Michelle Carlton

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Michelle Carlton is a seasoned business professional with over 30 years of experience. Her skill sets include strategic planning, financial management, accounting, and business development. This career journey, through many diverse business sectors, has equipped her with a unique blend of business acumen and leadership capabilities.

Over the past decade, Michelle has been a fractional CFO for companies in industries as varied as agriculture, marketing, technology, real estate, construction, manufacturing, and pharmacy. In these roles, she led initiatives including financial operations management, financial modeling, equity valuation, planning and analysis, international and domestic M&A, software implementations including international integrations, and financial reporting.

Prior to consulting, Michelle was CFO for a marketing firm, a franchise owner, and CFO for a wholesale and retail distributor. Her ability to significantly enhance and streamline financial processes, reduce closing cycles, and improve overall efficiency through strategic planning proved invaluable to these companies. Managing complex financial operations, developing effective business strategies, M&A rollups, and leading diverse teams has been a cornerstone of her career.

Complementing Michelle’s professional background is her academic achievement of earning an MBA with the University of Phoenix and B.S. degree in both Accounting and Managerial Finance from Florida Southern College. Additionally, she served as an Adjunct Faculty Instructor in Finance for undergraduate studies for the University of Phoenix.

Rhonda Willingham

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Rhonda Willingham is a Partner in TechCXO’s Revenue Growth Practice and is focused on serving Healthcare clients as an interim and fractional Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Revenue Officer, and Chief Growth Officer. She is an expert in designing and positioning effective population health sales and marketing product execution plans and go-to-market launches. During her 25-plus-year career in healthcare, Rhonda has partnered with healthcare providers and health plans to drive clinical and financial results while improving the health and lives of patients.

Her senior leadership roles led the identification, analysis, and implementation of strategic population health and value-driven solutions for health plans, employers, and providers. She has successfully executed enterprise growth strategies that drove profitable revenue. Rhonda led teams in the areas of business development, marketing, client management, product development, and operations.

During her distinguished career, her leadership roles have included:

Executive Vice President, Marketing and Product Development, Avalon Healthcare Solutions – This private equity-backed Lab Values Management company provides unique insights into the $82B+ lab testing industry to ensure patients are getting the appropriate lab tests while driving significant financial savings for health plans to over 33 million lives nationwide. As the head of marketing and product development, Rhonda led product innovation that leveraged the company’s lab science expertise to be the first company to digitize near-real-time lab results values and apply proprietary analytics to deliver actionable results to health plans and providers to ensure evidence-based treatment. The result assists health plans to proactively inform appropriate care, improve clinical outcomes and reduce healthcare costs through Lab Values Management. She also created and executed the new product go-to-market strategy, creating a pipeline of $50M+.

As a result of Rhonda’s rebranding and repositioning efforts, new sales close rate increased by over 50%, with predictable pipeline growth and decreased sales cycle.

Vice President, Business Development, New Century Health (NCH) —  This provider of oncology and cardiology specialty care managed over 5 million cancer and cardiac members with over 9,000 specialty providers. Rhonda developed strategic and financial risk partnerships with health plans to drive improved clinical results and financial savings for their oncology and cardiology members.  She expanded the pipeline by 200% by driving market presence, leveraging existing relationships, and developing compelling financial value propositions for regional and national health plans. NCH is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Evolent Health.

Vice President, Digital Health and Innovation, Medecision – Medecision is the largest independent provider of care management platforms and applications in the US, supporting over 50 million lives for nearly 100 of the nation’s leading health plans and care delivery organizations. As VP, Rhonda was responsible for driving the company’s digital health strategy and the development and execution of strategic partnerships to drive Triple-Aim measurable results for jumbo, at-risk healthcare clients by integrating a meaningful SaaS care management platform with value-driven workflow and analytic applications.

SVP, Sales & Marketing, VRI – For this private-equity-backed company providing personal emergency response, fall detection, and remote patient monitoring, Rhonda led sales, account, implementation, and marketing teams. She delivered recurring monthly revenue (RMR) growth and developed, defined, and launched “go-to-market strategies,” analysis, sales processes & lead generation in four distinct growth markets – population accounts (health plans), integrated channel partners, referral sources, and dealers.

In addition, Rhonda served as EVP for Alere Health (now Optum), a multi-billion-dollar health management company and analytics company, in which she consistently exceeded revenue targets. She was also SVP of Sales & Marketing for Gordian Health Solutions (now Onlife), and VP of Sales for CorSolutions Medical (now Optum). She began her career as an Emory University Hospital Registered Nurse, where she provided direct primary patient care and charge nurse responsibilities on a hematology-oncology and bone marrow transplant unit.

Rhonda earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Florida. She has been a member of the Women Business Leaders of the US Health Care Industry Foundation (WBL), Break into the Boardroom, Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), Health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO), and Care Continuum Alliance (CCA). Rhonda also served as a mentor for the Advanced Technology Development Center at Georgia Tech (ATDC).

Simplifying Healthcare Complexity to Accelerate Growth
Healthcare is complex—selling into it shouldn’t be. With 25+ years of leadership in healthcare services, SaaS, and revenue cycle management, I develop and execute intentional go-to-market (GTM) strategies that drive faster adoption, revenue expansion, and competitive differentiation.

I specialize in:
✔ GTM Execution – Translating complex solutions into clear, compelling, and buyer-friendly offerings
✔ Sales Acceleration – Removing friction to shorten sales cycles and speed time to value
✔ Market Positioning – Aligning messaging with customer needs for stronger engagement
✔ Revenue Cycle & Payment Strategy – Optimizing payer adoption and reimbursement pathways

I’ve led growth strategies for healthcare SaaS, digital health, value-based care, and diagnostic solutions, ensuring companies land the right customers, scale efficiently, and maximize revenue potential

Speaking Engagements & Publications

“Digitized Lab Results Accelerate the Success of Value-Based Care,” Today’s Clinical Lab. April 2022
“Asthma: Maximizing Technology to Address Compliance and Control,” Medicaid Health Plans of America, Weekly Webinars. May 2016
“The Best is Yet to Come: Ecosystem Members Share their Success Models,” Connect 2015, Qualcomm Life annual Connected Health Ecosystem Conference. August 2015
“Enabling Connected Health to Meet the Needs of Vulnerable Populations at the State Level,” Medicaid Health Plans of America, Washington, D.C. October 2013.
“Communicating Value: A Strategic Business Imperative,” Care Continuum Alliance, Phoenix, AZ. October 2013.
“Workplace Wellness and the Use of Financial Incentives,” American Cancer Society Corporate Impact Conference, Denver, CO.  June 2013.
“Next Generation Incentive Design: Are Outcomes the Measurement of the Future?”  Keynote, World Congress, Employee Health and Human Capital Strategy Congress, Orlando, FL.  February 2013.
“Guidance for a Reasonably Designed, Employer-Sponsored Wellness Program Using Outcomes-Based Incentives,” published in JOEM, July 2012.

Cristian G. Valbuena

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Cristian Valbuena is an experienced leader and finance professional. He has worked as a financial executive for numerous ventured backed technology startups & middle-market-sized companies across multiple industries. Positions include CFO, VP of Finance, Controller, and FP&A Analyst.

His areas of expertise include Strategic Planning, Business Development, Financial Modeling, KPI Dashboard Development, Cashflow Analysis, Business Credit, Process Development and Implementation, Controller Services, Financial Reporting, and Venture Capital.

Cristian holds a BBA in Accounting and an MS in Finance from Baruch College (Zicklin School of Business) and a CPA license. He has an entrepreneurial spirit, is passionate about business, and is fluent in Spanish.

Roby Poteau

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Roby Poteau is a data science generalist with experience in data engineering, analytics, machine learning, and deployment. He has worked in both academic and private organizations, with experience handling both open and confidential data. In addition, he’s worked with on-premise systems as well as cloud services like GCP and AWS.

He is proficient in consulting, architecting solutions, data visualization, SQL development, research, and presenting. He’s also well-acquainted with DevOps, software methodologies, version control, and programming, enabling him to interface with software teams comfortably.

Roby has a Ph.D. in Operations Research and a B.S. in Mathematical Sciences, with a concentration in computational mathematics. He is a co-author in several publications and has presented his work at multiple conferences.

Kari Tesenair

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Kari Tesenair is a highly skilled project and program management professional with over 20 years of experience in technical project management, IT security, organizational development, compliance, and governance. Beginning her career as a software developer, Kari has successfully built and led Project Management Offices (PMOs) and helped organizations optimize their project management teams, governance processes, and compliance frameworks to achieve operational excellence and security.

Throughout her career, Kari has demonstrated an exceptional ability to assess the impact of business processes while maintaining a strong focus on enhancing the end-user experience. As a trusted client advisor, she is known for building trusted relationships with stakeholders and effectively facilitating communication between business and information technology teams. Kari’s experience in IT security and compliance ensures that all projects align with the highest security standards and meet industry regulatory requirements. She has also successfully led organizations in developing the information security foundations required to obtain and maintain Information Security certifications.

Kari’s leadership experience spans senior roles, including Senior Director of Enterprise Project Management, Senior Director of Program Management, and Senior IT Project Manager, primarily within large healthcare institutions and nonprofit organizations.
Her expertise encompasses a broad range of areas, including project and program management, vendor management, requirements management, portfolio governance, organizational development, and IT security/compliance program development and maintenance. Additionally, she has experience in technical documentation, training, and process improvement.
Kari holds a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, a Bachelor of Science in Management of Information Systems from the University of Central Florida, and an MBA from Webster University.

Stephanie Rose Belcher

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Stephanie Rose-Belcher is a senior strategic and operations leader in the healthcare sector. She has more than 30 years of executive leadership experience, managing production operations, product development, market planning, customer relationships, administrative operations, compliance, and technology teams. As a TechCXO Executive Operations partner, she serves new, mid-stage and publicly traded SaaS and tech-enabled services healthcare companies. Read her blog.

Her transformational work for clients resides at the intersection of customer success, operations, and product development, where innovation leads to growth and operating success. Stephanie is known for identifying, defining, and executing transformative strategic initiatives that shape the future of a company. She works closely with the CEO, Executive Leadership Team and colleagues across the company, bringing depth and breadth of thought, excellent critical thinking skills, and a passion for leading change to the company’s most promising opportunities and challenging business problems. She ensures that value on key initiatives is ultimately delivered, but also architects the specific, innovative designs and plans employed across major operating units and functions of a company that enable their realization.

Her focus is to drive operational excellence to enhance and build corporate value through process design, automation, innovation, and data management. Her leadership approach is to motivate and inspire others to higher levels of performance, allowing them to learn and grow. Common client engagements include:

  • Healthcare & Data Transformation Innovation
  • Product Strategy & Execution
  • Organizational Effectiveness and Design
  • Optimizing Operations & Customer Support
  • Governance & Compliance
  • Customer Success & Growth

Her results-charged career spans major Health Insurers and Healthcare IT organizations, such as Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, Horizon BCBSNJ, Cigna Healthcare, LexisNexis, and Change Healthcare.  The following are among her key responsibilities and accomplishments:

Chief Executive Director, Argentum Business Strategies – Stephanie provided strategic advising and interim leadership for healthcare organizations, including development of strategic vision and dashboards for startups and post-Series A healthcare organizations. She also established roadmaps for new growth and operational scaling.

SVP, Client Services, Change Healthcare – Change Healthcare (NASDAQ: CHNG) ) is the largest independent Healthcare Technology company in the United States, with over $3.5 billion in annual revenues, serving Payer, Provider and Channel markets. Stephanie was responsible for client support, account management, and shared services across major product lines. Covering over $1B in annual revenue with retention/growth accountability.  She managed an annualized budget of $37-45M and staffing complement of 500+ across onshore and offshore operations.  Accomplishments included:

  • Delivered year-over-year operational efficiencies of $30M.
  • Achieved year-over-year improvements in service metrics, NPS, and CSAT scores.
  • Revamped Account Management models. Driving improved retention and new model for small clients, resulting in $10-20M per year in improved retention since 2016.
  • Key leader on integration planning with McKesson Technology Services and Pokitdok.
  • Developed entirely new protocols and teams for QA, Training, Vendor Management, Customer Experience, Program & Performance Management, Workflow Management, and Automation.

Market Planning Leader, LEXISNEXIS Risk Solutions, Healthcare Division – Stephanie served as Market Planning Leader for Provider and Member Data solutions, Healthcare segment, which is a growing, $75M business. She was responsible for P&L and General Manager activity for the Identity solution line.  She established and met new revenue goals of $10M + and retention revenue of $25M+.

Vice President Product Strategy & Compliance, Enclarity, Inc. – Stephanie was a P&L owner, spokesperson and Corporate Compliance Officer. She led end-to-end product and sales strategy, go-to-market plan and messaging. She also engaged the market as a knowledge expert with numerous publications, white papers, op-eds, webinars and speaking engagements and participation in various industry & governmental workgroups.

Vice President, Site Leader – GM, Cigna Health Care – Stephanie managed Cigna’s Southern Region Claim and Call Operations center, for large national clients. This operation covers 1.2 million members, over 1,000 team members, a $38 to $50M operating budget and 250,000 sq. ft. facility.

Vice President, Group Operations – Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina – Stephanie led claim, call, and enrollment and billing operations, exceeding performance guarantees and all performance metrics, including Member Touch Point Metrics (MTM) measures. She also oversaw up to 450 employees handling 900,000 members, with budgets of more than $30M.

Stephanie serves as a business mentor with the Entrepreneurial Center and Launch Nashville groups. She also advises several small businesses and volunteers with the Nashville Rescue Mission and Girl Scouts, USA. Stephanie will be starting her Doctor of Business Administration this fall. She earned her Master’s in Management Leadership from Western Governors University and an undergraduate degree in Business Administration from the University of Delaware.

Stephanie was recently named to George Washington University’s Customer Experience Advisory Council. Read more.

Adam Bryan

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Adam Bryan is an Operations and Finance Executive who is committed to taking small and mid-size businesses to their next growth phase. He has successfully led senior management teams in the USA, Australia, and Hong Kong and grown businesses in various market environments. He has spent his career working with major financial data information, software and publishing companies, and was responsible for taking on the most challenging global executive assignments.

Among his career accomplishments, Adam served as Managing Director and General Manager of The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation. He was President, CEO and Board Member for Omego, a $300M trade processing business, and COO of Broker/Fund Management Group for Thomson Financial. He also served as CFO for Thomson Financial, based in Sydney, Australia. Earlier in his career, he gained experience in auditing, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, management buy-outs and litigation support for Coopers and Lybrand/PWC.

Most recently, he served as an interim CEO/COO/CFO for Worth Group. He also serves as an advisor to USAM Group, a Financial Consulting Company and a Cybersecurity Software Business in Boston. Adam qualified as a a Retirement Management Analyst with RIIA and is an expert witness in financial markets matters.

In addition, his career is marked with creating new internal start-up businesses that created significant new income streams and enterprise value. He has been selected for the most difficult turnaround efforts. In all situations, Adam has been able to fully analyze the situation, make the corrective changes and created a business trajectory that led to sustainable and aggressive growth. His passion is to work with smaller businesses, and helping them become major players.

He received his Business Degree at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia and is an Australian Chartered Accountant.

Matt Oess

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Matt Oess leads TechCXO’s Executive Coaching Practice and also serves our Clients as a Strategy, Sales, and Marketing consultant or interim CRO.

*Strategy, Sales, and Marketing Consulting*
Matt has extensive experience in the adoption of practical AI technologies to help clients manage strategic and enterprise-level sales, marketing, demand-generation, and business-development initiatives in high technology markets. His client engagement and experience includes achieving cross-functional alignment between Sales and Marketing, sales process and methodology modernization, effective proposition development and positioning, and creation of global infrastructure to support customers.

Matt’s consulting practice specialty is establishing or modernizing Sales and Marketing methodologies and processes that help clients leverage:

1) be more relevant to customers,
2) create demand,
3) more effectively create and manage pipelines,
4) better onboard new and up-skill existing sales team members, and
5) fix issues with forecasting and revenue governance.

Among Matt’s client work and support as an interim executive are the following:

GE Digital, GE Transportation, GE Oil and Gas, GE Power – Outcome Selling Sales Methodology
Co-design, develop and deploy global “Outcome Selling” account and opportunity planning and coaching methodologies. Enabling GE’s Digital and IoT strategies and to transform the selling culture and competence to be more relevant to customers at a strategic level.

ZVerse, Inc – Consulting Interim Chief Sales Officer
Client enjoying 200% top-line growth (more)