Company: CE Broker, Jacksonville, FL
Company Description: State Boards use CE Broker to verify that licensees have completed their required CE and to quickly determine renewal eligibility. Boards may also manage educational provider and course applications.
Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Female Entrepreneur – Business Products –More Than 2,500 Employees
 Nomination Title: Julie Walker, CEO (formerly of Symplr)
- Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes, explaining the achievements since July 1, 2020 of the nominated woman, OR written answers to the questions? (Choose one):
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video. If you are submitting written answers to the questions for this category, provide them in the spaces below:
- Briefly describe the nominated individual: history and past performance (up to 200 words):
Total 185 words used.
Julie is passionate about making a meaningful impact in healthcare, elevating care delivery, and ultimately, improving patient outcomes. An industry veteran of 16 years, Julie has brought deep healthcare experience and insight to symplr, seeing it grow from 80 employees to 1800 in five years. She has been a key driver in symplr’s strategy and transformation from a niche healthcare technology vendor to the leading enterprise-level healthcare operations provider at scale. She served in multiple mission-critical leadership roles, including transforming stagnant product lines into strong portfolio assets, a task that required a unique combination of entrepreneurial spirit and strategic and operational skills and experience. After this corporate growth period, she served as Chief Strategy Officer and retained corporate development roles. In this role, she helped lead in-market activities to bring on a new strategic investor, Charlesbank, fueling symplr’s SaaS-forward vision for the future. Now, Julie leads symplr’s Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance (GRC) business portfolio, [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION]. Prior to joining symplr, Julie held senior roles at ProviderTrust and Ascend Learning – both privately held SaaS healthcare technology companies.
- Explain why the achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the nominee's past performance (up to 250 words):
Total 247 words used.
With Julie’s expert counsel, the company has grown its revenue dramatically and is on track to continue growing despite the turbulent industry landscape, guaranteeing increased value to its diverse portfolio of customers.
While Julie would be quick to point out the contributions of her remarkably talented team, her leadership, as well as her strategic and entrepreneurial thinking was an essential ingredient in symplr’s impressive growth and success since 2020. She is a confident, collaborative female executive in operations and strategy, a space still dominated by men, and she has an eye for executing on a multitude of growth levers including organic growth, optimization, commercial strategies, M&A, and product & services-level innovation, all to elevate the way care is delivered and optimize key outcomes for clinicians and patients.
While M&A is not new to healthcare IT— in the past two years, the industry has seen more M&A activity than in any other period—Julie brings a unique focus to this pursuit, prioritizing mission alignment before the acquisition, then brand and solution integration post-acquisition. The acquired company’s teams are also an essential part of her integration strategy, as Julie has a talent for recognizing skilled professionals on acquired teams and incorporating those professionals to bring a more rounded perspective to her product lines and customers.
Finally, in securing funding from Charlesbank, Julie has accelerated symplr’s SaaS-forward innovation. symplr will realize its vision to fill gaps in care delivery, creating faster, smoother connections and integrations, and continue defining cutting-edge healthcare operations.
- Outline the nominee's achievements since July 1 2020 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):
Total 246 words used.
Julie has been integral to the success of symplr in the last two years. In the early days of the pandemic, not only did Julie lead symplr Workforce, the company’s elevated scheduling and staffing solution for hospitals, she also helped establish and lead a COVID-19 special impact team to bring meaningful support to customers during this unprecedented time. As a result, KLAS recognized symplr asa top performing vendor during Covid-19.
Julie has helped symplr grow exponentially since July 2020 by:
- Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 141 words used.
KLAS recognition as top performing vendor during Covid-19: https://www.symplr.com/press-releases/klas-names-symplr-a-top-performing-vendor-during-covid-19
Acquisition and integration of 6+ companies (i.e., TractManager, HealthcareSource, Phynd, HaloHealth, Spinfusion, Midas (a carve off from Conduent), and GreenLight Medical). See press releases for acquisition details - https://www.symplr.com/press-releases
Securing funding from Charlesbank to accelerate SaaS-forward innovations: https://www.symplr.com/press-releases/charlesbank-to-make-a-strategic-investment-in-clearlake-and-skyknight-backed-symplr
Named in Becker’s Hospital Review Women power players in health IT 2022: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/lists/women-power-players-in-health-it.html
Named in The Healthcare Technology Report's Top 25 Women Leaders in Healthcare Software for 2021: https://thehealthcaretechnologyreport.com/the-top-25-women-leaders-in-healthcare-software-of-2021/
Healthcare Business Today published Julie’s advice on identifying and analyzing care quality measures: https://www.healthcarebusinesstoday.com/identifying-and-analyzing-care-quality-measures/
Healthcare Risk Management featured Julie’s expertise on improving patient safety with employee rewards, celebrations: https://www.reliasmedia.com/articles/149467-improve-patient-safety-with-employee-rewards-celebrations
Other accomplishments and credentials can be reviewed on Julie’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliebiglerwalker/
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