Board of Directors

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Lynn Shapiro Snyder, Chair, is a Board Member and Senior Member of Epstein Becker Green in Washington, D.C., a law firm with one of the largest health care and life sciences practices in the country. There, she advises clients about federal, state, and international health law issues, including Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, compliance, and managed care issues. Her clients include health care providers, payors, pharmaceutical/device manufacturers, and those companies and financial services firms that support the health care industry, including management and separate board representations. She publishes extensively and is a frequent speaker, particularly on topics related to health reform, enterprise risk, and compliance. She has been at Epstein Becker Green for over 40 years.

Additionally, Lynn is the Founder, Chairperson, and President of the Women Business Leaders of the U.S. Health Care Industry Foundation (WBL), a non-profit that connects and convenes senior executive women from all across the health care industry. WBL’s focus is on helping these women expand their leadership, such as by serving on a board of directors, and the organization has helped to propel hundreds of women to board directorships and C-suite positions.

Named a “Director to Watch,” Lynn is a leader in the governance arena, serving on the boards of Trustmark Companies, Apria Healthcare Group, Inc., and Nashville Health Care Council. She has authored Advancing Women in Business: 10 Best Practices and co-authored Answering the Call: Understanding the Duties, Risks and Rewards of Corporate Governance.

Bergitta Cotroneo is the Chief Operating Officer at the American College of Physicians. Bergitta currently serves on several advisory boards and leadership councils, including the Flexible Medical Systems Advisory Board, the George Washington University MHA Program Advisory Council, the Virginia Hospital Center Foundation Womens Health Circle Advisory Board, and the Carol Emmott Foundation Leadership Council.

Bergitta is a past member of the WBL Advisory Board and the University of Phoenix School of Business and Technology Advisory Council. She was selected to join Women of Impact: Leaders in Health and Healthcare as a member of the 2019 cohort. In 2021, Bergitta was invited to serve as the inaugural chair of the WBL DEI Committee. She was the first African American member elected to the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) Board of Directors, where she served two terms, was elected to the board executive committee, and later served as board chair. Prior leadership roles include serving as COO at the National Patient Safety Foundation, Assistant Executive Director of Education and Research at the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, and Director of Medical Staff Affairs at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Pooja Goel is Managing Director overseeing healthcare services investments for Ascension Ventures. She is responsible for creating the portfolio investment strategy and seeking out new opportunities for partnership. Within healthcare services, her focus has been value-based care, senior offerings, and tech-enabled services for chronic condition management. Her operational background and experience lend great ability to create value with emphasis on new market expansion and scale.

Prior to joining AV, Pooja was a Partner at Virgo Investment Group responsible for the healthcare practice. She has spent over two decades in the healthcare industry, grappling firsthand with healthcare megatrends and their consequences. This includes the high cost of care for patients with multiple chronic conditions, the need to address social determinants of health, the shift in payment models from volume to value, decentralization of care, and increasing emphasis on the patient/family experience.

Pooja worked previously as National General Manager for new business at Landmark Health. Before that, she served as Vice President for New Market Integration at DaVita and led a team that identified opportunities for new centers in Europe, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East. She was also responsible for many transformational initiatives while holding several key operational roles in kidney care and international and population health.

Pooja began her career in hospital operations at multiple academic medical centers, including Kaiser Permanente. She holds a bachelor’s degree in microbiology and molecular genetics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a master’s degree in health administration from the Loma Linda University School of Public Health.

Mary R. Grealy is the former President of the Healthcare Leadership Council, a coalition of chief executives of the nation’s leading health care companies and organizations. The HLC advocates consumer-centered health care reform, emphasizing the value of private sector innovation. It is the only health policy advocacy group that represents all sectors of the health care industry. She has led important initiatives on the uninsured, Medicare reform, improving patient safety and quality, protecting the privacy of patient medical information and reforming the medical liability laws. She testifies frequently before Congress and federal regulatory agencies.

Her previous roles include experience at the American Hospital Association and the Federation of American Hospitals. Ms. Grealy has a bachelor degree from Michigan State University and a law degree from Duquesne University. She serves on the Board of Directors of TeamHealth (NYSE: TMH) and Duquesne University. She serves on the advisory boards of Duke Health Sector Advisory Council and the March of Dimes Public Policy Council.

Mary Anne Mason is the Chief Executive Officer of Mason Strategic Advisors. She brings over three decades of experience helping healthcare companies grow, scale and exit successfully. Her experience spans whiteboard startups to large publicly traded companies, including Caremark, Baxter International, and Axia Health Management, widely known for the SilverSneakers® Fitness Program.

Mary Anne works with private equity firms as a board member and advisor to their portfolio companies. She guides these companies to tackle strategic challenges, enhance go-to-market strategy, attract A Player talent, connect with opportunities in the market and accelerate growth. She has worked with these firms as both an operating partner and independent director. As a been-there-done-that entrepreneur, Mary Anne deeply understands the DNA of these companies and what it takes to accelerate growth and value creation. Her unparalleled network and unique ability to identify and foster strong relationships on behalf of these firms makes her an invaluable resource to the firms and their portfolio leadership teams.

Mary Anne’s experience includes serving as a founding partner of Axia Health Management, beginning at startup, scaling and later participating in the successful sales to Healthways for $450 million. She also led business development for Caremark, a company that grew from a start-up physician practice management business to $1 billion in revenue in just four years. Prior to Caremark, Mary Anne was general manager with P&L responsibility for a $300 million division of Baxter International.

Today, Mary Anne serves as operating partner with private equity firm, Frontier Growth, and executive chair of AccessOne, a portfolio company of Frontier. She serves as a board observer for Linkwell Health, a portfolio company of Anthem, HLM Ventures and Spark Capital. She is an independent director on the board of Tridiuum, a digital behavioral health company, backed by Fresenius, Sopris Capital and Martinson Ventures. She serves on the board and the membership committee of WBL, Women Business Leaders of the U.S. Healthcare Industry Foundation. Mary Anne is a frequent speaker and advocate for women on their journey to board service. She serves on the faculty of the WBL Board Program, Finding Your Seat at the Table.

Jean Rush is an experienced CEO and Director with extensive experience in dramatically increasing business, profit, and market share growth for several companies within multi-billion dollar corporations. Her expertise encompasses government, commercial, and international healthcare. She was most recently the Executive Vice President of Government Markets at Highmark where she had P&L responsibility for Highmark’s $7B highly regulated government businesses, including Medicare, Medicaid, Individual and Small Group markets. In this role, Ms. Rush was responsible for the $1B financial turnaround of Highmark’s government businesses within a two-year period.

Prior to joining Highmark, Ms. Rush was Senior Vice President of Complex Care for Centene Corporation, with P&L responsibility for the Long Term Care and Medicare/Duals business across all Centene markets. In this role, she completed an operational turnaround of Centene’s Medicare business, positioning it for future growth including the successful launch of five Dual Demonstration projects. Prior to this position, Ms. Rush served as Senior Vice President of Health Plan Operations for Centene where she had P&L responsibility for six Medicaid and Medicare health plans across the country. Ms. Rush has served as the CEO and Plan President of Kentucky Spirit (a start-up health plan), and as the President of CIGNA Government Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of CIGNA, where her company won several large government procurements, launched a joint venture with BCBS of Tennessee, and was awarded the prestigious Excellence (Baldrige) Award for the state of Tennessee.

Ms. Rush earned her BA from Boston College and her MBA from the University of Connecticut. She recently earned the CERT Certificate in Cyber-Security Oversight from Carnegie Mellon University. Ms. Rush currently serves on the Board of Directors for Addus HomeCare (Nasdaq: ADUS) and is on the Audit and Compensation Committees of the Board. She is also on the Board for Eventus WholeHealth (where she serves on the Audit Committee and Chairs the Compliance Committee), Women Business Leaders in the US Healthcare Industry (where she serves on the Compensation Committee), Little Spurs Pediatric Urgent Care (where she serves on the Audit Committee and Chairs the Compliance Committee) and HomeFree Pharmacy Services. In addition, Ms. Rush is on the Advisory Boards for Aarete and The Hangout Spot, two privately owned companies in the healthcare space.

Carrie Valiant is a Senior Member of the Health Care practice at the law firm of Epstein Becker Green where she serves on the firm’s Board and Chairs the firm’s Diversity and Professional Development Committee. She specializes in working with clients undergoing civil and criminal investigation for health care fraud and represents all segments of health care, including hospitals and academic medical centers, clinical laboratories, and managed care organization.

Carrie is the coauthor of Legal Issues in Health Care Fraud & Abuse: Navigating the Uncertainties. Carrie founded and is President of the Health Care Industry Access Initiative, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting collaborative action across the health care industry to improve access to health care coverage and services in the United States.