Ryan Howells is a Principal at Leavitt Partners based out of the Washington, D.C. office. Ryan works with the White House, Congress, and HHS on health care policy and interoperability issues. He currently helps lead the CARIN Alliance, an HL7® FHIR® Accelerator and multi-sector, public-private alliance focused on advancing consumer digital access to their health information. CARIN’s work has been named as an ‘industry best practice’ in multiple federal regulations and awarded a World Changing Idea award by Fast Company magazine. He also helps lead the Helios HL7® FHIR® accelerator with ONC, CDC, and multiple public health authorities to advance public health data modernization. Ryan is a member of the CMS Medicaid Information Technology Architecture (MITA) governance board, Carequality steering committee, ONC’s FAST identity tiger team, and the VCI.org SMART Health Cards steering committee. He also serves as on the board of multiple health care companies. Before joining Leavitt Partners, Ryan was the general manager for the government business unit of a private-exchange software vendor where he oversaw the implementation of software in three different state-based marketplaces, managed a multi-million-dollar P&L, and was involved in the company’s IPO in late 2014. Ryan has a master of health administration from the University of Southern California, where he was a dean’s merit scholar. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Brigham Young University and is a Project Management Professional (PMP). He and his wife Alison live with their five children in Athens, GA.