In this compelling episode of Leadership Rounds, Dr. Liz Kwo, MD, MBA, MPH, Chief Commercial Officer at Everly Health, sits down with Dr. Reena Pande to unpack how clinicians can lead with impact beyond the bedside while driving commercial growth and innovation in health tech.
Throughout their candid conversation, Liz shares her personal journey from clinical practice into health technology leadership, highlights the mindset shifts that shaped her career, and offers practical guidance for clinicians and healthcare executives aiming to unlock business and strategic influence.
Liz’s story begins with traditional clinical training, but advances into leadership roles where she blends medical expertise with business strategy. She has held senior positions at major healthcare and digital health organizations, including founding venture-backed companies and serving as Deputy Chief Clinical Officer at Elevance. As CCO at Everly Health, she leads growth strategies that expand access to virtual care and preventive health services.
Her transition exemplifies the evolving role of clinician leaders and the fact that medical training provides a foundation for impact. However, that impact grows when that foundation is paired with strategic business thinking and operational leadership.
During the episode, Liz reframes the commercial role for clinicians. It’s not only about clinical credibility, but about owning business outcomes and driving measurable growth. She encourages clinicians to view every role through a business lens, asking critical questions like:
She reminds listeners that business fundamentals such as understanding P&L dynamics, costs of goods sold (COGS) and sales, general & administrative costs (SG&A) are critical for clinician leaders striving to create sustainable and innovative healthcare models.
This approach positions clinician executives not just as domain experts, but as drivers of commercial strategy who can build stronger, more resilient organizations.
One of the most powerful themes of the episode is reinvention and the idea that clinicians can reshape their careers at any point by embracing curiosity and continuous learning. Liz emphasizes that personal and professional growth stems from self-awareness and the courage to step outside one’s comfort zone.
She notes that joy in work often comes not from titles or degrees, but from the community you build and the legacy you leave behind by positively influencing care delivery and organizational culture. Her journey illustrates that career reinvention doesn’t require abandoning clinical identity; it means expanding it to include cross-functional leadership in product, commercial strategy, and tech-enabled care delivery.
Liz offers actionable advice for clinicians eager to make a business-oriented impact:
Through this lens, Liz shows that clinicians can lead robust commercial strategies while remaining advocates for quality, patient-centered care.
Healthcare is rapidly shifting toward outcomes-based, digitally enabled models in which clinical expertise and business acumen must coexist. Liz’s offers a clear blueprint for clinicians who want to lead growth and innovation without leaving their core values behind.
Her message resonates especially for clinician leaders, healthcare executives, and innovators navigating the intersection of medicine, technology, and organizational scale, showing that commercial success and clinical integrity are not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing.
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Liz Kwo, MD, MBA, MPH, is a physician-entrepreneur and healthcare executive with more than two decades of experience building and scaling digital health, virtual care, and value-based care platforms. She currently serves as President of Vanna Health, where she leads national growth and strategy focused on delivering specialized care models for individuals with serious mental illness.
Prior to joining Vanna Health, Dr. Kwo served as Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Medical Officer at Everly Health, a leading digital diagnostics and virtual care platform, where she helped expand the company’s consumer and enterprise health offerings. Previously, she was Deputy Chief Clinical Officer at Elevance Health (formerly Anthem), where she helped drive clinical strategy, digital transformation, and care innovation initiatives across the organization.
Earlier in her career, Dr. Kwo was the co-founder and CEO of InfiniteMD, a digital health platform that connects patients and physicians worldwide with leading medical experts for second opinions and specialty guidance.
Dr. Kwo serves on several healthcare technology and innovation boards and is an active advisor to emerging health startups. She received her M.D. from Harvard Medical School, her M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and her M.P.H. from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She completed her clinical training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital.
