Richard J. Morello, Managing Director
Rick founded Elevance to collaborate with great people on the opportunities and challenges of growth. Rick has spent 25 years as both an operating leader of innovative healthcare technology companies and a management consultant for Fortune 500 firms, while also founding and driving significant growth of nonprofit ventures in oncology, big data and education.

Most recently, Rick served as the President of Global Life Sciences of Aptus Health, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Merck, Inc. acquired by WebMD in October 2019. In this role, Rick managed the P&L and commercial operations of a global digital health company that offered a variety of multichannel solutions to connect life sciences companies with healthcare professionals and patients. He helped define the overall portfolio strategy of the company and was responsible for sales, account management, commercial product management and marketing, client delivery and other functions. Rick helped lead the acquisition of EngagedMedia, a high-growth, mobile-first, patient engagement platform and drove rapid client growth in the first year. Under Rick’s leadership, Aptus programs received multiple innovation awards as selected by industry customers and publications.

Prior to Aptus, Rick served as the President and CEO of Plasma Surgical, a leading-edge medical device company with 200 hospital customers worldwide. Rick led the company’s first commercialization plan and with a team of industry veterans to grow the adoption of Plasma’s advanced energy technology by nearly four times in three years. Prior to Plasma Surgical, Rick served in a senior marketing role for an innovative clinical decision support company in the oncology space called Proventys, where he was responsible for securing a key strategic partnership and positioning a new product offering uniquely in the market. Proventys’ product platform was acquired by McKesson and integrated into their large-scale oncology franchise. Before Proventys, Rick ran the Strategic Initiatives Division at Joslin Diabetes Center a Harvard Medical Affiliate. Rick managed three healthcare services and technology businesses that generated significant revenue and margin for the Center.

Prior to these roles, Rick was a Partner on the Health & Life Sciences team at Mercer Management Consulting (now part of Oliver Wyman), where he led several large strategy engagements for Fortune 500 clients. Rick originally joined Mercer as an analyst in the 1990s and moved his way up the ranks after extensive work on growth projects with companies in multiple industries.

Rick has also founded and been a part of the early stages of three high-growth nonprofit organizations. Rick is passionate about social entrepreneurship and advancing innovative concepts to serve the community at large. He subscribes to a pay it forward philosophy and applying business knowledge and experience to make demonstrable impact on social challenges. In 2003, Rick formally founded and launched Family Reach Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing financial relief and support to families fighting cancer. By creating a unique approach to partnering with hospital social workers around the country, Family Reach became one of the only national organizations of its kind to address the financial toxicity of cancer. Family Reach has helped thousands of cancer patients and their families pay for a variety of everyday expenses that mount during the treatment period and reduce potential barriers to care. Rick now serves as the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors as the organization continues to achieve double-digit annual growth and support families in all 50 states. In 2016, Family Reach was recognized by the White House’s Cancer Moonshot initiative as a key collaborator in the fight against cancer.

Rick earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BA in Economics from the University of Virginia. He currently lives in Atlanta and spends considerable time in Boston, New York, Chicago and other cities.