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Rising Star
Leadership
Innovation & Technology
Industry Impact
Humanizing Benefits
Education & Communication
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Green Circle Life (GCL) provides SmartFHR™, an all-in-one engagement platform that aggregates employee-facing human resources, communication, wellness, and health care services. It allows employees and family members to access company news, resources, benefits, and HR services, as well as to engage with digital …
Green Circle Life
Companies must continually innovate to offer compelling workplace benefits and experiences that attract and retain top talent. Creating inclusive benefits on a large scale presents a significant challenge, necessitating automation while preserving the quality of human interaction. Espresa leads the …
Espresa Inc.
Empara develops mission-driven health care technology with the intent to make health care accessible, affordable and seamless. As the tech arm of Goodroot, Empara is billed as “a community of companies reinventing health care one system at a time.” Empara’s Health Engagement Platform integrates a group’s preferred vendors …
Empara
Prior authorization remains a tedious and costly burden for physicians and health plans, and it often delays needed patient care. Cohere Health solves this problem by digitizing the entire prior authorization process to enable coordinated management for patients. Cohere’s prior-authorization platform combines responsible AI, …
Cohere Health
Carrum Health is a leading value-based Center of Excellence (COE) solution that bundles everything necessary for the delivery of high-quality surgical and cancer care — including all provider, facility, and drug fees — into a single pre-negotiated price. Every provider throughout the care continuum is incentivized to …
Carrum Health
Agility Innovation Partners boasts a team of health care veterans dedicated to solving the industry’s cost crisis through transparency, health data analytics, and direct contracting innovations. The company educates employers on how to take control of their health plan costs, as well as assists with Consolidated Appropriations Act and fiduciary compliance. It works …
Agility Innovation Partners LLC
Innovation & Technology (Organizations)
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As a Market Leader in Wisconsin, Lisa Metcalf oversees the Gallagher team’s growth and consulting strategy for large and jumbo organizations. She also …
Lisa Metcalf
Area Executive VP, Market Leader
Gallagher
Matt Marze is responsible for developing New York Life’s Group Benefit Solutions’ (GBS) technology vision and executing a comprehensive technology strategy …
Matt Marze
VP and Chief Information Officer
New York Life Group Benefit Solutions
Ryan Kelly leads Capital Rx’s software development and IT teams, and has helped catapult the antiquated systems of the PBM industry into the 21st century. As …
Ryan Kelly
Chief Technology Officer
Capital Rx
Curtis Howell oversees the product vision, user experience, feature development, and product demos for the Nava Benefits App, which gives employees an …
Curtis P. Howell
Director of Product Management
Nava Benefits
Innovation & Technology (Individuals)
Curtis Howell oversees the product vision, user experience, feature development, and product demos for the Nava Benefits App, which gives employees an easy way to access and manage their benefits, as well as the answers and support they need when they need it. Howell led the company’s go-to-market strategy for the app, which integrates seamlessly with benefits administration systems to drive return on investment and reduce administrative work for human resources teams. Since its launch in 2023, tens of thousands of employees have used the Nava Benefits App to access benefits information, find health care providers, and resolve complex insurance issues. With a 98% member satisfaction score, the app has transformed the benefits experience from a source of frustration to one of appreciation, saving HR teams an average of 15 hours a month. Among the app’s features are streamlined open enrollment, a provider search, digital identification cards, billing and claims support, benefits guides, and benefits communication.
Curtis P. Howell
Director of Product Management
Nava Benefits
Ryan Kelly leads Capital Rx’s software development and IT teams, and has helped catapult the antiquated systems of the PBM industry into the 21st century. As the company’s co-founder, he’s also directly responsible for the creation and launch of JUDI®, Capital Rx’s proprietary next-generation enterprise health platform that ties all pharmacy benefit workflows into one efficient and scalable system. Capital Rx began with fewer than 10 employees; today, Kelly is responsible for a distributed team of more than 100 developers, product leaders, innovation, enterprise solutions, and engineering and data management professionals in several states. In 2024, one of the team’s biggest projects was building a Medicare Prescription Payment Plan (M3P) solution to comply with new requirements from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. Under Kelly’s leadership, Capital Rx built a standalone, turnkey, end-to-end solution within JUDI and delivered it to market in a matter of weeks. Kelly is capable of developing practical, forward-thinking solutions to business problems, but he also can roll up his sleeves and write code with the best coders in the world.
Ryan Kelly
Chief Technology Officer
Capital Rx
Matt Marze is responsible for developing New York Life’s Group Benefit Solutions’ (GBS) technology vision and executing a comprehensive technology strategy aligned with the company’s objectives. This entails overseeing the selection, implementation, continuous improvement, and operation of technology systems and infrastructure while also ensuring the security and integrity of the organization’s data and information systems. As a member of GBS’s Executive Leadership Team, Marze collaborates with peers to identify avenues to further the company’s technology vision, and he co-chairs GBS’s annual investment portfolio of strategic initiatives. Throughout New York Life’s acquisition of Cigna Group Insurance, he spearheaded the GBS Technology workstream, effectively concluding the transition services agreement with Cigna for 86 GBS IT-owned applications and over 200 business tools during the summer of 2023. His entrepreneurial mindset and visionary outlook mitigated transition risks and propelled GBS’s technology strategy forward by establishing a new GBS “data center” in the Amazon Web Services Cloud. This initiative, pivotal to GBS’s business strategy, has enhanced agility, flexibility, scalability and speed.
Matt Marze
VP and Chief Information Officer
New York Life Group Benefit Solutions
As a Market Leader in Wisconsin, Lisa Metcalf oversees the Gallagher team’s growth and consulting strategy for large and jumbo organizations. She also drives the overall strategy the company’s consultants bring to clients, tailoring solutions to meet each client’s needs. This includes plan structure, contract negotiation, partnership solutions, network and pharmacy reviews, communication and total rewards consulting, and more. With her leadership, the team delivers innovative, effective strategies that address complex challenges — ultimately enhancing client satisfaction and fostering long-term partnerships. Over the past 12 months, Metcalf has led the effort to move clients to next-generation health plans. This includes bringing technology, employee experience, and financial and risk modeling together for a more sustainable and successful benefit program. She was part of a team that placed multiple clients on a new technology-forward health plan that resulted in an average of 10% savings for employee spend and between 50% and 65% out-of-pocket savings for employees. Metcalf is a versatile consultant with a deep understanding of vendors, technology, compliance, communications, and employee engagement.
Lisa Metcalf
Area Executive VP, Market Leader
Gallagher
Agility Innovation Partners boasts a team of health care veterans dedicated to solving the industry’s cost crisis through transparency, health data analytics, and direct contracting innovations. The company educates employers on how to take control of their health plan costs, as well as assists with Consolidated Appropriations Act and fiduciary compliance. It works with several partners to bring these and other innovative solutions to benefit advisors, plan sponsors and health care aggregators. Agility Innovation Partners also created Health Plan Fiduciary Guides (HPfid) to help benefits teams and advisors navigate the hidden fiduciary risks of health plan sponsorship and build strategies to protect plan assets and fiduciaries. Most recently, Agility partnered with Smith Medical to launch direct-pay surgical care services in Colorado, which brings care from top surgeons along with fair and fully transparent cash-based pricing. The focus is on transparency to ensure patients are aware of costs upfront, with all fees combined in package pricing, so that patients have clarity regarding rates with no fear of future surprise billing.
Agility Innovation Partners LLC
Carrum Health is a leading value-based Center of Excellence (COE) solution that bundles everything necessary for the delivery of high-quality surgical and cancer care — including all provider, facility, and drug fees — into a single pre-negotiated price. Every provider throughout the care continuum is incentivized to ensure patients never receive a surprise bill or experience delays/canceled procedures. All procedures, including musculoskeletal, cardiac, bariatric surgeries, and cancer treatments come with warranties from the provider. Carrum’s cancer bundles deliver plan savings of up to 30% and $0 out-of-pocket for members. Carrum’s plug-and-play technology enables rapid implementation and seamless ecosystem integration, making it turnkey ready within weeks, and an app provides immediate connection with a dedicated Carrum Health care specialist. The company’s providers are consistently in the top 10% of national rankings, and Carrum’s proprietary quality evaluation methodology is designed to identify top-notch health care facilities and physicians. Carrum is now used by many employer groups, ranging from large enterprises to public entities and self-insured employers.
Carrum Health
Prior authorization remains a tedious and costly burden for physicians and health plans, and it often delays needed patient care. Cohere Health solves this problem by digitizing the entire prior authorization process to enable coordinated management for patients. Cohere’s prior-authorization platform combines responsible AI, machine learning, deep clinical expertise, and real-time data to simplify and expedite approval for patient care. This solution digitizes authorization requests, automatically applies rules to adjudicate the request, and returns a response to the provider in real time. AI-driven “nudges” help providers make requests in line with administrative and clinical policies, increasing the likelihood of instant approval. Over the past year, Cohere’s platform has enabled 70% faster access to appropriate care for patients, saved 32,400 clinical review hours annually for a single health plan client, and automatically and instantly approved up to 80% of prior authorization requests. Cohere has achieved an industry-leading 90% platform adoption by providers of the company’s digital solution versus fax and other manual submission methods, and boasts a 91% satisfaction rate among providers utilizing the platform.
Cohere Health
Empara develops mission-driven health care technology with the intent to make health care accessible, affordable and seamless. As the tech arm of Goodroot, Empara is billed as “a community of companies reinventing health care one system at a time.” Empara’s Health Engagement Platform integrates a group’s preferred vendors into one streamlined platform to offer members real-time opportunities for cost savings, benefit support and a robust messaging center where experts or service providers assist in guiding their health care journeys. Organizations can deploy their custom-configured benefit strategies with the company’s consumer-grade member technology, and the adaptable platform easily scales to meet the demands of benefits administrators and become the primary tool to engage with members, onboard and renew groups, and promote cost-saving solutions. At the center of Empara’s groundbreaking interface is Em, an adaptable and customizable AI virtual assistant. Similar in functionality to ChatGPT or Gemini, Em knows specific plan, company benefit, and spend information. It can also answer general questions about health care benefits to help people better understand concepts like coinsurance or how deductibles work.
Empara
Companies must continually innovate to offer compelling workplace benefits and experiences that attract and retain top talent. Creating inclusive benefits on a large scale presents a significant challenge, necessitating automation while preserving the quality of human interaction. Espresa leads the industry by offering what it calls the first globally flexible platform that allows for seamless integration and customization to meet specific organizational needs. Espresa’s modular platform empowers human resources and people teams to create tailored, scalable benefits programs. Companies can customize their approach with Espresa’s diverse offerings, which include lifestyle spending accounts (LSAs), comprehensive wellbeing solutions, employee recognition programs, and community-building tools. These can be implemented individually, combined, or fully integrated using LSA Plus™. Operating in over 80 countries, Espresa supports more than 130 languages and all currencies, incorporating purchasing power parity to ensure equitable benefits across different regions. Espresa’s LSA Plus has set industry benchmarks with leading participation and adoption rates among global workforces, and 84% of its LSAs are tailored to meet the needs of dispersed employee bases.
Espresa Inc.
Green Circle Life (GCL) provides SmartFHR™, an all-in-one engagement platform that aggregates employee-facing human resources, communication, wellness, and health care services. It allows employees and family members to access company news, resources, benefits, and HR services, as well as to engage with digital health and wellbeing programs via the internet or mobile app. SmartFHR™ consistently scores high in ease-of-use ratings and is powered by a cloud-based system that allows employers to build an HR digital ecosystem that gives employers the power to negotiate with all benefits vendors based on actual data and usage analysis. One employer with more than 100,000 employees and more than 80% active users reports that health and wellness engagement has significantly improved, leading to better health, lower costs and higher productivity. Each user averages five logins per month, and more than 80% utilize the mobile app. In 2024, GCL introduced Healthy Weight for Life (HWFL), a weight-loss program for employees that combines the use of prescription weight loss medication with personalized behavioral therapy.
Green Circle Life
