Ravi Ika

A noted entrepreneur and an innovator of disruptive business solutions, Ravi Ika founded nirvanaHealth in 2013 and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer. He launched nirvanaHealth to address the amount of waste in the healthcare system and to improve care by creating a single integrated platform for payers and PBMs to manage their pharmacy, behavioral health, and medical business—something that has been a dream of every payer.

With this goal, Mr. Ika and the nirvanaHealth team built Aria from the ground up leveraging technology such as robotic process automation (RPA), machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI). Aria provides comprehensive automated transactional services for all payer and PBM administrative, medical, behavioral, pharmacy, financial, care, quality, cost, & risk management, and compliance management functions across the entire administrative and care continuums of healthcare. Aria facilitates the 3,500+ functions typically fulfilled by payers and PBMs. It does so in a way never before imagined in the payer or PBM industries: by automating each of these functions with a bot and logically deploying these bots into modules to achieve enterprise automation. Among the valuable results of this platform is the opportunity to implement innovative risk models, which means total care can be administered at 75-80% of premium dollars rather than the 90% currently allocated for actual care, and administrative costs which currently range from 10-15% can be reduced by a third to half while also improving member care.

Mr. Ika recognizes the $4 trillion annual healthcare market has long been in need of transformation. Together, payers and PBMs manage the majority of this spend wherein $900+ billion is wasted annually, which is due in large to the lack of cloud platforms built on RPA, ML, and AI to manage the complex multitude of functions fulfilled by these organizations.

More than 20 years ago, Mr. Ika recognized a similar transformational opportunity in health insurance. Industry insiders, challenged to reduce administrative costs by 30% and avoidable medical costs by 20%, saw these goals as unachievable. Mired in paper-based processes, the industry also struggled with a myriad of fragmented, inflexible, and expensive legacy systems. Mr. Ika responded to this opportunity by launching ikaSystems, an enterprise payer platform company. Disrupting obsolete paradigms, he delivered unprecedented change long before passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The ikaSystems platform decreased administrative costs for many health insurers by as much as 50% and significantly reduced avoidable medical costs. With these results, ikaSystems raised more than $120 million capital from Providence Equity and Essex Woodland Ventures. Mr. Ika now seeks to accomplish much bigger transformation across both the payer and PBM enterprises.

Known for building and inspiring world-class teams, Mr. Ika takes a hands-on approach to ensure his clients’ success. Over the years, healthcare industry leaders have come to rely on his vision and talent for creating enterprise platforms that radically disrupt legacy business paradigms and deliver significant value. Mr. Ika has a Master of Science degree in Environmental Engineering from Old Dominion University and worked as a research scientist at Harvard University prior to his entrepreneurial career, he also serves on the Board of Trustees at St. Mark’s School.

Anand Tati

As a President of Growth Strategy, Anand provides executive leadership, including strategic and operational oversight to drive operating model performance and implement strategic initiatives. He is responsible for implementing short and long-term strategic priorities and business objectives. Anand partners with other leadership teams and stakeholders to define and deploy key performance indicators to monitor past, current, and future performance of business processes. He will help develop, prioritize, and execute business process excellence initiatives to identify and address process and operational inefficiencies. He works to ensure operational compliance with regulatory and accreditation agencies, and internal compliance policies and guidelines.

Anand brings more than 20 years of corporate experience in strategy, leadership, technology execution, and service delivery. Prior to joining, Anand was a senior manager and on a partner track with Deloitte Consulting. While at Deloitte, and as part of the Information Management practice, he provided strategic technology advisory and implementation services to commercial, federal, and state government clients such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Time Warner, and Walmart. Prior to Deloitte, Anand was a product manager at IMS Health and Millennium Pharmaceuticals and was a senior consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Anand began his career at Infosys as a software engineer.

Anand Tati has a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the National Institute of Technology, India, and a master’s degree in technology management from Penn Engineering and the Wharton School.

John Jacobsen

As Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Jacobsen oversees the financial operations of the company. With 30 years of progressive financial experience he has developed best practices in operational processes. Mr. Jacobsen has spent most of his career assisting software and SAAS companies build structure and account for their operations. Mr. Jacobsen has been involved with multiple corporate transactions including company sales, mergers, acquisitions, and fund raising.

Mr. Jacobsen holds a BS in accounting and finance from Northeastern University and is a certified public accountant.

Mr. Jacobsen Is the proud husband to wife Wendy and father of Christopher, Matthew, Kyle, Cameron and Ashley.

Aruna Wickremeratne

Aruna currently serves as the Chief Administrative Officer & Head of Business Development at nirvanaHealth and is responsible for pharmacy rebate contracting, pharmacy network contracting, and internal financial metrics. Aruna engages with investors and stakeholders to ensure the nirvanaHealth’s strategy for business growth and value creation is well understood.  Aruna is responsible for devising, executing and leading nirvanaHealth’s capital raising activities.  Aruna provides thought leadership, market intelligence, counsel, recommendations and insight to the CEO, fellow senior management members and the board of directors.  Aruna works with internal product and business teams to identify channel partnership opportunities that align on growth priorities to meet the overall strategy of the company.

Aruna brings over two decades of experience in finance, accounting, HR, corporate development and operations. Prior to joining, Aruna worked at ikaSystems Corporation (ika) DBA Visiant Health for over 14 years. He contributed significantly to the growth and success of ikaSystems during his tenure there, initially serving as the CFO from inception through the acquisition of ikaSystems by Providence Equity. He later served as the VP of Operations and VP of Account Management for the company. Aruna was instrumental in creating a smooth transition during the integration of ikaSystems and Visiant using his vast knowledge of the business and his friendly team player approach to supporting staff and clients alike.

Aruna is a CPA and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and is an avid runner.

Prakash Tallabattula

Prakash Tallabattula, Chief Technology Officer, oversees all technology operations, research and development, both onshore and offshore. Tallabattula is an effective leader and hands-on technology strategist with over 15 years of documented achievements in start-up, turnaround, high-growth, and Fortune 500 corporate environments. He is a driving force behind innovative strategies, processes, and technology solutions delivered collaboratively through strong cross-functional relationships built across the organization.

Prior to joining, Tallabattula worked as a senior enterprise architect at Fannie Mae, where he was responsible for the organization’s technology roadmap. He was also a senior architect at Verizon, where he played a key technical role on Verizon Dialup/DSL/FIOS solutions. In addition, he headed technology teams and was a member of executive teams at Sylvan Learning, Hanleywood, and other companies. Tallabattula earned his bachelor of engineering degree in computer science from the University of Karnataka and has his MBA in international business from Walden University.

Mark W. Owen

Mark W. Owen is currently Chief Transformation Officer. Prior to joining Mr. Owen was President, Government Programs, for Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC).

Previously he served as vice president of the Federal and Individual Business Divisions for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan; and vice president and general manager of Medicare products and Commercial Individual products at Medica Health Plans in Minnetonka, Minn. He also held multiple executive positions with Humana in Louisville, KY.

He earlier served as vice president and general manager of Medica Health Plans in Minnetonka, Minn., where he oversaw two business segments – Medicare products and Commercial Individual products. From 1994-2000, he held multiple executive positions with Humana in Louisville, KY.

Prior to starting his career in health care, he spent 18 years in the transportation industry with Schneider National, a large truckload carrier based in Green Bay, WI.

Owen holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and business administration from St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minn., and a master’s degree in business from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

Bijendra (BP) Malik

Bijendra Malik, Executive Vice President and Chief Security Officer, is responsible for overall operational infrastructure management and security.

Malik has more than 25 years experience in the insurance, finance, manufacturing and telecommunications industries, including strategic positions with Government Works, Inc., ikaSystems, GE and LG Electronics. His versatile background and experience in creating strategies for disaster recovery and processes to improve and maintain high security and service levels provide nirvanaHealth with the solid foundation necessary for designing, improving and maintaining complex infrastructure and software applications.

Malik holds a BS degree in electrical engineering and numerous certifications including CISA (Certified Information System Auditor), PMP (Project Management Professional), ISO 27001 Lead Auditor, CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional), Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE), IBM’s Certified Lotus Professional (CLP), Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA), Checkpoint Certified Security Administrator (CCSA), Certified Novell Engineer (CNE) and Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA).

Heather Johnson

Heather Johnson, Chief Compliance Officer, is responsible for creating a vison of effective compliance and leading the implementation of a structure and process that ensures nirvanaHealth is compliant with all applicable federal and state rules/guidelines, as well as all regulations pertaining to Medicare, Medicaid, Affordable Care Act, and Commercial PBM business. She is accountable for driving the consistent application of nirvanaHealth’s Compliance Program, Code of Conduct, and compliance policies across the enterprise. She works collaboratively with all key stakeholder – clients, team members, customers, regulatory agencies, and other external entities such as accreditation organizations, delegated partners, etc. – to ensure responsive and effective compliance performance. Heather also facilitates and supports the organization for URAC accreditation, NCQA accreditation, SOC audits, and maintains all relevant licensures.

Prior to joining, Heather was VP of Business solutions at Beacon Health Solutions, responsible for overall client engagement including compliance, audits, and CMS deliverables. While at Beacon, Heather led her team to ensure all operational/compliance areas exceeded CMS service levels. Prior to her role at Beacon Health Solutions, as Director of Medicare at ikaSystems, Heather was responsible for overall compliance across all lines of business. In fact, throughout her 20-years professional healthcare career working for TPAs, health plans, and health technology companies, Heather has always been involved interpreting CMS guidance, communicating this interpretation to stakeholders, and automating such regulations by leveraging technology.

She holds a Bachelor of Science from Thomas Jefferson University.

Munaf Kapadia

Munaf Kapadia is the President of Managed Care Services at nirvanaHealth.

Munaf is a seasoned healthcare executive with over three decades of industry experience in defining Payer operations, plan benefits design, financial analysis, market research and strategic growth planning with demonstrated and successful exits. He brings a unique blend of experience from the Payer’s and the Provider’s perspectives in the healthcare delivery spectrum. Prior to joining, Munaf was a vice president of operations for Freedom Health & Optimum Healthcare.

Munaf earned his MBA from the University of South Florida, and his Bachelor of Science in Physical Therapy from the M. S. University, Baroda, India.

Dr. Robert London

Dr. Robert (Bob) London is the Chief Medical Officer of nirvanaHealth/RxAdvance.  His role is thought leadership for applying analytics and machine learning to improve health outcomes, and he leads all clinical activities for both companies.  He has been a President, Chief Operating Officer (COO), and Chief Medical Officer (CMO) in both private and public rapidly growing companies and has deep expertise in payer operations, pharmacy, managing MLR, biomedical research, healthcare technology, and medical informatics.

Dr. London is a national thought leader in leveraging technology to improve quality and reduce medical costs from the Payer perspective.  From 2014 thru 2021, he was the Chief Medical Officer for WellCare’s South Carolina Health Plans. He also worked 2020-2021 as Chief Medical Officer for the SC Centene book of business including all Medicare, Exchange and Medicaid membership.  In these roles his span of control included overseeing the medical services and quality results for WellCare Medicaid and Medicare plans in the state: including medical leadership for the effective care integration of pharmacy operations, utilization/case/disease management activities and quality improvement. He reported to WellCare’s state leader for South Carolina. In addition to his market role, Dr. London led a number of corporate projects involving informatics, artificial intelligence, Obstetrics/NICU and IT related RFP’s.

Prior to WellCare, London was the national medical director for Walgreens and led the clinical solutions group in the health and wellness business segment. Preceding to that, he served as the general manager of ikaSystems, a leader in enterprise software for the payer sector. He has also served as the chief development officer for D2Hawkeye, a provider of medical data reporting and analytics solutions, and chief clinical officer for TriZetto, a public health care information technology company. Earlier in his career, London led health care management for Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s (WellPoint) Western region. He has also served as corporate chief medical officer at CNA Insurance Company, chief operating officer for United Healthcare’s mid-Atlantic region, and chief medical officer at NYLCare Health Plans. Dr. London did his executive training while at Kaiser Permanente’s Mid-Atlantic Region and was the lead of Maternal-Child Care for the Mid-Atlantic Market.

London has served on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the University of Colorado MBA program, and the South Carolina School of Medicine. He holds degrees from George Washington University and University of Maryland School of Medicine, is board certified in obstetrics and gynecology, and is a fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Basem Shebli

Basem Shebli is the Chief Pharmacy Officer of nirvanaHealth/RxAdvance.  Basem has more than 20 years of experience in the managed care/PBM space serving Medicare, Medicaid and commercial populations.  His expertise is in building and managing high performing teams laser focused on delivering the highest quality output while utilizing the most efficient processes.  His previous work in the Medicare Part D includes achieving 5 Stars with CMS, countless program audits as well as medication therapy management, specialty utilization, PA operations and formulary strategy.  In addition to that, he has tremendous experience working cross functionally, especially with IT Technology teams, designing and building pharmacy management softwares.  Basem holds an MBA degree from Northeastern University and a Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) degree from Massachusetts College of Pharmacy in Boston, MA.  On a personal note, Basem enjoys the outdoors, camping and gardening when the weather permits.  He also has a passion for conducting unorthodox chemical experiments in the kitchen (aka fusion cooking).