Mar 10, 2020
For several reasons, it’s incredibly fitting that my first communication here as emids’ chief strategy and growth officer is to elaborate on news we shared today regarding the formation of a new partnership with the BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners (the Blue Venture Fund).
I was initially drawn to emids after coming across its announcement last September that it had partnered with New Mountain Capital, a strategic decision that would further its position as a leading provider of digital transformation solutions.
After many meaningful conversations with both emids and the New Mountain Capital teams and learning about emids’ purposeful approach to growth as well as the significant market opportunity to drive value across the healthcare ecosystem, I was honored to come on board at the close of last year and eager to leverage my background to play an integral role in a comprehensive strategy to help drive the organization’s continued success.
Equally ambitious and passionate about making our growth plan actionable, my colleagues allowed me to waste no time in overseeing the finalization and execution of our next milestone.
Our partnership with the Blue Venture Fund is the newest of many initiatives emids has embarked upon that underscore our commitment to growing the business in a highly intentional manner to best serve our customers, partners, employees and the healthcare industry at large.
I’m elated that today’s news embodies the definition of purposeful growth that Gaurav, our chief financial officer, detailed in a post last February. A “strategic combination of organic and inorganic investments,” he mentioned that inorganic growth comes from matching business goals with what’s happening in the industry. This understanding is what spurred our close examination of the payer market as an area of expansion and immense opportunity and value for our existing customers and our overall business.
The healthcare industry has experienced sweeping changes over the past decade, primarily driven by new models of care and payment that empower patients. With the rise of healthcare consumerism, providers have long grappled with how to succeed in enhancing satisfaction and bettering outcomes, while technology companies raced to develop and provide solutions to meet new demands.
Due to a number of factors including increasingly complicated networks, new competitors and the push for more risk-based contracts, only recently have payers been forced to place an acute focus on understanding and embracing digital and its place in their respective organizations.
The new payer landscape, in combination with our experience guiding a number of payers, including several Blues Plans on the path to digital transformation, perfectly sets the stage for entering into a partnership with Blue Venture Fund. The relationship paves the way for us to connect with a sizeable group of forward-thinking payers ready to harness the power of digital.
The partnership fulfills the organic half of our growth strategy, too. I mentioned above an agreement emids entered into late last year with New Mountain Capital. New Mountain played a fundamental role in cultivating our relationship with Blue Venture Fund. Each organization brings to the table unique experience and areas of expertise that perfectly complements the others. Together, I know we will accomplish incredible things and make meaningful progress in moving the healthcare industry forward.
Today’s announcement demonstrates our unwavering allegiance to our purposeful approach to growth. It also highlights the power of partnership and sets the tone for what we anticipate will be our most collaborative year-to-date.
The bar has been set incredibly high in just my first 90 days here at emids and I’m humbled by the opportunity to perpetuate the company’s legacy of innovation and intentional growth.
I look forward to many future instances in which I’m able to share how emids is executing its growth strategy to solidify its position as healthcare’s digital transformation leader.
As the Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, Balajee Sethuraman drives the firm’s go to market strategy and growth initiatives, while driving multiple transformation threads to further consolidate emids’ position as a digital transformation leader in Healthcare. Balajee brings over 23 years in driving strategic growth in entrepreneurial high growth settings across the United States and Europe. Balajee is a seasoned technology leader with strong commercial, operations and technology experience, helping scale businesses and pivot business to enable digital transformation. Balajee’s background cuts across Services, Products and Platforms. Connect with Balajee on LinkedIn.