Executive Leadership
Eric Grossman
Eric is the CEO and founder of NextHealth. Previously, Eric was the Vice President and General Manager of TriZetto’s Consumerism and Analytics business unit. As Vice President of Enterprise Strategy, Eric formed and managed a committee of 25 health plan executives to shape TriZetto’s operational and strategic direction. As an outcome, he chartered a client-funded, 12-month project to evaluate the analytics market and develop a go-to-market strategy. Prior to TriZetto, Eric was the founder and CEO of Connecture (NASDAQ: CNXR). Connecture is the leader in health plan sales automation solutions. Eric was also Chief of Staff to the Vice Chairman of Ernst and Young. Eric is currently a Governor-appointed, two-term member of the Board of Directors for the Colorado Health Benefit Exchange.
Biography:
Eric enjoys spending time with his family; he has twins – a boy and a girl. He likes to stay active with his favorite pastimes of golfing, running, and skiing.
Degrees:
B.B.A. from the Goizueta Business School, M.B.A. from Emory University
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.
Melissa O’Connor
Melissa brings over two decades of digital and high tech expertise to her role at NextHealth. She launched and ran New York Magazine and TV Guide’s websites for NewsCorp as Director of Electronic Media. She was Director of Business Development for digital consulting firm iXL (acquired by Scient, and now part of Publicis Group), building the retail practice to $5M in two years. She founded the Manhattan offices of digital technology consulting firm ZEFER (later acquired by NEC), building it to over $40M in revenues in two years as a Managing Director. Most recently, Melissa was the President and COO of micro-optics technology company Genie Lens until its sale to investors in 2013. She received her MBA from Harvard Business School and her BA in Psychology from Duke University.
Biography:
In her spare time, Melissa enjoys volunteering for various non-profit organizations. She tries to carve out as much time as possible to travel to remote places to scuba dive and sail with her husband and two sons.
Degrees:
B.A. in Psychology from Duke University; M.B.A. from Harvard Business School
Ron Villarreal
As the Senior Vice President of Finance, Ron brings over 2 decades of experience including public accounting, financial planning and analysis for large multinational firms, and starting two companies with his entrepreneurial spirit. His resume includes both Disney and Activision and he is a current active CPA. More recently, at Nexon America, Ron assisted the strategic vision of growing the product pipeline for a SaaS company and helped with the transition from data centers to cloud data warehousing. He worked closely with technology leaders and helped save millions of dollars while maximizing return on investment in technology.
At NextHealth Technologies, Ron oversees all financial operations and human resource activities, as well as manages capital raising efforts.
Biography:
Ron started the Denver Finance and Accounting Networking Group and is on the committee Board of FEI (Financial Executives International). During warmer weather, he will carve out time to camp in the mountains and explore the off-roading trails. Closer to home, Ron enjoys comedy shows and live sporting events.
Degree:
MBA in Finance from the Anderson School of Business at the University of California, Los Angeles; BS in Accounting from Texas A&M University
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, he will serve as Chief Operating Officer and oversee all major operational areas of the company including Product, Engineering, Analytics, Client Services, Human Resources, and Information Security. 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
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
Dan Ensign
With 15 years of big data experience in fields ranging from biophysics to finance to education publishing, Dan brings a fresh view to healthcare analytics and to the Analytics team at NextHealth. He is motivated to find hidden efficiencies in claims data using cutting-edge machine learning techniques, and to enable the Analytics team to do the same.
Biography:
Weekends, Dan can be found gardening, playing chess or working on projects with his 3 kids, and fixing his 1976 GL1000.
Education:
Dan holds a Ph. D. in computational chemistry from Stanford University (2010), where he worked on the big data project, [email protected]
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.
Jason Kolaczkowski
Jason has 20 years of product ownership and development expertise with a particular focus on healthcare analytics to improve outcomes. Prior to joining NextHealth, Jason spent eight years at Kaiser Permanente, where he owned payor analytics, developing in-house BI tools and managing a team of analysts to help drive more effective business changes.
Prior to his work at Kaiser, Jason worked at the Colorado’s state Medicaid agency, the Colorado Department of Healthcare Policy and Financing, where he and his team had responsibility to manage roughly
20% of the State’s overall budget. Jason has also worked in strategy and business process re-engineering as a consultant in both Colorado and Washington DC.
Biography:
Jason supports his community as a member of the Board of Directors for Red Rocks Credit Union as well as the Colorado Mountain Club. He is an avid high-altitude mountaineer, has climbed several summits of 20,000 feet in two of the three “great ranges,” and recently returned from a trip to Nepal where he climbed a peak on whose summit no human has yet set foot. He also enjoys getting into the backcountry with his wife and twin boys.
Education:
B.A. in Political Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder; M.P.P. from the University of Maryland School of Public Affairs
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.
Alexis Pezzullo
Alexis supports healthcare solutions strategy, market development, and new growth opportunities and partnerships. Prior to joining NextHealth Technologies, Alexis held executive leadership roles with DST Health Solutions, Optum, Accenture, and KPMG. He has 20 years of experience working with over 240 health plans, health systems, state health organizations, federal health agencies, and community and at-home care organizations. He excels at design and execution of business growth strategies, value-based contracting and reimbursement models, population health programs, analytics, & performance, consumer engagement methodologies, and change management.
Biography:
Outside of work Alexis enjoys spending time with his son; traveling, playing tennis, and gaming. He is a registered dietician and licensed nutritionist.
Education:
Alexis graduated from University of North Carolina where he earned both a BS and MA in Public Health.