NourishedRx is a passionate team of healthcare professionals, food entrepreneurs, and data scientists united by our belief that nutritious food and social interaction are strong determinants of good health and a life well-lived.
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Drive health and health equity - one meal, one individual, and one community at a time.
A world where poor diet is no longer the top driver of death, disease, and disparities.
• Empathy and respect
• Keep it simple
• Relentless pursuit of results
• Collaboration and community
Lauren is the founder & CEO of NourishedRx and a Medicare Advantage subject matter expert. She founded NourishedRx to support health plans’ efforts to address the most actionable and critical non-clinical needs of their members — nutrition and social isolation. Lauren formerly led the Medicare business at Oxford Health Plans and also served as a Principal at Leavitt Partners focused on Medicare. She has an MPH from Columbia University and a BA from the University of Virginia.
Rachel is Chief Operating Officer at NourishedRx responsible for Operations, Clinical Services, Compliance, Finance, and Human Resources.Rachel is a seasoned healthcare executive with over twenty-five years’ experience in Government-Based Healthcare Programs at organizations such as CVS/Aetna, United Healthcare and Molina.
Rachel’s expertise spans across the healthcare value chain in areas such as Compliance, Operations, Organizational Alignment, Program Implementation, System Selection, and Implementation.
Spencer is Chief Growth Officer at NourishedRx. He is a leader in developing innovative frameworks and solutions for addressing social drivers of health, health equity, and population health. Before joining NourishedRx, Spencer held leadership roles at Unite Us and Carrot Health, and established a consumer insights solution at Optum. Spencer is the VP of Growth & Strategy at NourishedRx. He takes an innovative and customer-centric approach to ensure value creation and exceptional experience for healthcare organizations and members.
Spencer has spent his career in healthcare building innovative solutions and frameworks around SDoH, health equity, member engagement, and quality improvement. Prior to joining NourishedRx, Spencer held leadership roles at Unite Us and Carrot Health, and established a consumer insights solution at Optum.
Teresa is the VP of Client Solutions at NourishedRx and works closely with the clinical and technology teams in development of the company's smart food solutions platform.
She is a product and operations expert and has held positions at various early stage startups, including Language Testing International and Level Up Village. Teresa also has her health coaching certification.
Kendall is the VP of Partnerships and Compliance at NourishedRx, managing the company's food vendor partnerships and strategy. She is a food systems expert with institutional food service and health-tech startup experience.
Kendall integrates her understanding of sustainable agriculture with her knowledge of nutrition-related insurance benefits to meaningfully connect food and health. She has an MPA in Environmental Science and Policy from Columbia University and BA in Environmental Science from the University of Virginia.
Eric is the Senior Director of Business Development at NourishedRx. He is a proven contributor who drives growth by understanding complex market value propositions, achieving strategic clients and partnerships, and shaping go-to-market strategies. He is a passionate and determined leader who has spent his career identifying and scaling solutions to improve health and health-related social needs.
Prior to joining NourishedRx, Eric worked to better integrate health and social care at Partners in Care Foundation and Unite Us. Eric has a PhD in Nutritional Biology and a BS in Animal Science, both from the University of California, Davis. Since 2017, Eric has served on the board of directors of Leah’s Pantry, the leading voice in trauma-informed nutrition security.
Amy is the Director of Customer Success. She is a healthcare strategist; designing programs and systems to help individuals achieve their best health. Amy brings expertise in strategic partnerships, human-centered design, population health, health equity, and social determinants of health.
Her experience spans roles in corporate strategy, medical affairs, and quality management, formerly leading Population Health at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. She holds a Master of Public Health and a BS from the University of Minnesota.
Megan has been with NourishedRx since 2019 and has led our team of dietitians in developing tailored nutrition support and education programs to reduce morbidity and improve quality of life for the members we support. She has a passion for nutrition education and empowering clients to meet their health and wellness goals. In addition, Megan maintains an acute awareness of public policy and its impact on health initiatives, particularly as it relates to the underserved.
Megan has an MS in Nutrition from the College of Saint Elizabeth, a BS in Nutrition and Dietetics from Kansas State University, and a BA in Political Science and Modern Foreign Languages from James Madison University. She completed her dietetic internship at Virginia Tech with a focus on leadership.
Shounak joined NourishedRx shortly after its founding and has helped design, execute and evaluate the company's previous pilots and ongoing programs. He has a keen interest in the intersection of healthcare and technology and holds an MPH in Health Policy and Management from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health where he focused on Comparative Effectiveness and Outcomes Research.
While getting his MPH, Shounak was a consultant to one of New York City's largest food pantries and prior to graduate school, worked for an NGO in India focused on initiatives in underserved rural communities.
Sara is the Clinical Team Senior Manager and a Registered Dietitian who focuses on implementing and providing personalized care for all members. Through nutrition education and counseling, she believes members can make sustainable life-changing habits to better their health.
Sara has an MS in Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics from New York University and a BS in Kinesiology from the University of Michigan. She completed her dietetic internship at New York University, including clinical work at New York Presbyterian-Brooklyn Methodist Hospital.
Lauren founded NourishedRx to support health plans and at-risk providers’ efforts to address the most actionable and critical non-clinical needs of their members and patients – nutrition and social isolation.
Prior to NourishedRx, Lauren was a senior leader in the Strategy practice at Leavitt Partners, a “Health Intelligence'' firm founded by former Secretary of Health and Human Services, Michael Leavitt. Lauren served as Corporate Director of Oxford Health Plans, where she led Oxford’s Medicare business.
Lauren is co-chair of the United States of Care, Entrepreneurs Council. Lauren is also a Board Member at Village Health Works, a healthcare organization that addresses the root causes of illness, poverty and neglect in Burundi, Africa. She has served as the Acting Executive Director of Village Health Works, as well as the Chair of the Kigutu Hospital Development Committee. She was faculty at Singularity University’s Exponential Medicine 2016 conference – addressing the potential of technology to democratize healthcare in the developing world.
Lauren grew up in Baltimore, MD. She received her BA from the University of Virginia and her Master’s in Public Health from the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
Kyle Raffaniello is a proven leader in the healthcare industry. She has been leading healthcare technology and service companies for the past 20 years. Prior to serving as Chief Executive Officer of Prealize Health, she served as President of Sapphire Digital, a division of Zelis. She served as Chief Executive Officer of Sapphire Digital prior to its acquisition by Zelis.
Kyle was Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President of ValueOptions, a behavioral health company, where she was responsible for profits across all lines of business. She was Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing for Consortium Health Plans, an organization focused on account growth and retention for the nation's 20 largest Blue Cross Blue Shield plans. Kyle has also held senior sales and marketing positions at several regional health plans, as well as led provider strategies for several large medical delivery systems.
Kyle earned a Master of Science in Healthcare Administration from George Washington
University. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Business and Theology from Mount St. Mary's
College.
Dan Ripma is based in Chicago and serves as a Vice President of S2G Ventures’ food and agriculture investment team. Dan joined S2G Ventures from Greenhill & Co. where he worked on M&A and restructuring transactions within the global industrial sector.
At S2G, Dan co-leads the firm’s investment thesis on the convergence of food and healthcare. Dan sits on the board of directors for Mend Nutrition, Big Bold Health, Mealogic, and NourishedRx, as well as supporting Faeth Therapeutics and Lief Organics. Dan helped co-found the Food, Nutrition, and Health Investor Coalition ("FNHIC") to bring together investors, corporates, and start-ups to catalyze capital and investment into the sector and set up a forum for education across different investor types.
Dr. Sophia Chang is a seasoned healthcare executive and clinician, with policy and operational experience in health technology, managed care, public insurance, primary care, population management and public health.
She is the former Chief Clinical Informatics Officer at Clover Health, a tech-enabled Medicare Advantage plan with responsibility for setting the company's clinical strategy and integrating clinical perspectives into Clover's technology platform to improve care delivery and patient outcomes.
Prior to Clover, Dr. Chang was Chief Clinical Innovation Officer at CareMore Health Plan with a role focused on scaling care for high-cost Medicare members and translating their model for Medicaid patients. Her previous positions include: Vice President of Programs at the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF), Vice President and Medical Director of population health solutions at Accretive Health, Director of the Veterans Health Administration's Center for Quality Management in Public Health, Medical Director of the San Francisco Health Plan (a Medicaid managed care plan), and Director of AIDS Health Services for the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
Dr. Chang continues to practice general internal medicine at San Francisco General Hospital as a UCSF faculty member. She holds a BA from Amherst College; an MPH from the University of California, Berkeley; and an MD from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Kurt Waltenbaugh is a serial entrepreneur with a career spent building solutions to understand, predict, and influence consumer behavior. Kurt has built successful analytic solutions, products and companies in the healthcare, retail, and education/credentialing industries.
The common thread of his work is capturing large amounts of data from disparate sources to produce novel insights into the behavior of individuals and groups. With enough data on prior behavior, we can predict future actions, creating opportunities to influence decision making.
Currently offering strategic advisory & consulting through Kestrel Rising, Kurt is helping companies understand data & prediction, to make the world a better place.
Kurt was the founder of Carrot Health, a consumer+health data and predictive analytics platform offering engagement insights to payer and provider customers. Carrot Health was sold in 2021 to Unite Us. His previous companies were sold to Oracle (Retek) and Pearson Education (Integral7). Kurt was responsible for product strategy at Optum, Inc. (UnitedHealth Group), building data analytic businesses for the provider, payer and employer markets.
When not working with customers, Kurt is with his wife, Tracy, guiding their three children toward adulthood, and planning their next trek into the wilderness.
Dena Bravata is a healthcare entrepreneur and executive. Dr. Bravata is the co-founder of Lyra Health where she also served as the Chief Medical Officer from 2015 to 2016. She was the Chief Medical Officer and Head of Products at Castlight Health from 2009 through 2014 and again from 2019 to 2022 (formerly NYSE:CSLT).
Dr. Bravata was a practicing internist for 16 years in her own private practice and an attending physician at Stanford University and the Palo Alto VA. As a nationally recognized health services researcher, Dr. Bravata has published widely on the clinical effectiveness of a variety of key health technology, clinical, and public health topics. She is a founding member of the Aspen Institute Healthcare Strategy Group, was an assistant public health officer for Santa Clara County, and serves on the board of several health technology and services companies.
In 2021, Dr. Bravata received a national service award from the White House and CDC for her work on the pandemic response and Vaccines.gov.
Dr. Bravata has an undergraduate degree from Yale University, an M.D. from Columbia University, and a M.S. in health policy from Stanford University. She completed her Internal Medicine Residency and Ambulatory Care Fellowship at Stanford University.
Ben is an investor, advisor, and entrepreneur, assisting several venture capital and private equity firms with their investments in technology and healthcare.
Previously, Ben was Chief Strategy Officer at Advantia Health, one of the nation's largest and fastest-growing providers of women's health services. Before Advantia, Ben was co-founder & CEO of Pacify Health, a care management and telemedicine platform that he led through several venture rounds, nationwide expansion, and a sale to Advantia in early 2019. Early in his career, Ben spent 5 years at McKinsey & Company, where he served large health systems and payers on strategic and operational projects.
Ben has also lectured and taught at several business schools, including Georgetown University and UNC Chapel Hill. Ben received his BA from UNC Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar, and his MBA from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
Vijay Anand is a seasoned technologist and product leader with 35 years of experience across VC backed startups, PE backed mid-sized firms and large F100 enterprises. Currently, he is playing fractional CTO (First Stop Health) and advisor to the CEO roles (NourishedRx, startups in stealth mode). He has established high-performance product and engineering teams across global locations for multiple companies that excel in solving problems and power growth businesses. His experience spans product vision and strategy, technology strategy, agile SDLC, strategic planning and initiatives (partnerships, M&A). He has led teams from 15 person startups (NetDynamics) and built teams of 1000+ (Intuit, Oracle) through organic growth and has experience with divestiture/spinoffs and integrating acquisitions successfully in the US, India and Israel.
Most recently, Vijay Anand led the R&D organization at apree(Castlight) Health, leading a 300+ person team that included engineering, IT, security, product, design, and analytics. Prior to his role at apree, he served as the Senior Vice President of Global Engineering at Intuit for 12 years, where he was responsible for establishing high performance Global Development Centers(GDC) around the world that owned developing key products in Intuit's portfolio including Quickbooks and TurboTax. He also built centers of expertise for technologies including cloud, mobile, AI and information security for the company
Kristin Gasteazoro (aka KG) is a seasoned growth executive with over two decades of experience in healthcare sales and leadership. Kristin brings a wealth of expertise to her current role as Chief Growth Officer role at Health Network One with a relentless pursuit for success.
Kristin’s career is marked by her dedication to revenue growth with a comprehensive background in solving complex payer issues within healthcare.
She has a passion for working alongside internal and external partners to solve problems. She is a recognized industry speaker on digital insights and best practices for health plans struggling to control costs and improve member quality.
She has proven to lead sales and account teams that drive proactive pipeline growth, process improvement and strategic thought leadership across a broad set of products and solutions in the health care industry.
Interested in working for NourishedRx? We’re always looking for new folks to join our team and help us make a difference!
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The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.
A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!
Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.
Lauren is the founder & CEO of NourishedRx and a Medicare Advantage subject matter expert. She founded NourishedRx to support health plans’ efforts to address the most actionable and critical non-clinical needs of their members — nutrition and social isolation. Lauren formerly led the Medicare business at Oxford Health Plans and also served as a Principal at Leavitt Partners focused on Medicare. She has an MPH from Columbia University and a BA from the University of Virginia.
Kendall is the VP of Partnerships and Compliance at NourishedRx, managing the company's food vendor partnerships and strategy. She is a food systems expert with institutional food service and health-tech startup experience.
Kendall integrates her understanding of sustainable agriculture with her knowledge of nutrition-related insurance benefits to meaningfully connect food and health. She has an MPA in Environmental Science and Policy from Columbia University and BA in Environmental Science from the University of Virginia.
Spencer is Chief Growth Officer at NourishedRx. He is a leader in developing innovative frameworks and solutions for addressing social drivers of health, health equity, and population health. Before joining NourishedRx, Spencer held leadership roles at Unite Us and Carrot Health, and established a consumer insights solution at Optum. Spencer is the VP of Growth & Strategy at NourishedRx. He takes an innovative and customer-centric approach to ensure value creation and exceptional experience for healthcare organizations and members.
Spencer has spent his career in healthcare building innovative solutions and frameworks around SDoH, health equity, member engagement, and quality improvement. Prior to joining NourishedRx, Spencer held leadership roles at Unite Us and Carrot Health, and established a consumer insights solution at Optum.
Teresa is the VP of Client Solutions at NourishedRx and works closely with the clinical and technology teams in development of the company's smart food solutions platform.
She is a product and operations expert and has held positions at various early stage startups, including Language Testing International and Level Up Village. Teresa also has her health coaching certification.
Shounak joined NourishedRx shortly after its founding and has helped design, execute and evaluate the company's previous pilots and ongoing programs. He has a keen interest in the intersection of healthcare and technology and holds an MPH in Health Policy and Management from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health where he focused on Comparative Effectiveness and Outcomes Research.
While getting his MPH, Shounak was a consultant to one of New York City's largest food pantries and prior to graduate school, worked for an NGO in India focused on initiatives in underserved rural communities.
Megan has been with NourishedRx since 2019 and has led our team of dietitians in developing tailored nutrition support and education programs to reduce morbidity and improve quality of life for the members we support. She has a passion for nutrition education and empowering clients to meet their health and wellness goals. In addition, Megan maintains an acute awareness of public policy and its impact on health initiatives, particularly as it relates to the underserved.
Megan has an MS in Nutrition from the College of Saint Elizabeth, a BS in Nutrition and Dietetics from Kansas State University, and a BA in Political Science and Modern Foreign Languages from James Madison University. She completed her dietetic internship at Virginia Tech with a focus on leadership.
