OUR MISSION
Close the gap between health and finance for all Americans
At Lynx, we recognize that a person's health and finances are directly linked, and as socioeconomic status declines or improves, health status follows. We're on a mission to close the gap between health and finance to help consumers better afford, engage with, and pay for healthcare.
OUR FOUNDERS
Matt is an experienced leader in healthcare, payments, and financial services. He founded Lynx after spending the last six years as an executive at Optum.
Most recently, he was responsible for helping build the new direct-to-consumer division at Optum and creating the Optum Store. Prior to that, he served as the Head of Optum Pay, and Chief Product & Strategy Officer for Optum Financial Services, the nation’s largest HSA administrator, where he led Product Management, Marketing, Program Management and Client Implementation. His leadership helped grow Optum Financial from ~$300M to over $1Billion in revenue over 4.5 years, making it one of the most profitable divisions in OptumHealth. Before UnitedHealth Group, Matt spent four years at Fidelity Investments in a variety of roles across Fidelity Institutional, including, Operations, Relationship Management and Product Strategy.
Matt graduated from Northeastern University and lives in Wellesley, MA with his wife, Tiffany, and two children, Cameron and Maddy. He’s a passionate Boston sports fan, but remains loyal to his favorite athletes, Tom Brady and Steph Curry.

Matt Renfro
Co-founder & CEO
Ken is a technology leader with nearly two decades of fintech experience within custodial, investment, and industrial banking. Ken was most recently at Optum where he led technology strategy and execution serving as Chief Information Officer for Optum Bank from 2017 to 2021. Ken has led engineering, solution architecture, product technology, IT program management, vendor management, and risk management for large matrixed organizations at the highly regulated nexus of banking and healthcare. Ken brings leading fintech experience from his prior executive roles at Fidelity Investments, State Street Corporation, and Thomson Reuters.
Ken holds Master of Science and Master of Business Administration degrees from Northeastern University with undergraduate degrees from University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Ken now lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and two daughters. He is a tech gadget enthusiast, including virtual reality technology. He is an avid fan of science fiction and sporting events.

Ken Abel
Co-founder & CIO
OUR TEAM
Joe Firnstahl brings a career of experience focused on the intersection of healthcare and finance. He joins from UnitedHealth Group, where he led Product for the financial health accounts business.
During his career, Joe has led the development, launch, and management of innovative consumer payment solutions aimed at helping to address client and member needs in Commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid markets. Joe oversaw the healthcare industry’s largest HSA business, and led expansion through distribution partnerships in the retirement industry. Using a consumer-first approach to product development, he has launched leading consumer applications in banking, finance, and e-commerce.
Joe earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota where he studied communications and political science. Outside of work, he enjoys cooking, golf, and outdoor activities with his wife and dogs.

Joe Firnstahl
Head of Product
Stephanie has dedicated her career to improving healthcare for everyone. For almost two decades, she has worked at the intersection of business strategy and operations in many sectors of the industry, including providers, payers, benefit administrators, and medical device companies.
Before joining Lynx, Stephanie served as Vice President, Strategy and Product Management at Alight Solutions where she was responsible for bringing to life integrated health and wealth solutions. Stephanie also spent eight years at UnitedHealth Group, both at UnitedHealthcare and Optum. Her most recent role was Vice President, Strategy and Chief of Staff for Optum Care, one of the largest U.S. value-based provider organizations, where she was responsible for enterprise business planning, strategic business initiatives focused on risk-based care models, and clinical governance and strategy. Stephanie also spent time at Prospero, a home-based care provider and Abbott, a pharma and medical device company.
Stephanie holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard University and a Bachelor in Science in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University. She currently resides in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida with her family, including her two dogs. She enjoys running, road-trips, paddle-boarding in the ocean, and reading mysteries in her spare time.

Stephanie Bartz
Head of Strategy
Most recently, Doug was the Chief Architect and Innovation Officer for Abacus Insights, which delivered an innovative cloud-based data interoperability, data management, and analytics platform for health plans. Doug also operated as the Chief Technical Advisor for Pulse Infoframe, which delivered a global registry platform for oncology, rare, and chronic diseases.
Previously, Doug had been the CTO for Cure Forward, which combined B2C marketing for cancer patients with B2B clinical trial curation and matching patients to trials. Before Cure Forward, Doug was the CTO for ikaSystems, a leading core admin platform for health plans, and led their transformation to cloud.
Doug has scaled companies, provided portfolio company consulting to venture capitalist companies, holds several patents, and had previously founded and sold a SaaS Fintech platform that partnered with Standard and Poor's (S&P) and delivered financial planning for advisors and their consumers.

Doug Bachelor
Chief Architect
As CTO, Vinayak is responsible for our product’s technology platform and for driving the technology strategy. Prior to joining Lynx, Vinayak held various leadership positions in technology at Ameriprise Financial, State Street Bank, BlackRock and Fidelity Investments where he was responsible for the development and management of various technology platforms for FX sales and trading, derivatives accounting, investment compliance and regulatory reporting.
Vinayak holds a Bachelor's degree in EE from Bangalore University and a Master's degree in Computer Science from Boston University.

Vinayak Kumar
Chief Technology Officer
Patty Chouanard-McAdam brings to Lynx more than 25 years in the financial services industry where she has experience designing and developing innovative products and digital solutions, informing business strategies with data insights, providing industry leading customer service, and increasing sales results through compelling marketing and sales programs.
Most recently, Patty served as Head of Product at Wells Fargo Merchant Services where she led the product and pricing teams focused on simplifying the product and pricing experience for the customer. Prior to this, she led the product, marketing, and data analytics teams for the Health Savings account business line, achieving best-in-class product capabilities and engagement metrics in the industry, resulting in the successful divestiture of the HSA portfolio to Optum Financial in 2016. She has also led seven dedicated service sites across the nation who provided Wells Fargo’s Treasury Management clients with a primary point of contact for their treasury banking needs. In this role, she also developed and implemented the new go-forward service model for the combined organization during the Wells Fargo/Wachovia merger. Additionally, Patty has held senior product strategy and project management roles where she was responsible for a variety of electronic payables, receivables, and reporting solutions at Wells Fargo and Bank of America.
Patty earned a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration/Finance from the California State University East Bay. Patty lives in Minneapolis with her husband and large family. Outside of work, she enjoys outdoor activities, spending time on the lake, and remodeling projects.

Patty Chouanard-McAdam
VP, Operations
Sherry joins Lynx as Head of Growth with over 20 years of experience in healthcare financial services, and as a subject matter expert in Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), FSAs, HRAs, DCAs and Commuter accounts. Throughout her career, Sherry has worked at GE, Fiserv, Fidelity National Information Systems, Alegeus, and Fidelity, building client and consumer growth strategies, collaborating with financial institutions to expand HSA business, and driving digital transformation in the ever-changing landscape of health and finance.
Sherry’s philosophy “to ditch the pitch,” especially the elevator pitch, and treat all buyers based on their unique needs and goals has been reliably successful throughout her career. Sherry’s notable accomplishments include signing the largest health plan and Blue Healthcare Bank with their HSA solution, signing the 2nd largest health plan their benefit account solution for all 14 individual local markets & national accounts as well as rewards and Medicaid solutions, and signing prominent financial institutions to replace their core platforms with an HSA specialized technology platform. Additionally, while at Fiserv in 2003, the executive leadership team entrusted Sherry to lead the first HSA initiative, and ultimately buildout the company’s first-ever HSA product.
Sherry graduated from Doane University with a BA and MAM, and currently lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. She enjoys all things fitness, including running, cycling and golf, and is an avid animal rescue advocate.
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Sherry Lawton
Head of Growth
Jack Allard joined Lynx from Optum Ventures, where he served as the Chief of Staff and Director of Business Development for Larry Renfro. In this role he was responsible for a number of strategic initiatives, special projects, and firm capabilities as it grew from 10 portfolio companies to nearly 40.
Prior to Optum Ventures he was the Chief of Staff for the Chief Sales Officer at athenahealth where he was responsible for strategic initiatives and projects for a 400-person sales team at a $1.4B revenue company. During his time there he led and implemented projects such as compensation plan design, post-M&A organizational structure, territory planning, forecasting, enterprise deal strategy, and more. Prior to athenahealth he worked in the Market Intelligence Group within McKesson Health Solutions.
He grew up in the Boston area, attended Middlebury College, and now lives in Boston where he enjoys cooking, traveling, and a variety of activities including pickleball, golf, and Peloton.

Jack Allard
VP, Business Operations
Bill Chave joined Lynx from Fidelity Investments and leads our Client Success Team. In addition to more than 20 years with Fidelity, Bill also worked at AccuRecord, Inc. and State Street Bank.
Bill brings expert relationship management skills with a proven ability to build, grow and maintain client relationships. During his tenure at Fidelity, Bill worked in the 401(k) Group managing a team responsible for servicing the retirement needs of several Fortune 500 companies, as well as in the Data Consulting Group as a Principal helping clients identify issues, streamline processes, and increase efficiencies. Most recently, Bill was responsible for leading a client service team that provided financial services to tier 1 broker dealers, asset managers, hedge funds and custodians located in the United States and internationally.
Bill graduated from the College of the Holy Cross. He lives in Milton, MA with his wife and 4 children. When he is not focusing on clients, he enjoys traveling with his family, beaching in the Rockaways, watching rugby and cheering on the IRFU.

Bill Chave
VP, Client Success
Tali Goldstein is the Head of Business Development and Partnerships at Lynx. Before coming to Lynx, Tali was a Product Director at Optum, where she launched and managed Optum’s direct-to-consumer mental health offering. Tali is also an experienced healthcare consultant and corporate strategist. Tali brings her deep healthcare industry experience and creative problem solving to her work at Lynx.
Tali holds a Master of Business Administration from Yale University and a Bachelor of Arts in public health from the University of Pennsylvania. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, puzzling, reading and traveling.

Tali Goldstein
Head of Business Development and Partnerships
Taylor is a graduate of The University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he began his career as a Management Development Associate for Marriott Resorts International. In his free time, Taylor enjoys spending time with his family, playing golf and making music.

Taylor McMurtrie
VP, Sales
Alyssa joins Lynx and the marketing team with a background in both consumer and enterprise marketing focused on helping people improve their health through technology. Very familiar with the startup environment, Alyssa's experience includes four years at Wellframe, a technology healthcare startup, where she worked directly with health plans to design effective member marketing programs. Most recently, she launched the company's account-based marketing strategy.
Alyssa grew up in New Jersey, graduated from Middlebury College, and now lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Alyssa DiMaio
Director of Marketing
Ryan joined Lynx as a Product Manager. Before joining Lynx, Ryan worked at MFS Investment Management as a Financial Analyst in the Fund Treasury group where he gained over five years of financial service experience. During his time at MFS he was responsible for overseeing several processing groups within the Service Center and most recently within the financial reporting group.
Ryan received his Bachelor of Science degree, with a Finance major, from Bryant University. When not working, Ryan enjoys golfing, going to the beach, and exercising.

Ryan Leary
Product Manager
Olufemi received his Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Maryland and currently resides in Maryland with his family.

Olufemi Ashafa
VP, Front-End Web Development
Ravi serves as VP of Platform Development at Lynx. He is responsible for implementing a secure and scalable Lynx solution platform on Cloud Computing environments. Previously, he has built systems for FX Algorithmic Trading and Straight Through processing at State Street. He has extensive research, development and business implementation experience with industrial Product Lifecycle Management solutions.
Ravi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Osmania University, Hyderabad.

Ravi Pendkar
VP, Platform Development
Kay is a Technical Product Manager at Lynx with over three decades of experience in financial services industries and a diverse background in programming, database administration, business analysis, training, and product management. Prior to joining Lynx, Kay served as a Product Manager and Technical Product Owner at TSYS for 20 years where she was responsible for the design, development, and launch of a healthcare card administration and customer service online portal for consumer-directed healthcare benefit types.
Kay also helped launch an online payment management, account management, and self-service solution for commercial cardholders and financial institutions, businesses and governments in more than 80 countries.
Kay received her Bachelor of Science degree, with a major in Computer Information Systems, from Fontbonne University, and currently resides in the north Georgia mountains with her husband. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, cooking, riding her motorcycle, and spoiling her two schnoodles.

Kay Kaffenberger
Technical Product Manager
Surinder is the Senior Director, Quality Assurance at Lynx and has over 20 years of experience building and leading high-performing agile teams for consumer and business facing high traffic, high visibility applications in diverse domains including healthcare, finance, insurance and commercial IoT. He has experience in designing and developing test frameworks, tools and processes driving the software quality.
Recently, Surinder built the quality and test automation processes at SmartSense by Digi working on a commercial IoT platform. Before SmartSense, Surinder was part of the initial startup team at TrellisRx where they built a care management platform for specialty pharmacy patients. Previously, Surinder worked at Cure Forward on a clinical trial curation platform for patients and trial administrators. Before Cure Forward, Surinder worked on a secure multi-payer platform at NantHealth working with various engineering teams on software quality initiatives.
Surinder holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Punjab Technical University, India. Surinder lives in Hopkinton, MA with his wife and two kids. They enjoy spending time with family, hiking and traveling.

Surinder Dhall
Senior Director, Quality Assurance
Shaylee joins Lynx as a Scrum Master after spending 15 years at Optum building her career in healthcare, payments and financial services. Most recently at Optum she served as a Scrum Master, and before that held various positions, including, Business Analyst, Account Coordinator, and Operation Specialist.
Shaylee lives in Kamas, UT with her husband, Jeff and their two kids, Carter and Aspen. They love being outdoors, and Shaylee participates in running races throughout the year, and has recently started to compete in triathlons.

Shaylee McReynolds
Scrum Master
Kathryn joined Lynx as a Content Marketing Associate with a background in strategy consulting and B2B payments. Prior to coming to Lynx, Kathryn was a Consultant in the Financial Services & Payments practice at the management consulting firm, Kaiser Associates, where she delivered engagements for Fortune 100 financial services and telecommunications clients. Kathryn also has experience in healthcare, biotech and investment strategy.
She is a graduate of Gettysburg College and currently lives in Boston, where she enjoys baking, skiing, and reading crime novels.

Kathryn Cushman
Content Marketing Associate
Bryan joins Lynx as Manager of Product Design. Before joining Lynx, Bryan worked in the insurance industry in similar product roles as part of teams that were bringing cutting-edge, new Insurtech solutions to independent agencies.
Bryan lives in Holly Springs, NC with his wife and their two kids. In his free time, Bryan enjoys spending time with his family, playing games, and learning new hobbies.

Bryan Gleason
Manager, Product Design
OUR ADVISORS
Edmund Murphy is the President & CEO of Empower, a leading provider of financial services for consumers that include retirement, wealth management, advice and asset management, and one of Lynx’s trusted advisors.
Before his appointment as CEO of Empower, Mr. Murphy served as Managing Director at Putnam Investments and was a member of the firm’s operating committee. Prior to Putnam, he held executive leadership roles at Fidelity Investments, in its institutional, private equity and retail businesses. During his time at Fidelity, he served as CEO of Veritude, LLC and as a board member of several Fidelity-owned companies. He spent the early portion of his career at Merrill Lynch. Mr. Murphy serves as a board member of the Employee Benefit Research Institute, Boston College Wall Street Council, the New England Council, Colorado Inclusive Economy and a member of The Wall Street Journal CEO Council. He is active in supporting numerous not-for-profit and charitable causes, including The Ireland Funds, Boston Healthcare for the Homeless, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Cristo Rey High School in Boston, where he serves on the board. He previously served as a member of the board of trustees of Emmanuel College in Boston.

Edmund F. Murphy III
President & CEO Empower
Karen Webster is one of the world’s leading experts on platform innovation and emerging payments and a strategic advisor to CEOs and Boards of global players in the payments and commerce space. As the Founder of Market Platform Dynamics, she works extensively with the most innovative players in the payments, financial services, mobile, B2B, digital media and technology sectors to identify, ignite and monetize innovation. Karen also serves on the boards of a number of emerging companies, helping innovators develop and implement business strategies that drive market adoption for their products and services.
Karen is also an entrepreneur herself, who has successfully founded and launched several new ventures in the loyalty, digital media, and contextual commerce sectors, including PYMNTS.com – the largest global B2B media platform covering payments, commerce retail and financial services innovation.

Karen Webster
CEO, PYMNTS.com
CEO, Market Platform Dynamics
Lars Albright is a Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in consumer software, fintech and vertical SaaS. He loves to work with founders who have the unique blend of passion and persistence, coupled with humility and a desire to learn. Lars is a repeat entrepreneur and has spent his career building successful high growth companies as a founder, executive and investor. The last two venture-backed businesses Lars co-founded were acquired by Apple and Mastercard, respectively. Lars looks for entrepreneurs that confront challenges head on, take action and embrace the accountability that comes with starting a business and managing a team.
Prior to Unusual, Lars was global Executive Vice President, leading Merchant Loyalty & Engagement at Mastercard. Lars joined Mastercard via the acquisition of SessionM, where he was the CEO and Co-Founder. Prior to co-founding SessionM, Lars worked at Apple, Inc., where he was a member of the executive team at iAd, Apple’s mobile advertising business unit. Before Apple, Lars was a Co-Founder and Senior Vice President of Business Development at Quattro Wireless, a leading mobile advertising platform that was acquired by Apple. Lars started his career in investment banking and finance on the West Coast. Lars received an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and his AB with honors from Harvard University. Lars loves a great margarita (rocks, salt and not too sweet), Vermont IPAs, all things Boston sports teams, any sport with his kids and spending time in Maine and Alaska. He lives just outside of Boston with his wife and two children.

Lars Albright
Partner, Unusual Ventures
Matt Marek is a growth-oriented healthcare executive with over 20 years of experience leading every segment of healthcare from Medicaid to commercial markets. Matt currently serves as President and CEO, Seniorlink. Prior to Seniorlink, Matt served as President and CEO, Further, where he led the company from a small division inside of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota to one of largest stand-alone consumer directed administrators in the country that was acquired by Health Equity.
Matt also served as Chief Marketing Officer, and Chief Sales Officer at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota where he was a 2011 recipient of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal’s 40 Under Forty Award.
In addition to his executive experience, Matt regularly serves as an advisor to healthcare start-ups and he sits on the boards of Consortium Health Plans, Open Y, and YMCA of the North. Matt holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and finance from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.

Matt Marek
President & CEO, Seniorlink
Frannie McGowan is a strategy-development healthcare professional with over 20 years of industry experience and currently serves as the CEO and Founder of Consumer Health Strategies. She has held a variety of executive positions, including CEO of Scriptcycle (a Health IT company) and Senior Vice President of Business Development & Strategy at Kroger Health. Frannie holds a bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy and a PharmD from the University of Cincinnati’s James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy.
