, PhD holds a John C. Malone endowed chair and is the Director of AI and health lab at Johns Hopkins where she is jointly appointed as faculty in Computer Science, Medicine and Health Policy. She is also the founder of Bayesian Health, a clinical AI platform company spun out of Hopkins that augments care teams by bringing together state of the AI/ML technology combined with responsible AI best practices to dramatically improve quality while saving clinicians’ time.

Dr. Saria’s work in AI over the last two decades has led to foundational advances in the technology, best practices around translation, and AI policy. She has written several seminal papers in AI/ML around issues of learning robust models, detecting drifts, monitoring and learning from messy real-world datasets. Her applied research has built on these technical advances to develop novel next generation diagnostic and treatment planning tools that use AI/ML to individualize care. Her work has been funded by leading organizations including the NSF, DARPA, FDA, NIH and CDC and she regularly serves as a scientific advisor to leading Fortune 500 companies.

Dr. Saria completed her PhD in AI at Stanford. In 2024, she received an honorary doctorate from Mount Holyoke. She’s a Sloan Research Fellow, named by IEEE to “AI’s 10 to Watch”. Modern Healthcare’s Top 25 Innovators, World Technology Forum’ Technology Pioneer, and her work was recognized as one of TIME’s Best Inventions in 2023 and 2024. She is on the board of the Coalition of Health AI (CHAI), editorial board of the Journal of Machine Learning Research and serves on the National Academy of Medicine AI Code of Conduct.

Dr. Kyu (“Q”) Rhee is a mission-driven physician leader, educator, scientist, and innovator who has led and developed transdisciplinary teams across the nonprofit, public, and private sectors to improve the health system, particularly for underserved populations.Dr. Rhee serves as the President and CEO of the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC). Since the nation’s first Community Health Centers (CHCs) opened in 1965, CHCs have delivered high-quality, affordable, patient-governed primary care for communities in every state, U.S. territory, and the District of Columbia. Employing over 310,000 people and serving over 32.5 million patients in over 16,000 locations, CHCs provide value-based care to patients – regardless of their ability to pay.Prior to joining NACHC, Dr. Rhee held the position of Senior Vice President & Aetna Chief Medical Officer at CVS Health, where he led a team of over 1,500 doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other health professionals in the integration and delivery of clinical and population health solutions to improve health for up to 65 million people. Before CVS Health, Dr. Rhee was the Chief Health Officer at IBM for a decade, where he held global responsibilities for IBM’s efforts to transform health through the use of data, analytics, artificial intelligence, services, and research for providers, health plans, employers, governments, and life science companies across the world. During the Affordable Care Act, Dr. Rhee served in the public sector at HHS as Chief Public Health Officer within the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which is the primary federal agency for improving access to health care services for people who are uninsured or medically vulnerable. He was also the Director of the Office of Innovation and Program Coordination at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the primary federal agency for health research.Before his public service, Dr. Rhee worked in the nonprofit sector as a National Health Service Corps physician and Chief Medical Officer for CHCs in the Washington, DC/Baltimore area. He served as Chief Resident and completed his medical residency training in internal medicine and pediatrics at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, earning dual board certification. He earned his MD from the University of Southern California, a Master in Health Policy from Harvard, and a Bachelor in Science in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale, where he also served as president of the student body.

Patrice A. Harris, MD, MA, a psychiatrist from Atlanta, became the 174th president of the American Medical Association in June 2019, and the organization’s first African-American woman to hold this position. Dr. Harris has diverse experience as a private practicing physician, public health administrator, patient advocate and medical society lobbyist.

Dr. Harris currently spearheads the AMA’s efforts to end the opioid epidemic and has been chair of the AMA Opioid Task Force since its inception in 2014. During her presidency, Dr. Harris will continue to lead the task force as it works across every state to eliminate barriers to treatment, provide patients with access to affordable, non-opioid pain care, and fight the stigma faced by those with substance use-disorders.

Having served on the AMA Board of Trustees since 2011, and as chair from 2016 to 2017, she has long been a mentor, a role model and an advocate. Prior to serving on the board, Dr. Harris honed her broad knowledge and deep understanding of health care issues through various leadership roles. At the AMA these included having served for many years on the AMA Council on  Legislation, including a term as chair, and on multiple AMA task forces on topics such as health information technology, payment and delivery reform, and private contracting. Beyond the AMA she has held positions of leadership with the American Psychiatric Association, the Georgia Psychiatric Physicians Association, the Medical Association of Georgia, and The Big Cities Health Coalition, where she chaired this forum composed of leaders from America’s largest metropolitan health departments.

Growing up in Bluefield, West Virginia, Dr. Harris dreamt of entering medicine at a time when few women of color were encouraged to become physicians. Dr. Harris spent her formative years at West Virginia University, earning a BA in psychology, an MA in counseling psychology and, ultimately, a medical degree in 1992. It was during this time that her passion for helping children emerged, and she completed her psychiatry residency and fellowships in child and adolescent psychiatry and forensic psychiatry at the Emory University School of Medicine.

Two themes that govern Dr. Harris’s professional life are a passion to improve the lives of children and service to others. A recognized expert in children’s mental health and childhood  trauma, Dr. Harris has led efforts on both local and national levels to integrate public health, behavioral health and primary care services with supports for employment, housing and education.

A distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Harris continues in private practice and currently consults with both public and private organizations on health service delivery and emerging trends in practice and health policy. She is an adjunct assistant professor in the Emory Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and an adjunct clinical assistant professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Morehouse School of Medicine.

Amy Abernethy, M.D., Ph.D., is cofounder of Highlander Health, an organization focused on advancing evidence generation for the new era of medical innovation. As an oncologist, serial entrepreneur, and standard setter, Dr. Abernethy is a champion for speeding the pace at which safe and effective treatments reach patients, and for progressive and responsible use of our healthcare system’s data.

Dr. Abernethy is the former principal deputy commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. While there, Dr. Abernethy led initiatives in advancing clinical evidence generation and personalized healthcare and also served as the agency’s acting chief information officer.

More recently, Dr. Abernethy served as chief medical officer and president of product development at Verily, Alphabet’s precision health business, leading the company’s development and delivery of solutions that connect clinical research and care. Earlier roles include that of Flatiron Health’s first chief medical officer and chief scientific officer, as well as: professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine; director of the Center for Learning Health Care at the Duke Clinical Research Institute; and, director of the Duke Cancer Care Research Program at the Duke Cancer Institute. An avid learner and teacher, and a hematologist/oncologist and palliative medicine physician, Dr. Abernethy has authored over 500 publications.

Aneesh Chopra is the Chief Strategy Officer at Arcadia, a healthcare data platform that in 2024 acquired CareJourney, the company Chopra co-founded a decade prior. In his role at Arcadia, Chopra advocates for interoperability and data-driven approaches that help providers, payers, and employers make smarter decisions to succeed in the shift to value-based care. Chopra helps the industry better manage costs and improve care quality with a winning combination of precise insights derived from more than 300 million beneficiaries and over 2 million providers nationwide and a fast, scalable, and interoperable platform with operational tools to act on opportunities.

Chopra’s influence and leadership in technology includes extensive experience in the public sector. He served as the first U.S. Chief Technology Officer under the Obama Administration, where he spearheaded initiatives to modernize the nation’s healthcare system using electronic health records and health information exchanges. These efforts strengthened the data infrastructure used in healthcare delivery reform, ultimately helping the industry progress toward a more connected and efficient healthcare ecosystem.

Chopra also served as Virginia’s Secretary of Technology under Governor Tim Kaine, where he championed the growth of the state’s technology sector, enhanced educational opportunities through technology, and drove innovation in government operations. As a public servant, Aneesh fostered better public-private collaboration, a theme central to his 2014 book, “Innovative State: How New Technologies Can Transform Government.”

Chopra’s significant contributions to the fields of technology and healthcare have cemented his reputation as a forward-thinking leader committed to leveraging technology for the public good. He’s been recognized by Modern Healthcare as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare and one of the top 25 “Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers” by Government Technology magazine.

Chopra serves on the boards of IntegraConnect, Virginia Center for Health Innovation, and the George Mason Innovation Advisory Council. He earned his master’s degree in public policy from Harvard Kennedy School and holds a bachelor’s degree in health policy from Johns Hopkins University.

Suchi Saria, PhD holds a John C. Malone endowed chair and is the Director of AI and health lab at Johns Hopkins where she is jointly appointed as faculty in Computer Science, Medicine and Health Policy. She is also the founder of Bayesian Health, a clinical AI platform company spun out of Hopkins that augments care teams by bringing together state of the AI/ML technology combined with responsible AI best practices to dramatically improve quality while saving clinicians’ time.

Dr. Saria’s work in AI over the last two decades has led to foundational advances in the technology, best practices around translation, and AI policy. She has written several seminal papers in AI/ML around issues of learning robust models, detecting drifts, monitoring and learning from messy real-world datasets. Her applied research has built on these technical advances to develop novel next generation diagnostic and treatment planning tools that use AI/ML to individualize care. Her work has been funded by leading organizations including the NSF, DARPA, FDA, NIH and CDC and she regularly serves as a scientific advisor to leading Fortune 500 companies.

Dr. Saria completed her PhD in AI at Stanford. In 2024, she received an honorary doctorate from Mount Holyoke. She’s a Sloan Research Fellow, named by IEEE to “AI’s 10 to Watch”. Modern Healthcare’s Top 25 Innovators, World Technology Forum’ Technology Pioneer, and her work was recognized as one of TIME’s Best Inventions in 2023 and 2024. She is on the board of the Coalition of Health AI (CHAI), editorial board of the Journal of Machine Learning Research and serves on the National Academy of Medicine AI Code of Conduct.

Dr. Kyu (“Q”) Rhee is a mission-driven physician leader, educator, scientist, and innovator who has led and developed transdisciplinary teams across the nonprofit, public, and private sectors to improve the health system, particularly for underserved populations.Dr. Rhee serves as the President and CEO of the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC). Since the nation’s first Community Health Centers (CHCs) opened in 1965, CHCs have delivered high-quality, affordable, patient-governed primary care for communities in every state, U.S. territory, and the District of Columbia. Employing over 310,000 people and serving over 32.5 million patients in over 16,000 locations, CHCs provide value-based care to patients – regardless of their ability to pay.Prior to joining NACHC, Dr. Rhee held the position of Senior Vice President & Aetna Chief Medical Officer at CVS Health, where he led a team of over 1,500 doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other health professionals in the integration and delivery of clinical and population health solutions to improve health for up to 65 million people. Before CVS Health, Dr. Rhee was the Chief Health Officer at IBM for a decade, where he held global responsibilities for IBM’s efforts to transform health through the use of data, analytics, artificial intelligence, services, and research for providers, health plans, employers, governments, and life science companies across the world. During the Affordable Care Act, Dr. Rhee served in the public sector at HHS as Chief Public Health Officer within the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which is the primary federal agency for improving access to health care services for people who are uninsured or medically vulnerable. He was also the Director of the Office of Innovation and Program Coordination at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the primary federal agency for health research.Before his public service, Dr. Rhee worked in the nonprofit sector as a National Health Service Corps physician and Chief Medical Officer for CHCs in the Washington, DC/Baltimore area. He served as Chief Resident and completed his medical residency training in internal medicine and pediatrics at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, earning dual board certification. He earned his MD from the University of Southern California, a Master in Health Policy from Harvard, and a Bachelor in Science in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale, where he also served as president of the student body.

Michael Dowling is one of health care’s most influential voices, taking a stand on societal issues such as gun violence and immigration that many health system CEOs shy away from. As president and CEO of Northwell Health, he leads a clinical, academic and research enterprise with a workforce of more than 72,000 and annual revenue of $13.5 billion. Northwell is the largest health care provider and private employer in New York State, caring for more than two million people annually through a vast network of nearly 800 outpatient facilities, including 220 primary care practices, 52 urgent care centers, home care, rehabilitation and end-of-life programs, and 23 hospitals. Northwell also pursues pioneering research at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research and a visionary approach to medical education highlighted by the Zucker School of Medicine, the Hofstra Northwell School of Graduate Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies, and one of the nation’s largest medical residency and fellowship programs.

Mr. Dowling’s leadership has been invaluable to Northwell’s consistent expansion and prominence. In 2020, he successfully navigated the health system through the first COVID-19 epicenter in the US, detailing his experiences in Leading Through a Pandemic: The Inside Story of Humanity, Innovation, and Lessons Learned During the COVID-19 Crisis.

Prior to becoming president and CEO in 2002, Mr. Dowling was the health system’s executive vice president and chief operating officer. Before joining Northwell Health in 1995, he was a senior vice president at Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Mr. Dowling served in New York State government for 12 years, including seven years as state director of Health, Education and Human Services and deputy secretary to the governor. He was also commissioner of the New York State Department of Social Services. Before his public service career, Mr. Dowling was a professor of social policy and assistant dean at the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Services, and director of the Fordham campus in Westchester County.

Mr. Dowling has been honored with many awards over the years, including his selection as the Grand Marshal of the 2017 St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City; induction into the Irish America Hall of Fame; the 2012 B’nai B’rith National Healthcare Award, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the 2011 Gail L. Warden Leadership Excellence Award from the National Center for Healthcare Leadership, the 2011 CEO Information Technology Award from Modern Healthcare magazine and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, the National Human Relations Award from the American Jewish Committee, the Distinguished Public Service Award from the State University of New York’s Nelson A. Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, an Outstanding Public Service Award from the Mental Health Association of New York State, an Outstanding Public Service Award from the Mental Health Association of Nassau County, the Alfred E. Smith Award from the American Society for Public Administration, and the Gold Medal from the American Irish Historical Society. For 12 consecutive years, Modern Healthcare has ranked Mr. Dowling on its annual list of the “100 Most Influential People in Healthcare.” He was also ranked No. 44 among large company CEOs in the US and was the nation’s top-ranking health care/hospital CEO on Glassdoor’s “Top CEOs in 2019” list.

Mr. Dowling is past chair of the Healthcare Institute and the current chair of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences and the North American Board of the Smurfit School of Business at University College, Dublin, Ireland. He also serves as a board member of the Long Island Association. He is past chair and a current board member of the National Center for Healthcare Leadership (NCHL), the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA), the Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS) and the League of Voluntary Hospitals of New York. Mr. Dowling was an instructor at the Center for Continuing Professional Education at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Mr. Dowling grew up in Limerick, Ireland. He earned his undergraduate degree from University College Cork (UCC), Ireland, and his master’s degree from Fordham University. He also has honorary doctorates from Queen’s University Belfast, University College Dublin, Hofstra University, Dowling College and Fordham University.

Madeline Bell is the CEO of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), which is one of the top-ranked children’s hospitals in the United States and was ranked No. 1 on Forbes’ 2022 list of  America’s Best Large Employers. A bold and visionary leader, Ms. Bell champions change with empathy and integrity, inspiring the more than 29,800 employees and other workforce members in the hospital’s $4.7-billion-a-year health system and research institute to create breakthroughs that have worldwide impact.

Ms. Bell began her career as a pediatric nurse at CHOP in 1983, later leaving the organization to move into hospital administration. She returned to CHOP in 1995, and has since held a number of leadership positions, advancing from Vice President to Senior Vice President to Executive Vice President to Chief Operating Officer to President. She became CEO in 2015.

Ms. Bell has made numerous contributions to CHOP, including the development of one of the largest pediatric ambulatory care networks in the country; the expansion of the 4-million-square-foot Philadelphia Campus; the creation of the 250,000-square-foot Middleman Family Pavilion, an inpatient hospital on CHOP’s King of Prussia Campus; and the development of the Center for Advanced Behavioral Healthcare and the Behavioral Health & Crisis Center in West Philadelphia. She has also led the development of many nationally recognized clinical care programs and has secured many philanthropic gifts to help further the organization’s mission.

Ms. Bell serves on the boards of Comcast-NBCUniversal and the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, as well as on the executive committee of the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia. She is the honorary consular officer for the Embassy of Spain in the Philadelphia metro area, a fellow of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, and the former Chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s Board of Directors. She is an adviser to numerous international hospitals and frequently lectures on the topics of children’s healthcare and women in leadership.

Ms. Bell has received many awards and accolades, including the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia’s William Penn Award, Press Ganey’s CEO of the Year Award, The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Industry Icon Award, and the Philadelphia Business Journal’s Most Admired CEO Award. She has been named one of Modern Healthcare’s “100 Most Influential People in Healthcare” and one of its “50 Most Influential Clinical Executives” and was included on Forbes’ “50 Over 50: Vision” list, Philadelphia Business Journal’s “Power 100 2024” list, Metro Philadelphia’s list of “Power Players in Health Care,” and Philadelphia Magazine’s list of “The 150 Most Influential Philadelphians.”

Ms. Bell is the host of Breaking Through with Madeline Bell, a podcast that features interviews with CHOP patients, doctors and scientists, as well as with philanthropists and innovators who support CHOP’s mission. She holds a bachelor of science in Nursing from Villanova University and a master of science in Organizational Dynamics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Alexandra is co-founder and CEO of ARCHANGELS.  She co-founded Eliza Corporation (acquired by HMS Holdings Corp: HMSY), Engage with Grace, and three other companies (all boot-strapped).  A serial entrepreneur, she is also a cashier-on-leave for Walmart.  She believes communities are the front line of health, that caregivers are our country’s greatest asset, and that we need to expand the definition of health to include life.

Alexandra sits on the RAND Social and Economic Policy Advisory Board, the Leadership Council for the Rosalynn Carter Institute, the Entrepreneurs Council for The United States of Care, and Harvard Medical School’s Executive Council of the Division of Sleep Medicine. She is a member of the Board of Directors of C-TAC and has served as a vice chair of the Trustee Advisory Board at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center from 2012-2020 and returned to the role in 2021.  She also serves on the Board of Advisors for Open Notes. She served for 7 years as a Governor appointed member of the Executive Committee for the Board of Directors for MassTech, until March 2022. Alex was named to the first ever Care100 list in 2020, a Top Women in Healthcare’s Entrepreneur of the Year by PR News, one of Disruptive Women in Health Care’s Women to Watch, one of Boston Globe’s Top 100 Women Leaders, and listed in Boston Business Journal’s “40 Under 40”, as well as an inventor on multiple patents. She joined Prudential Financial as a Wellness Expert for a film series called “The State of US” that was turned into a national ad campaign and generated close to two billion impressions.  She has one hobby outside of her passion for revolutionizing health care, and her love of family and adventure…car racing.

I am currently working on a book called “Term Limits: A design for living in the age of AI” (rhyming reference to my first one, “Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age”). It should appear early in 2027; publishing is surprisingly like healthcare in some ways!

Précis: In this age of AI, where people talk of longevity, eternity and exponential growth, humans can find meaning in the very shortness of their own lives and roles and institutions. In a world of infinity, you could never do enough. But in a human lifetime, the goal is to use that time to some particular, finite end – and then to pass the mission along to a successor. We exist within infinity, but each of us is only a small part of the whole. In the world we actually live in, it is possible to declare completion and find satisfaction… if we know when enough is enough.  In short, the purpose of this book is not so much to provide a new view of our fast-changing, rhyming-history world, but a clear set of lenses through which to see it.

I spend the other 50% of my time (LOL) exploring new space, health and IT start-ups and technologies, writing about them and (with full disclosure) actively investing in some of them. I love what I do and I love all the travel it entails!  My board seats include Avanlee Care, BAMF Health, and PressReader. Also nonprofits: Charity Navigator, ExpandED Schools, The Commons Project.  My investments include 23andMe, 4D Healthcare, Abridge.AI, Avanlee Care, BAMF Health, Cecelia,  Circadia, Circadian-OS, Clover Health,  Devoted Health, Ezra.ai/FUnction Health, Flourish,  Hinge Health, LENS,  MakhersStudio, Neurogeneces, Omada, OpenWater, Osteoboost, Startup Health, Rallypoint, Supportiv, System.com, Voyager Holdings, You.com and Zeta.

For the last 10 years, I was founder and funder (active full-time but reporting to CEO Rick Brush) of Wellville, a 10-year nonprofit project dedicated to demonstrating the value of long-term investment in health and equity. The benefits accrue over time and not always to the funders/ investors directly, but for all of us, healthy human bodies and minds are the key to our collective future…. Wellville wants to show what it looks like when we respond to that prompt. We want to scale by inspiring others, not by presuming to do it all ourselves.

We worked in five small communities (Clatsop County, OR; Lake County, CA; Muskegon County, MI; North Hartford, CT; and Spartanburg, SC), advising local leaders on scaling local initiatives in areas such as maternal care, early childhood development, diabetes/obesity reduction, mental health support/trauma-informed care. We advocate a data-rich approach with learning and accountability along the way – www.Wellville.net.

Education: Harvard BA, Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center certificate of completion.

Nzinga Harrison, MD is Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Eleanor Health, a tech-enabled, population-based provider of comprehensive, longitudinal, whole-person substance use disorder and mental health care. Prior to co-founding Eleanor Health, Nzinga served as SVP of East Coast Operations and Chief Medical Officer for Anka Behavioral Health Inc., for which she led medical strategy, operations, and quality management for over 70 outpatient and residential mental health, intellectual disability and addictive disease programs. She is a vocal advocate and activist, placing emphasis on the healthcare system’s responsibility to incorporate trauma-informed interventions aimed at addressing the harms of racism and marginalization faced by many communities in this country. She has served on multiple boards in various roles including Board of Directors for the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), Board of the Georgia Psychiatric Physicians Association. She is presently Vice-Chair for the Board of Physicians for Criminal Justice Reform, Inc., a national organization she co-founded, serves on the Executive Advisory Board for the newly formed SAMHSA African-American Behavioral Health Center of Excellence, and is Clinical Advisor to Health in Her Hue, a platform designed to link Black women to culturally competent healthcare providers. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Biology with Spanish and Chemistry minors at Howard University, completed medical school at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and General Psychiatry Residency at Emory University. She is Board-Certified in both Adult General Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine. Nzinga’s most important life role is as a wife to her daytrader husband and mother to her two teenage sons. Nzinga is proud to be a Fellow of the sixth class of the Health Innovators Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Dr. Ivor Braden Horn is a board director, advisor, investor, physician, and technology executive with experience in entrepreneurial, venture, academic medicine, health system, and research organizations. She is an internationally recognized leader in health technology innovation having spoken to such diverse audiences as the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM), FDA, the Atlantic Festival, the World Health Summit, HLTH (US & Europe), SXSW, and Cannes Lion. Most recently, she served as the founding director and fi rst Chief Health Equity Offi cer at Google, where she led the company-wide strategy to develop, launch, and scale health equity within research and product development to ensure they were diverse, fair, accessible, and inclusive. While at Google, she also led a study to develop the HEAL (Health Equity Assessment of machine Learning performance) framework to quantitatively assess the performance equity of health AI technologies. The HEAL framework is a methodology to assess whether health AI technologies prioritize performance for patient populations experiencing worse outcomes, that is complementary to existing fairness metrics.

Prior to her role at Google, Dr. Horn served as Chief Medical Offi cer at Accolade (acquired by Transcarent). Before Accolade, she served as Medical Director of the Center for Diversity and Health Equity at Seattle Children’s Hospital, and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She holds an MD and MPH and has authored several peer-reviewed journal publications on health communication and health equity.

Dr. Horn currently serves on the boards of Boston Children’s Hospital, Care Academy, and Acclinate.

Julie’s passion for healthcare began early in her career as a consultant to Inova Health System, but after personally enduring weeks of hospital-based bed rest and 30 years of caring for a mother with severe mental illness, she’s lived the challenges and obstacles we all face with our healthcare system. She has watched those close to her avoid care due to inconvenience, cost, and distrust so she endeavors to help create a system people want to use for one of the most important things in life—their health.

Over 30 years in healthcare, Julie has held leadership roles in health IT policy and strategy consulting, a growth-stage company through IPO, investment firms and a non-profit organization. Julie joined Transformation Capital after building and serving as the first CEO of Health Evolution, a leading industry forum for health care’s most influential leaders.

Julie serves on the Board of the National Committee for Quality Assurance and Health 2.0 Advocates, Board Observer for DexCare, and the Advisory Board for Prealize and Going Digital: Behavior Health Tech conference. She is on the Life Science Council of Springboard Enterprise and is also a member of the Eaglebrook School Board and Franklin & Marshall College Leadership Council. Julie received her MBA in Healthcare and Operations Management from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA and her BA in Business Management & Accounting from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA.

Julie has two children and an adorable yellow lab named Kermit. She will do anything to earn a splat point at Orange Theory, having fully embraced the incentives of gamification, longs for the next dive trip and is a recent convert to pickleball, though she still longs to continue her tennis endeavors.

A former hospital executive who has made equity in health care a centerpiece of her work, Kate Walsh served as the Massachusetts’ health and human services secretary from March 2023 until she retired in July 2025.

Walsh’s office oversees 11 agencies, two soldiers’ homes, the MassHealth system, and 23,000 employees whose work touches roughly one in three Massachusetts residents each day. The office has oversight for a wide range of state services, including child welfare, health benefits, veterans’ services, behavioral health, opioids response, and elder care.

Walsh previously served as CEO of the Boston Medical Center Health System for 13 years. She has also held senior leadership positions at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, and several New York hospitals.

At Boston Medical Center, Walsh led a safety-net hospital and academic medical center that provides care to underserved populations in the region, while also overseeing the BMC WellSense Health Plan, which administers health insurance for low-income patients. In 2021, the hospital launched the Health Equity Accelerator to examine inequities in health care, studying dozens of health conditions to identify disparate outcomes by race and ethnicity and devising strategies to eliminate those gaps.

Under Walsh’s leadership, Boston Medical Center programs established partnerships focusing on behavioral health, affordable housing, job training, food insecurity, transportation, addiction services, and other issues affecting people’s health. In 2016, the hospital opened the first comprehensive transgender medical program in the Northeast.

A Yale University graduate with a master’s degree in public health, Walsh has served on numerous boards and commissions, including the Boston Public Health Commission, the American Hospital Association, and the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Alexandra is co-founder and CEO of ARCHANGELS.  She co-founded Eliza Corporation (acquired by HMS Holdings Corp: HMSY), Engage with Grace, and three other companies (all boot-strapped).  A serial entrepreneur, she is also a cashier-on-leave for Walmart.  She believes communities are the front line of health, that caregivers are our country’s greatest asset, and that we need to expand the definition of health to include life.

Alexandra sits on the RAND Social and Economic Policy Advisory Board, the Leadership Council for the Rosalynn Carter Institute, the Entrepreneurs Council for The United States of Care, and Harvard Medical School’s Executive Council of the Division of Sleep Medicine. She is a member of the Board of Directors of C-TAC and has served as a vice chair of the Trustee Advisory Board at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center from 2012-2020 and returned to the role in 2021.  She also serves on the Board of Advisors for Open Notes. She served for 7 years as a Governor appointed member of the Executive Committee for the Board of Directors for MassTech, until March 2022. Alex was named to the first ever Care100 list in 2020, a Top Women in Healthcare’s Entrepreneur of the Year by PR News, one of Disruptive Women in Health Care’s Women to Watch, one of Boston Globe’s Top 100 Women Leaders, and listed in Boston Business Journal’s “40 Under 40”, as well as an inventor on multiple patents. She joined Prudential Financial as a Wellness Expert for a film series called “The State of US” that was turned into a national ad campaign and generated close to two billion impressions.  She has one hobby outside of her passion for revolutionizing health care, and her love of family and adventure…car racing.

Nzinga Harrison, MD is Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Eleanor Health, a tech-enabled, population-based provider of comprehensive, longitudinal, whole-person substance use disorder and mental health care. Prior to co-founding Eleanor Health, Nzinga served as SVP of East Coast Operations and Chief Medical Officer for Anka Behavioral Health Inc., for which she led medical strategy, operations, and quality management for over 70 outpatient and residential mental health, intellectual disability and addictive disease programs. She is a vocal advocate and activist, placing emphasis on the healthcare system’s responsibility to incorporate trauma-informed interventions aimed at addressing the harms of racism and marginalization faced by many communities in this country. She has served on multiple boards in various roles including Board of Directors for the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), Board of the Georgia Psychiatric Physicians Association. She is presently Vice-Chair for the Board of Physicians for Criminal Justice Reform, Inc., a national organization she co-founded, serves on the Executive Advisory Board for the newly formed SAMHSA African-American Behavioral Health Center of Excellence, and is Clinical Advisor to Health in Her Hue, a platform designed to link Black women to culturally competent healthcare providers. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Biology with Spanish and Chemistry minors at Howard University, completed medical school at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and General Psychiatry Residency at Emory University. She is Board-Certified in both Adult General Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine. Nzinga’s most important life role is as a wife to her daytrader husband and mother to her two teenage sons. Nzinga is proud to be a Fellow of the sixth class of the Health Innovators Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Alexandra is co-founder and CEO of ARCHANGELS.  She co-founded Eliza Corporation (acquired by HMS Holdings Corp: HMSY), Engage with Grace, and three other companies (all boot-strapped).  A serial entrepreneur, she is also a cashier-on-leave for Walmart.  She believes communities are the front line of health, that caregivers are our country’s greatest asset, and that we need to expand the definition of health to include life.

Alexandra sits on the RAND Social and Economic Policy Advisory Board, the Leadership Council for the Rosalynn Carter Institute, the Entrepreneurs Council for The United States of Care, and Harvard Medical School’s Executive Council of the Division of Sleep Medicine. She is a member of the Board of Directors of C-TAC and has served as a vice chair of the Trustee Advisory Board at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center from 2012-2020 and returned to the role in 2021.  She also serves on the Board of Advisors for Open Notes. She served for 7 years as a Governor appointed member of the Executive Committee for the Board of Directors for MassTech, until March 2022. Alex was named to the first ever Care100 list in 2020, a Top Women in Healthcare’s Entrepreneur of the Year by PR News, one of Disruptive Women in Health Care’s Women to Watch, one of Boston Globe’s Top 100 Women Leaders, and listed in Boston Business Journal’s “40 Under 40”, as well as an inventor on multiple patents. She joined Prudential Financial as a Wellness Expert for a film series called “The State of US” that was turned into a national ad campaign and generated close to two billion impressions.  She has one hobby outside of her passion for revolutionizing health care, and her love of family and adventure…car racing.

Nzinga Harrison, MD is Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Eleanor Health, a tech-enabled, population-based provider of comprehensive, longitudinal, whole-person substance use disorder and mental health care. Prior to co-founding Eleanor Health, Nzinga served as SVP of East Coast Operations and Chief Medical Officer for Anka Behavioral Health Inc., for which she led medical strategy, operations, and quality management for over 70 outpatient and residential mental health, intellectual disability and addictive disease programs. She is a vocal advocate and activist, placing emphasis on the healthcare system’s responsibility to incorporate trauma-informed interventions aimed at addressing the harms of racism and marginalization faced by many communities in this country. She has served on multiple boards in various roles including Board of Directors for the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), Board of the Georgia Psychiatric Physicians Association. She is presently Vice-Chair for the Board of Physicians for Criminal Justice Reform, Inc., a national organization she co-founded, serves on the Executive Advisory Board for the newly formed SAMHSA African-American Behavioral Health Center of Excellence, and is Clinical Advisor to Health in Her Hue, a platform designed to link Black women to culturally competent healthcare providers. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Biology with Spanish and Chemistry minors at Howard University, completed medical school at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and General Psychiatry Residency at Emory University. She is Board-Certified in both Adult General Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine. Nzinga’s most important life role is as a wife to her daytrader husband and mother to her two teenage sons. Nzinga is proud to be a Fellow of the sixth class of the Health Innovators Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Dr. Brian Anderson is the Chief Executive Officer of the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI), a non-profit coalition he co-founded in 2021. CHAI is focused on developing a set of consensus-driven guidelines and best practices for Responsible AI in Health, as well as supporting the ability to independently test and validate AI for safety and effectiveness.

Prior to leading CHAI, Dr. Anderson was the Chief Digital Health Physician at MITRE, where he led research and development efforts across major strategic initiatives in digital health alongside industry partners and the U. S. Government. He was responsible for leading much of MITRE’s work during the COVID-19 pandemic, working closely with the White House COVID Task Force, as well as Operation Warp Speed. He also led MITRE’s largest R&D effort in Oncology, focusing on the initial development of mCODE and the use of AI in more efficient and inclusive clinical trial design.

Dr. Anderson is an internationally recognized author and expert in digital health, and is regularly engaged as a speaker on digital health innovation, health standards development, clinical decision support systems, and interoperability. Prior to MITRE, Anderson led the Informatics and Network Medicine Division at athenahealth. He has also served on several national, and international, health information technology committees in partnership with the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Brent Davis is Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for AdventHealth’s Primary Health Division. In this role, Davis oversees the strategic and operational direction for this new division, which is focused on orchestrating high-value, longitudinal, and whole-person primary health care that enhances wellness and preventative care across multiple payor structures and meets the diverse primary care needs of the patient population. The division includes traditional, urgent care, and retail-focused primary care models, as well as full-risk senior primary health, urgent care, population health services, and home and hospice care.

Before becoming CEO, Davis served in a dual role as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Chief Operational Officer (COO) for the Primary Health Division. He also held the position of regional CFO for the AdventHealth facilities in Volusia, Flagler, and Lake counties. His extensive experience also includes roles such as CFO at Kettering Medical Center System in Ohio, as well as at St. Anthony North Hospital and AdventHealth Avista, both in Colorado. Davis began his career in public accounting with Ernst & Young.

Davis holds a Master of Business Administration with an emphasis in information technology from California Lutheran University and a Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in accounting from Walla Walla University. He is also a Fellow with the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) and a Certified Public Accountant (inactive).

Together with his wife, Angela, Davis has two children, Lincoln (8) and Everly (7). In his spare time, he enjoys water sports, beach days, and other opportunities to be outdoors.

Jennifer C. Goldsack is the founder and CEO of the Digital Medicine Society (DiMe), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to advancing digital medicine to optimize human health. Her work centers on applied, evidence-driven approaches to the safe, effective, and equitable use of digital technologies across health, healthcare, and research.

Before founding DiMe, Jennifer helped drive progress in two digital health start-ups, including one successful exit. She also served as a senior leader at the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI), a public-private partnership co-founded by Duke University and the FDA. There, she led several initiatives within CTTI’s Digital Program and was the operational co-lead of the first randomized clinical trial conducted using FDA’s Sentinel System.

Earlier in her career, she spent five years conducting research at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, first in the Department of Surgery’s Outcomes Research group and later in the Department of Medicine. She then helped launch the Value Institute, a pragmatic research and innovation center embedded within a large academic medical center in Delaware.

Jennifer serves on the boards of the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI) and Sage Bionetworks. She is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Roundtable on Genomics and Precision Health, contributes to the World Economic Forum’s Digital Health Action Collaborative, and serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS).

She holds a master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Oxford, a master’s in the history and sociology of medicine from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the George Washington University. Jennifer is a retired elite athlete — a Pan American Games champion, Olympian, former world record holder, and World Championship silver medalist.

Jen Horonjeff, PhD, is the Founder & CEO of Savvy Cooperative. Named one of the Most Daring Entrepreneurs by Entrepreneur Magazine, she champions valuing patients for contributing their insights to research and product development. Living with multiple autoimmune diseases and surviving a brain tumor, she is committed to amplifying patient voices. As a patient-centered outcomes researcher, human factors engineer, and former FDA advisor, she pushes for a future where we #AskPatients in co-designing healthcare solutions.