Todd Park
Todd Park | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1973 Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Business leader, government official |
| Known for | United States Chief Technology Officer, co-founder of athenahealth, Castlight Health, and Devoted Health |
Todd Park is an American business leader and former government official who held the position of Chief Technology Officer of the United States and served as a technology consultant to President Barack Obama. He is a co-founder and currently serves as executive chairman at Devoted Health.
Early life and education
Born in 1973 in Salt Lake City, Utah, to parents who immigrated from South Korea, Park completed his secondary education at the Columbus Academy in 1990, earning distinction as a Presidential Scholar. He pursued economics at Harvard University, where he met his wife Amy. Graduating magna cum laude, he was also inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. The couple has two children.
Companies
At age 24 in 1997, Park co-established athenahealth alongside Jonathan S. Bush. Later, in 2008, he co-founded Castlight Health, which was recognized by the Wall Street Journal as the leading venture-backed company in the United States for 2011.
Park contributed as a senior advisor to Ashoka, an international incubator for social entrepreneurs, assisting in the launch of Healthpoint Services. This initiative provides affordable access to clean water, medications, diagnostics, and telehealth services to rural communities in India. In 2011, Healthpoint Services received the Sankalp Award for its innovative approach to health-focused social enterprise in India.
In 2017, Park founded Devoted Health, where he continues to serve as co-founder and executive chairman.
Department of Health and Human Services
In 2009, Park was appointed as Chief Technology Officer at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). He was a strong advocate for incorporating "big data" into healthcare systems with the vision of establishing an open health data platform akin to the National Weather Service to foster commercial innovation. His efforts included promoting transparency to detect inefficiencies in healthcare spending through what he referred to as a "holy cow machine."
He encouraged the adoption of open innovation principles and Lean Startup techniques within governmental programs. Under his direction, HHS utilized crowdsourcing strategies to tap into external expertise. Park supported making health data accessible through HealthData.gov, believing it would both enhance public health outcomes and create opportunities for businesses in mHealth and eHealth sectors. In 2010, Fast Company recognized him among the 100 Most Innovative People in Business.
Adopting a Silicon Valley approach to team management, Park played a pivotal role in developing HealthCare.gov—the inaugural government platform offering consumers a searchable directory of public and private health insurance options sorted by zip code.
He also initiated the Community Health Data Initiative, which evolved into the Health Datapalooza, an event designed for developers focused on creating innovative healthcare applications utilizing open government data. By its fourth iteration, the conference attracted more than 2,000 participants including venture capitalists, medical professionals, and bipartisan policymakers, demonstrating successful collaboration between public and private sectors.
US Chief Technology Officer
In March 2012, President Obama appointed Todd Park as United States Chief Technology Officer and Assistant to the President, succeeding Aneesh Chopra. In this role, Park worked with numerous federal agencies to expand the Datapalooza concept across different fields.
Inspired by Code for America, he established the Presidential Innovation Fellows program. This initiative brings together leading external innovators with federal teams on focused "tours of duty" aimed at addressing critical challenges efficiently. The program seeks to blend citizen expertise with government resources to achieve impactful outcomes within six months.
Involvement with Healthcare.gov
The original version of HealthCare.gov, which debuted on July 1, 2010, was created within a 90-day period by Park and his team at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The Kaiser Family Foundation acknowledged this launch as an early achievement in the rollout of healthcare reform and highlighted it as the first website ever presented by a sitting U.S. president.
Later iterations—including the front-end update in May 2013 and the challenging October 2013 marketplace release—were developed by external contractors managed by officials from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, operating independently from Park’s White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. When major difficulties arose, President Obama appointed Park to join a specialized "trauma team" tasked with addressing the technical setbacks. Together with Jeffrey Zients, Park spearheaded a focused "tech surge" during the winter months that successfully resolved key issues, thereby stabilizing Healthcare.gov and allowing millions of Americans to enroll in and purchase health insurance.
External links
- 1973 births
- American chief technology officers
- American politicians of Korean descent
- Booz Allen Hamilton people
- Living people
- Harvard College alumni
- Henry Crown Fellows
- Office of Science and Technology Policy officials
- People from Salt Lake City
- United States Department of Health and Human Services officials