Tom S. Lee, Ph.D., MBA

Founder & CEO
Tom is the father of two small children and after a frightening personal experience, it was his concern for their future in the world that led him to create a business opportunity that married his personal passion: driving innovation in the public healthcare system.

Tom was instrumental in the establishment of the Chicago Health IT Regional Extension Center (CHITREC) and has consulted for leading healthcare and health IT organizations such as the Northwestern University School of Medicine, Erie Family Health Center, and the Alliance of Chicago.

He was previously Director of Software Product Management at Research In Motion (Blackberry) and founding CTO of Enorbus Technologies, a successful wireless IT startup in China subsequently acquired by Disney.

We'll leave it to Tom to tell you what IGNITED his passion for improving the effectiveness and the reach of the healthcare system. Make sure to ask him.

Tom earned a B.S. with Distinction in Physics from Stanford, a Ph.D in Physics from U.C. Berkeley where he was an NSF Fellow, and an M.B.A. with Distinction from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Beth Houck, MBA

Vice President, Practice Solutions
It's all about relationships for Beth. Her 17 years of healthcare analytics, operations and sales experience have been successful because Beth believes in building partnerships – open and honest communication between two parties working together towards a common goal.

Beth has led strategy and business development for Northwestern Memorial Healthcare and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

Most recently she was a Vice President at Press Ganey and previous to that, as the COO of Patient Impact, a successful patient satisfaction measurement start-up, she understood that the industry needed to do more, dig deeper, to create a meaningful and effective digital relationship to benefit patients, doctors and the entire health care system.

And that's what brought Beth to SA Ignite, a company she says is about "really smart good people that at their core treat everyone with respect". SA Ignite is a company that she says has "respect for clients, doctors and patients, and has a laser focus on how it can have a positive public health impact".

Beth earned a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Northwestern University and an M.B.A. from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

Tim Hansen

Vice President, Application Development
Tim has spent more than 20 years in software development within healthcare, starting from his first job out of college. His development leadership experience spans work for Intel, Proxicom, and Sysmex, where he architected and built a global data aggregation platform for medical testing devices. Tim's proud of his contributions to the improvement of the healthcare industry; he was a senior developer for a comprehensive clinical laboratory information system interfacing to over 100 laboratory instruments and hospital information systems.

Tim is driven; he cares a lot about what he does and how he does it and making sure it's high quality. Tim's leadership helps drive the SA Ignite culture which he says ". . . is one of innovation and independence; we challenge the normal in search of finding new ways to advance and improve healthcare through the use of information technology". Something Tim's been doing for more than 20 years.

Tim earned a B.A. in Computer Science from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln.

Ben Ellis, MBA

Vice President, Corporate Development
Ben's interest in SA Ignite comes from his conviction that the company is dedicated to helping doctors adopt to systems that will fundamentally improve the health care system by increasing the quality of care and at the same time, reducing cost. And that the best way to do this is through the acquisition, analysis and application of data.

Ben believes the effective use of data is critical to the operating effectiveness of any business. His 10 years of experience as a consultant at Fortune 100 companies was about gleaning relevant data and applying it to help those companies succeed. He used those same skills in entrepreneurial environments to build businesses and contribute his expertise with roles in operating company management, principal private equity investing, investment banking advisory and strategy consulting.

As the son of a doctor, the son-in-law of a doctor, the nephew of doctors . . . Ben knows that the use of data is what underpins our country's ability to transform our health care system.

Ben received a BBA, with Distinction, from the University of Michigan Business School and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.