Presenters

Dr. Ott was named Dean of the new BYU School of Medicine on October 10, 2024, as he was finishing his career as an educator, leader and surgical oncologist with Intermountain Health.  Dean Ott has held academic and affiliate appointments at Johns Hopkins, Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine and the University of Utah School of Medicine.

He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the department of surgery’s faculty teacher of the year award at the University of Utah and the Intermountain Health Lifetime Achievement Award for extraordinary service to medicine.

Dean Ott holds a bachelor’s degree and a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Utah. He served his medical internship and residency in general surgery at Johns Hopkins, where he was also a research and clinical fellow specializing in surgical oncology.

Dr. Laura C. Bridgewater is the Dean of BYU’s College of Life Sciences, which launches hundreds of students into healthcare graduate programs each year.  Her faculty home is in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology, where she has taught molecular biology to thousands of students over the years and mentored nearly 200 students in her research lab. Her research has focused on the regulation of cartilage gene expression, and also on the effects of stress on the gut microbiota and the way the gut microbiota contributes to metabolic health disorders.  Dr. Bridgewater served as a department chair, associate dean, and associate academic vice president prior to becoming dean in 2022

Dr. Bridgewater received her bachelor’s degree in microbiology from BYU and her Ph.D. in genetics from the George Washington University.  She did a postdoc at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and has been on the faculty at BYU since 1999.  

She and her husband Tim have four children, all grown, and they have five grandchildren with two more on the way.  In her spare time she loves to be outside, especially in the mountains.  Hiking, walking, cycling, and even doing yard work.  She also loves reading and is always looking for a new good book.

Lee Angus is the president of MEDI Leadership, an executive coaching firm which focuses solely on leadership development in the healthcare industry. Lee has nearly twenty-five years of consulting and coaching experience, with sixteen of those years being work with Healthcare Administrative and Physician Executives. In his career, Lee has served clients in multiple industries in Asia, Europe, South America and the United States.
Lee subscribes to an “inside-out” approach to leadership development. This approach begins with a focus on increasing the leader’s personal awareness – understanding the leader’s strengths and opportunities for growth. As the collaboration progresses, the focus moves outward to the team and to the entire organization – optimizing team leadership, team performance and organizational culture and results. Thus the focus shifts from the leader to the team to the organization with a focus on specific results on the “inside out” continuum. Creating relationships based on trust, Lee establishes an ongoing collaboration between coach and client – maximizing learning and development.
During his career, Lee has consulted worldwide with executives and organizations that are leaders in their industries. The list of clients with whom he has worked includes Ascension Health, Catholic Health Initiatives, AMITA Health, Orlando Health, Mission Health System, St. Vincent Health System, The Queen’s Health System, Hawaii Medical Service Association, and UMass Memorial HealthCare. He has also worked for non-healthcare companies such as NASDAQ, Janus Capital Management, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte & Touche, and Mastercard Worldwide.
In addition to his professional responsibilities, Lee and his family enjoy the backcountry of Colorado through fishing, backpacking, camping and skiing.
Lee received his Bachelors of Science Degree in Accounting and a Masters of Accounting Degree in Information Systems, both from Brigham Young University. He is also a Certified Public Accountant.

Dr. Scott Ellner practiced as a general surgeon for 20 years before transitioning into healthcare executive roles due to his passion for patient safety, quality, and value-based care delivery. Currently, he serves as the President of INTEGRIS Health Medical Group, the largest employed physician group in Oklahoma, which comprises over 1,000 physicians. Previously, he was the CEO of Billings Clinic, the largest health system in Montana, and he has led large physician groups and clinically integrated networks in major health systems, including Advent Health and Common Spirit Health.

In addition to his executive roles, Dr. Ellner is an author and a TEDx speaker. His upcoming book, Wipe Out, Rise Up: A Surf Session in Being a Leader, Pushing Past Limits, and Sustaining Health, is set to be released on Amazon on November 18, 2025. He holds a Master’s Degree in Healthcare Management from the Harvard School of Public Health, a Healthcare Law Degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Law, and he completed his General Surgery Residency at the University of California, San Diego.

As one of the original four KLAS founders, Adam thrives on creating transparency in the healthcare world. He has worked with hundreds of healthcare provider professionals, listening to the successes and challenges along their journey and shining a light on opportunities to improve. He also consults with executives from hundreds of healthcare technology vendors and services firms, ranging from emerging technology solutions to market giants. Adam’s research focus has been on core clinical and financial systems and everything in between (patient engagement, population health, ERP and much more).

Adam is a HIMSS Fellow with twenty-five years of healthcare experience and has spoken on the reality of vendor performance at conferences around the country, including HIMSS, vendor user conferences, CHIME and his own backyard. He is a graduate of Brigham Young University in business information systems. Adam resides in Orem, Utah with his wife, Jenn, and their six children.

David Harding has served as our SVP, Pipeline Product Management since 2024, and previously served as Senior Vice President, Multi-Cancer Early Detection since 2021, as Senior Vice President, Integrations, Market Access, and Strategy, Outcomes and Population Health since October 2020; and as Senior Vice President, Strategy and Business Development since 2017. Prior to joining Exact Sciences, he served as Chief Commercial Officer at T2 Biosystems, Chief Commercial Officer at OvaScience, Senior Vice President of Women’s Health at Hologic, Inc., and Partner at McKinsey & Company. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California and a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Harding serves on boards of the Wellesley Free Library and Rising Star Outreach.

Christina Mainero holds an MPH in Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases from the Yale School of Public Health and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. During her career, she has worked with Illumination Foundation, a non-profit working to break the cycle of homelessness; Deloitte Consulting; the Yale Emerging Infections Program; CAMA, a boutique health design firm; Kaiser Permanente; and Blue Shield of California.
At Blue Shield, Christina is the Senior Manager, Pharmacy Strategic Initiatives and Communications for the Pharmacy Care Reimagined Program. Prior to joining Blue Shield, she co-led the Care Transformation program for Kaiser Permanente in Northern California and was on the faculty of KP’s Advanced Human-Centered Design Program. Christina is a mentor for Yale’s Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale (TSAI CITY), where she has coached multiple teams in the healthcare and social enterprise space. She currently serves on the following boards: Elevate Theatre Company, the Alumni of the Yale School of Public Health, and the Yale Club of Orange County.

Dr. Heather Thiesset is an Assistant Professor of Healthcare Administration and Program Coordinator within the Department of Health Sciences at Utah Valley University.

Dr. Thiesset received her undergraduate and master's degree from Brigham Young University in Public Health and her PhD in Public Health from the University of Utah.

She spent twelve years of her career within the Department of Surgery at the University of Utah conducting health services research and clinical trials as the Associate Director of Research and Science. She further led the Division of Transplantation and Hepatobiliary Surgery for seven years as the division manager.

Dr. Thiesset's research focus is on pain management and the opioid epidemic as well as in healthcare cost, quality, and access.

She also serves as the Education Chair for the American College of Healthcare Executives Utah Chapter and loves students and giving back to the healthcare industry. 

She is married and the mom of three beautiful children and loves to travel and bake sourdough bread. 

Dr. David A. Wood is passionate about understanding new technologies and implementing them into the curriculum of Brigham Young University, where he works as the Glenn D. Ardis professor of accounting. He has published over 200 articles in a combination of respected academic and practitioner journals, monographs, books, and cases, including a recently released book on AI titled, “Rewiring your Mind for AI: How to Think, Work, and Thrive in the Age of Intelligence”. He has helped companies and organizations around the world learn about and implement GenAI and other tech topics. In 2023, he was named by Accounting Today one of the 100 most influential people in accounting. He is a cocreator of a free generative AI governance framework (see http://genai.global/), and of two companies related to GenAI training and reviewing Excel workpapers (http://skillabyte.com/ and https://hiddenhawkai.com/).

Clay Ashdown is chief financial officer of Intermountain Health, where he is responsible for all finance-related functions for the enterprise. This includes finance operations, financial planning and analysis, financial reporting and accounting, internal audit, debt and credit management, rating agency and investor relations, investment and treasury functions, payer contracting, revenue cycle, risk management, construction, real estate, and Intermountain Ventures (Intermountain’s for-profit Venture arm).

Prior to his current role, Clay served as Senior Vice President, Finance Operations. Clay joined Intermountain Health in 2000 after working at the public accounting firm KPMG, where he started his career as an auditor.

Clay earned an undergraduate degree in accounting and an MBA from the University of Utah.

Matthew E. Cox, MBA, CPA, is chief financial officer for Corewell Health™. As chief financial officer, Matt leads the system finance team with a focus on making care and coverage more affordable, while ensuring the financial integrity of the system and its divisions. He is passionate about achieving affordable, equitable care and coverage while focusing on quality and making health accessible for each person, regardless of their income or socioeconomic status. 

Matt champions internal efforts to reduce the total cost of care, improve the patient and health plan member experience, enhance sustainability and optimize processes. To date, these efforts have included streamlining complex processes, leveraging technology to provide more cost-efficient and effective services, increasing transparency and reducing waste. While chief financial officer of the former Spectrum Health, Matt was instrumental in establishing industry-leading best practices such as shoppable services and simplified billing.

Background
Before joining Corewell Health in 2017, Matt served in a variety of leadership roles at Banner Health, Dignity Health, Central Maine Health Care and Catholic Health Initiatives Health System. Matt began his professional career with Deloitte.

Education
Matt holds a Bachelor of Arts in accounting and Master of Business Administration from Westminster College in Salt Lake City.

Affiliations and Awards
Matt is an officer for the national board of directors and active participant in the Healthcare Financial Management Association. He also currently serves as chair for the HFMA Large System CFO Council and is a member on various community and joint venture boards.  Matt is well known in the industry and has received numerous recognitions including “Top CFO to Know” from Beckers Healthcare.

Dr. Landon Trost is a Urologist specializing in vasectomy reversals, Peyronie’s Disease, and male infertility.  He is the current Director of the Male Fertility and Peyronie’s Clinic, Laboratory and Procedural Services, and the President of the charity, CURE PD.  He received his undergraduate training at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and Valedictorian.  He underwent his medical training at Tulane University in New Orleans, LA where he received all honors and was awarded Junior AOA status.  He completed residency training in urology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN and was named as a Mayo Scholar Recipient.  He continued specialty fellowship training in andrology and infertility at Tulane University, University of Florida, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.  He then served as the Chief of Andrology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.  He has published over 150 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters and has conducted six, randomized, clinical trials in the area of sexual medicine.  Dr. Trost is currently serving on the examination committee for the Board of Urology, as the Editor in Chief for the Journal of Sexual Medicine and has served on three AUA guideline panels, including Testosterone Deficiency, Peyronie’s Disease, and Priapism.  He currently serves as the President Elect for the Sexual Medicine Society of North America and Chair of the Definitions Committee for the International Consultation on Sexual Medicine.  Other notable achievements include being the recipient of the SMSNA Young Investigator Award of Excellence, inventor of several medical devices and products, and two-time Teacher of the Year at Mayo Clinic.   

Michael joined INTEGRIS Health the end of November 2018 as VP Financial Operations. He moved to the 
SVP Chief Financial Officer in January 2023. Prior to joining INTEGRIS Health, he was with Intermountain 
Healthcare for over 22 years where he was the Finance lead for one of Intermountain’s largest hospitals 
and later as Chief Financial Officer for Intermountain Medical Group, a 1500 physician, 185 clinic multispecialty group practice. Michael was also instrumental in stabilizing operations when Intermountain 
moved it revenue cycle functions to R1, a national leader in revenue cycle management. 
Michael earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the University of Utah and an MBA from the 
University of Phoenix