Speaking Faculty

Deborah Ault is well known and respected in the healthcare industry and has been the builder of successful medical management programs since 1996. Deborah has pioneered the “proactive,” “day-one, dollar-one,” and “progressive patient-centric” models of medical management. Most recently the creation of P3CM™ (patent pending) tops her resume. Deborah combines her proven success in the industry with her proven organizational leadership.

A registered nurse for 13 years, Deborah Ault has a diverse background in health care management and in all facets of nursing care. She worked in major hospitals, and acquired business development, management and marketing expertise at several prominent managed care organizations. Most recently, as vice president of care management for a national firm, she successfully utilized care management best practices to integrate two separate business operations into one company, while containing major health care costs.

Deborah began her nursing career upon graduation from Marion Technical College, and studied at several colleges and universities before earning her BBA degree and then MBA. Her leadership, multi-tasking and organizational skills, coupled with her advanced studies in mathematics and statistics, have proven invaluable in helping clients realize savings from medical management interventions.

Nelson Griswold has been called “visionary” by Art Dammers of Anthem, “an authority on voluntary benefits and consultative selling” by Employee Benefit Adviser magazine and “a well-recognized industry thought leader” by Ron Leopold of MetLife.

Nelson has been honored by the Voluntary Benefits Association with their prestigious Industry Leadership Award, for his “professional accomplishments that drive the voluntary benefits industry forward.” A nationally-known agency reinvention and growth expert, he is the author of DO or DIE: Reinventing Your Benefits Agency for Post-Reform Success, the industry bestseller that has been hailed as the only comprehensive blueprint for agency leaders to reinvent their firm to survive and grow in the post-ACA era. As a practice management and agency growth consultant, Nelson works with leading agencies across the country to grow their top- and bottom-line revenue.

Nelson serves as Managing Director of the Agency Growth Mastermind Partnership, a national executive peer-exchange network for non-competing benefits agency owners who collaborate and cooperate to identify best practices and proven growth strategies to remain relevant, profitable, independent & growing.

Nelson is also a leading strategic consultant to carriers and other industry vendors on broker distribution & activation, voluntary benefits, and next-generation engagement & enrollment strategies. Nelson writes a monthly column for Employee Benefit Adviser magazine, has written for Benefits Selling, Producers eSource and other leading industry publications, and writes a blog for Zywave. He is an in-demand keynote speaker and presenter at industry conferences. He is a board member and serves on the executive committee of both the Workplace Benefits Association and the Voluntary Benefits Association

Luther joined Yelp in 2008 as an account executive on the company’s sales team and a year later moved into the role of Manager of Business Outreach, where he built a department that educates small business owners about the importance of Yelp. Since 2011, Luther has led public policy at the company. As Vice President of Public Policy, he manages and directs the company’s global outreach to policy makers about the vital role Yelp plays in driving economic activity to local businesses while serving as a platform to empower and protect consumers. Previously, Luther worked as a Special Assistant to retired four-star General Wesley Clark. He holds a B.A. in government from The College of William & Mary.

Jason W. Mitchell, MD, is the Chief Medical and Clinical Transformation Officer for Presbyterian Healthcare Services, a not-for-profit health care system, integrating New Mexico’s largest health care provider and health plan. Dr. Mitchell leads a team of 1,000 employed providers spanning 50 ambulatory clinics and eight hospital campuses in addition to medical staff operations and provider clinical quality in a mixed medical staff model. Dr. Mitchell oversees $600 million in fully capitated delivery system risk arrangements, delivery system care and case management, clinical informatics and enterprise Population Health Services.

Dr. Mitchell focuses on re-designing clinical practice at the system level and is transforming the role of the physician executive to better serve clinicians and patients during a time of rapid healthcare change. He is a key leader in developing enterprise strategy across care delivery, the health plan and Presbyterian’s Fluent Health – a leader in partnering with delivery systems to start or strengthen their own provider-led health plans.

Under Dr. Mitchell’s leadership, Presbyterian has deployed new care models, processes and technology to help connect the care continuum, payers, providers and patients in a way never before possible and enabled intense evidence-based care design, process improvement, value-based care, health plan integration and standardization. Ultimately, the changes have yielded significant gains in disease management and overall management of population health.

Dr. Mitchell is passionate about the quadruple aim and continues to see patients as a family practice physician. He earned his medical degree from the University of New Mexico, where he also completed his residency in family medicine. Dr. Mitchell is board-certified in both family medicine and clinical informatics. He has been with Presbyterian since 2006.

Andy Neary is a healthcare strategist with The Olson Group. He has more than 15 years of experience in helping employers affect the rising cost of healthcare through innovative strategies. He works with his clients to move them from the benefits status quo with innovative and creative strategies that provide savings for employers and a rich benefit plan array for employees.

He recently was named to the “Boulder 40 Under 40” list, recognizing his professional and charitable contributions to that Colorado community. He was a former pitcher in the Milwaukee Brewers organization.

As a former professional athlete, Neary understands the hard work and daily grind needed to perform at the highest level. His personal motto is, “It’s the work done when no one is watching that generates success”. He takes the same approach with his clients creating truly elite benefit programs.

Dr. Robert Pearl is the former CEO of The Permanente Medical Group (1999-2017), the nation’s largest medical group, and former president of The Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group (2009-2017). In these roles he led 10,000 physicians, 38,000 staff and was responsible for the nationally recognized medical care of 5 million Kaiser Permanente members on the west and east coasts. Recently named one of Modern Healthcare’s 50 most influential physician leaders, Pearl is an advocate for the power of integrated, prepaid, technologically advanced and physician-led healthcare delivery.

He serves as a clinical professor of plastic surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine and is on the faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he teaches courses on strategy and leadership, and lectures on information technology and health care policy.

In 2017 he authored “Mistreated: Why We think We’re Getting Good Healthcare—And Why We’re Usually Wrong” a Washington Post bestseller that offers a roadmap for transforming American healthcare. All proceeds from the book go to Doctors Without Borders.

As a regular contributor to Forbes, Pearl covers the business of healthcare and the culture of medicine. He’s the host of a new podcast called “Fixing Healthcare,” which debuted in the iTunes top 100 list of science and medicine programs. He has been featured on CBS This Morning, CNBC, NPR, and in TIME, USA Today and Bloomberg News. He has published more than 100 articles in various medical journals and contributed to numerous books. He is a frequent keynote speaker at healthcare and medical technology conferences. Pearl has addressed the Commonwealth Club, the World Healthcare Congress, and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s National Quality Forum.

Board certified in plastic and reconstructive surgery, Pearl received his medical degree from the Yale University School of Medicine, followed by a residency in plastic and reconstructive surgery at Stanford University. From 2012 to 2017, Pearl served as chairman of the Council of Accountable Physician Practices (CAPP), which includes the nation’s largest and best multispecialty medical groups, and participated in the Bipartisan Congressional Task Force on Delivery System Reform and Health IT in Washington, D.C.

Connect with Dr. Robert Pearl on Twitter >@RobertPearlMD, LinkedIn and at his website robertpearlmd.com.

Sheila Shapiro is senior vice president of National Strategic Partnerships for UnitedHealthcare Clinical Services. Sheila is responsible for the development, advancement and implementation of industry-leading models that will standardize how new types of data can be captured and used to improve people’s health outcomes, with an emphasis on connecting individuals to community and social services through local and national strategic partnerships.

Sheila joined UnitedHealthcare in 2009 as chief operations officer for the Community Plan of Arizona. She has also served as health plan president for the State of Washington Community Plan as well as national vice president of the myConnections program, a Medicaid program that builds new capabilities around transportation, housing and other social support services for UnitedHealthcare’s most vulnerable populations.

Sheila has more than 30 years of experience in the health care industry. Prior to joining UnitedHealthcare, she held executive positions with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana, Molina and Premera Blue Cross. She has held leadership roles across a broad range of operations and strategic positions, including claims, customer service and financial operations.

Sheila holds a master’s degree in management from the University of Phoenix, a bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University and a financial management certificate from the Wharton School of Business. She is an Arizona Women in Business honoree and has served as vice chair on the board of directors for the March of Dimes.

Martin VanTrieste brings over 35 years in the pharmaceutical industry – focusing on manufacturing and quality. He was ranked #2 on the 2018 Medicine Maker Power List of Industry Influencers.

Martin VanTrieste was the Chairman of the Parenteral Drug Association (PDA) Board of Directors. The PDA represents over 10,000 members, and is the leading global facilitator of scientifically sound, practical technical information, quality systems and expertise to advance Pharmaceutical / biopharmaceutical manufacturing science and regulation so members can better serve patients. He recently retired as the senior vice president of quality at Amgen. He was responsible for quality assurance, quality control, compliance, operational excellence, environment, health and safety along with training at Amgen.

Prior to joining Amgen, VanTrieste was with Bayer Healthcare’s Biological Products Division as vice president of worldwide quality and Abbott Laboratories as the vice president of quality assurance for the Hospital Products Division. While at Abbott, VanTrieste held various positions in Quality, Operations, and Research and Development. He started his career at Abbott in 1983 after obtaining his Pharmacy degree from Temple University School of Pharmacy.

He is the founder of Rx-360 and first Chairman of the Board of Directors. Rx-360 is a nonprofit international supply chain organization that enhances patient safety by increasing the security and quality in the biopharmaceutical supply chain.

VanTrieste has been actively involved with various professional and trade organizations, including, United States Pharmacopeia (USP), Pharmaceutical Quality Research Institute (PQRI), Pharmaceutical Research and Manufactures of America (PhRMA), and AdvaMed

PharmaVoice in 2012 named VanTrieste as one of the 100 most inspiring people in the pharmaceutical industry, calling him “a man with a mission”. The Medicine Maker in 2016, 2017 and 2018 named him one of the most influential people in the world of drug development and manufacture saying, “he is known throughout industry for his work on advancing quality assurance and helping to ensure a more reliable supply of high-quality medicines.”

Dr. Alan Warren is the CTO and SVP of Engineering for Oscar Health, the high-tech NY startup aiming to transform the healthcare industry. Prior to Oscar, Alan was Engineering VP in Google’s NY office and led efforts there spanning desktop and mobile search, AdWords, and Developer API's and tools, as well as starting products such as Google Finance, Blog Search and Google Health. While there, he also founded and led Google's collaborative applications area, including Google Drive and the Docs, Sheets and Slides suite. Before joining Google he co-founded and was CTO for the technology and engineering side of Juice Software, an enterprise software startup also in New York City. Prior to Juice, Alan spent 3 years as Chief Architect of Hyperion Solutions, two years in IBM's Software Solutions Division, and ten years in T.J. Watson Research. His early research spanned materials and device physics, computational physics and modeling, and circuit design. Since shifting to software and computer science full-time, Alan has been drawn to graphics and visualization, component-based architectures and systems design, and most recently, the collaboration and productivity applications space.

Alan majored in Physics and Math at Georgia Tech (’78) and received his Ph.D. in Solid State Physics from MIT (’85).