Stride Health Appoints Peter V. Lee, Former Executive Director of Covered California, to Board of Directors

Lee's experience will help the company accelerate scaling and expansion of its Portable Benefits platform to reach every American who needs their own benefits

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Stride Health, the leader in portable benefits technology, announced the appointment of Peter V. Lee to its Board of Directors. Lee will provide leadership and experience to help accelerate Stride's efforts to expand its innovative portable benefits platform in order to aid all Americans in accessing the benefits they need, regardless of how they work.

Lee most recently served as the founding Executive Director of Covered California, the nation's largest state-based health insurance marketplace, for over a decade. Prior to Covered California, Peter spent a decade as the CEO & Director of National Health Policy of the Pacific Business Group on Health (PBGH) after which he served in the Obama Administration as Director of Delivery System Reform for the US Department of Health & Human Services and worked to launch the CMS' Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) as its deputy director.

Lee will work closely with Stride and its executive team to bolster the company's efforts to improve access to ACA coverage while expanding into new benefits markets. With his extensive leadership experience, Lee will also help to guide scaling the organization and nurturing its diversity and inclusion efforts. 

"Having lived in California for the last 20 years, I have seen the impact that Peter's work has had on making sure Californians everywhere have access to the coverage that they need. His spirit, determination and focus on serving marginalized communities was inspirational to me as I was building Stride and continues to motivate me to this day," said Noah Lang, CEO and Cofounder of Stride Health. "I couldn't be more excited to have him join the team and to learn from him, as we continue our journey building an innovative platform that helps Americans everywhere access the benefits they need for both health and financial security."

During Lee's decade-long tenure, Covered California served millions of Californians, becoming the largest state-based marketplace in the nation, and established itself as a leader in both state and federal health care policies. Peter launched the exchange in 2012 and grew the organization from zero to over 1,200 employees, focusing heavily on the diversity as they scaled. Lee's work was an instrumental part of dramatically expanding coverage in the state, helping California's uninsured rate drop from 17.2 percent in 2013 to 7.7 percent by 2019. He left the organization in March of 2022 to pursue new opportunities in healthcare.

"I began my work in health care running programs at the National AIDS Network in Washington in the height of the AIDS epidemic. Ever since then, my work has been all about ensuring that all communities, regardless of socioeconomic status, race, gender, religion, get access to the care and coverage that they need," said Peter Lee. "The platform that the team at Stride is building is second to none and their mission to ensure every worker, regardless of their employment status, has access to affordable benefits and care that meets their needs, is aligned with everything I stand for. I am honored to be welcomed onto their board and excited to get to work."

Stride provides a comprehensive platform used by consumers, employers, health plans and brokers to streamline individual benefits recommendations and enrollment. Since launching in 2014, Stride has helped more than 3 million Americans save $3 billion on their benefits and taxes. Stride partners with the world's leading work platforms and employers of non-benefited workers including Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, Amazon, GrubHub, Etsy, Patreon, Rover, TaskRabbit and more so they can provide their workers with access to a full marketplace of health and wealth benefits. The company is backed by $96 million in capital from Venrock, New Enterprise Associates, Fidelity's F-Prime Capital Partners, Mastercard, Allstate and King River. For more information, visit https://www.stridehealth.com.

SOURCE Stride Health