Executive Leadership
Jeff Maxwell
Jeff leads healthcare solutions strategy and market development, fosters innovation and develops sources to add new growth opportunities. Prior to joining NextHealth, Jeff held a number of strategic sales roles with HealthSparq, Lawson Healthcare, Phytel, and Healthvision. He has over a decade of experience working with health plans, health systems and provider organizations. Jeff has consulted with these organizations to build and implement technologies to improve patient care, impact health outcomes and deliver superior quality and cost data for healthcare consumers.
Biography:
Outside of work Jeff enjoys spending time with his wife and three kids, enjoying the outdoors and being involved in his local community.
Education:
Jeff graduated from Portland State University where he earned a BS in Business Management and a second Major in Marketing.
Aria Ward
Aria is responsible for Client Services at NextHealth Technologies, and she brings 25+ years’ experience in IT software leadership to the role. It is Aria’s passion to create cost savings within healthcare by partnering with key stakeholders across the industry to execute strategies that streamline and automate systems to create better results. She is committed to leveraging her strong expertise in client services, operations management, compliance, and leadership success with teams of up to 60+ to provide the best experience for clients.
Biography:
Aria is devoted to giving back to the community and performs service work with an emphasis on helping families and children. She also enjoys outdoor and travel activities with her husband and 4 sons.
Degrees:
BS In Technology and Management from University of Maryland, and a Masters Certificate in Global Strategic Management, Supply Chain from Eli Broad College of Business
Peter Everett
Peter is a highly accomplished executive and entrepreneur with significant experience in healthcare and technology. Peter was an early investor in NextHealth and has served on its Board of Directors since its founding. At NextHealth, Peter serves as President and Chief Operating Officer and oversees all major operational areas of the company including Sales, Marketing, Finance, Product, Engineering, Analytics, Client Services, and Human Resources. Prior to NextHealth, Peter was Founder and CEO of HealthConnect Systems, a leading SaaS provider of healthcare sales automation solutions. Peter guided HealthConnect from pre-revenue to industry leadership, including two successful acquisitions and eventual sale to Ebix, providing continuing investors over 10x cash on cash returns. Prior to HealthConnect, Peter worked on Wall Street for over ten years providing merger and acquisition advisory and capital raising services to technology companies, most recently as Principal at JP Morgan.
Biography:
Peter is married with 4 children and one dog (his beloved Sawyer). He is an avid poker player and volunteers with several organizations including the National Federation for Teaching Entrepreneurship.
Degrees:
Peter holds a BS (Industrial Engineering) and MBA degrees from Cornell University
Mehrshad Setayesh
Mehrshad is a veteran technology innovator with more than thirty years of experience under his belt. As CTO, Mehrshad leads NextHealth’s team of engineers and developers with a mission to improve healthcare affordability. With passionate belief in the power of individuals and teams, Mehrshad is a value-based leader who turns complex software ideas into optimized, scalable businesses. He joined NextHealth Technologies from Oracle Inc. where he managed a large distributed engineering team responsible for a social media gateway for all Oracle clouds. Prior to his role at Oracle, Mehrshad was part of the startup company, Collective Intellect, which was then acquired by Oracle Inc.
Biography:
An avid athlete, Mehrshad believes a healthy body cultivates a healthy mind and spirit. He enjoys long distance swimming, downhill skiing, hiking, traveling and spending time with his family.
Degrees:
As a trilingual, Mehrshad began his computer science degree at Switzerland’s EPFL, The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne. He went on to obtain his BS in Computer Science and MS in Software Engineering from Southern Methodist University
Nasir Ali
Nasir is a strategic product leader and has worked most of his career at the intersection of healthcare and technology. Most recently he was leading the core product and services teams at SignifyHealth. Previously he spent about 9 years in product management leadership roles at TriZetto on both the Payer and Provider side of the solution portfolio. At TriZetto, he helped the company through a successful exit from private equity investors to Cognizant Technology Solutions. Prior to TriZetto Nasir held similar strategic roles at other healthcare entities in the PBM, Medical Device and Health-tech space.
Biography:
Nasir is a resident of Colorado and enjoys hiking and mountain biking with his wife and two daughters. Fun Fact – Nasir climbed three Colorado 14ers last summer and plans to add a few more to the list this summer.
Degrees:
Nasir holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s in business administration. He has also completed postgraduate work in product strategy.
Dr. Michael Poku
Biography:
Outside of work, Michael enjoys supporting non-profit organizations volunteering, and serving on the board. Of late, he has been convinced by his wife to foster dogs over the past several months.
Education:
Michael holds a doctorate from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
Gene Cavanaugh
Gene Cavanaugh is our Chief Financial Officer with over thirty years of professional experience. Throughout his career, Gene has worked in service operations, finance and accounting, and outsourcing/ offshore. In previous roles, Gene was a management consultant focusing on healthcare operations and finance; including call center operations, due diligence, and business development for offshore enterprises and health care services companies.
Biography:
Gene is a resident of West Palm Beach, Florida.
Degrees:
Gene completed his undergrad degree in accounting at Villanova University.
Senior Team
Suzanne Blumenthal
Suzanne is responsible for NextHealth client relationships, ensuring the highest levels of client satisfaction and introducing new solutions, bringing incremental value, increased cost savings and improved outcomes. Prior to joining NextHealth, Suzanne held a number of strategic client relationship management positions with Cotiviti, CSC, EDS and other major players in the healthcare industry. She has more than two decades of experience working with health plans, health systems and provider organizations. Suzanne has worked with these organizations to build strong client relationships, always increasing the value delivered to clients and their executives.
Biography:
Suzanne and her husband live in San Francisco. They have two children and enjoy family time together as well as adventure travel, hiking, trekking, cycling, skiing, and gourmet cooking.
Education:
Suzanne graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, MO, where she earned a BA Degree in Urban Planning and from George Washington University in Washington DC, where she earned a Masters Degree in Health Care Administration.
Tom Cohen
Tom supports healthcare solutions strategy and market development, fostering innovation and developing sources to add new growth opportunities. Prior to joining NextHealth, Tom held Director and Regional Vice President roles with HealthSparq and InstaMed, respectively. He has over a decade of experience in software solutions and technology, with the majority in the healthcare space. He is passionate about helping his clients and partners utilize technology to improve the state of the healthcare ecosystem for members/patients, payers, and health systems.
Biography:
Outside of work, Tom enjoys spending time with his wife and their three very active young boys, enjoying any and all outdoor activities as well as music. He’s active in the community and is on the Board for the Oregon March of Dimes.
Education:
Tom graduated with honors from the University of Washington with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music, focused on Vocal Performance.
Leon Eagan
Leon has over 20 years of experience in building and securing IT systems and infrastructures. Most of his career has been in heavily regulated and sensitive environments, including healthcare and the payment card industry. Prior to joining NextHealth, Leon worked at McKesson/RelayHealth managing and safeguarding a healthcare analytics platform and its data in the cloud.
Biography:
Leon enjoys live music, sporting events, games played with friends, and of course continued learning in the fields of technology and security.
Education:
BS in Business Information Systems and an MBA in Technology Management
Megan Gettle
Megan is a passionate and highly experienced human resources professional with
demonstrated history working for rapidly growing companies. As Director of Human Resources, Megan is responsible for HR operations, facilities and administration—as well as benefits, talent management, recruiting and employee engagement. She takes pride in her ability to support people and constantly strives to foster an environment of continuous improvement.
Biography:
In her spare time Megan enjoys performing magic tricks for friends and family. She also has a passion for flamenco dancing and polka music.
Education:
University of Iowa – BA, Communication Studies Minor, Human Relations & Spanish. SPHR Certified.
Rasesh Joshi
Rasesh has over 20 years of leadership experience in healthcare technology working for companies ranged from startup to mature organizations. He enjoys the challenge of building innovative product and enabling high performing engineering teams utilizing leading edge technologies to solve business needs. He is extremely familiar with the technology landscape and the emerging needs of the payer market.
Prior to NextHealth, Rasesh served in Director of Engineering and Architecture roles at Trizetto (now Cognizant) and Invidasys where he was instrumental in the architecture of a Software as a Service, cloud-based next gen solution with a standards based approach to data integration. In his tenure at Trizetto and QCSI, he led several key initiatives around engineering deliverables for the QNXT product both as an engineering leader and an individual contributor with a focus on key integration projects with third party products.
Biography:
Rasesh has a global background with time spent in Tanzania, India and extensive travel at a young age across the globe prior to settling down in the Western United States. His passions include international travel and learning life lessons from his wonderful wife and kids.
Education:
Rasesh pursued a B.S. in Computer Science at Arizona State University.
John Loomis
John joined NextHealth from Privia Health as a Senior Director of Engineering responsible for management and oversight of multiple engineering teams that handled the software development across multiple technology stacks. John has built clinical decision support tools and co-authored several research papers in clinical decision support, data integration, shared decision making, and patient-centered care.
Biography:
Loves the mountains as much as the sea and spends his free time mountaineering, skiing, sailing and scuba diving.
Education:
John has his BS in Computer Science from the University of Maryland University College and has done post-baccalaureate work in clinical informatics from John’s Hopkins School of Medicine.
Laura Dettmann
Laura has nearly two decades of marketing, sales and strategic account management experience in the health plan industry. Prior to joining NextHealth, Laura held strategic sales roles at Welldoc, where she helped grow and support health plan relationships—including consulting on digital health strategies and potential solutions for chronic condition management—and HealthSparq, where she helped enhance the health plan member experience via provider search, cost transparency and care navigation solutions. She also worked at Staywell (most recently purchased by WebMD) to support health plan marketing communications, wellness and digital health coaching strategies. Laura began her career at Florida Blue where she worked on the Marketing Innovation team.
Biography:
Laura works from her home office in Raleigh-Durham, NC. She loves running and her goldendoodle, Chippy. Fun fact: Laura used to own a vineyard and alpaca farm in Wisconsin!
Education:
Laura holds an MBA from the University of North Florida and BA in Industrial Relations and Advertising from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Geoff Urland
Biography:
Geoff is a voracious reader and loves hiking, soccer, and making sure his two children don’t injure each other while trying to figure out what to build with legos.
Education:
Geoff has a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Colorado, Boulder where he focused on social neuroscience, attitudes, and social perception.
Nicole Engel
Biography:
Outside of work, Nicole enjoys spending time with her husband and three very active young boys, enjoying all the outdoor activities Colorado has to offer. She is an avid traveler, music lover and dreams of someday going to cooking school.
Education:
Nicole holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and BBA in Marketing and Spanish from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Simon Gao
Simon is a seasoned data scientist who is enthusiastic about healthcare data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence. He has previously worked with Chenmed, New York Life, and CUNA Mutual Group doing data analytics work on patient care outcome prediction and optimization, database marketing analytics, customer health risk analytics, and financial metrics forecasting and reporting. He also has extensive experience managing teams of data miners and analysts as the head of the teams in these organizations.
In his downtime, you can find him outside for a stroll, watching basketball, or playing with the family cats.
Education:
Simon holds a PhD from the University of Florida in Applied and Resource Economics.