Award Alert: Elevate’s Brian Strom wins Outstanding Tech Innovator Award

We’re excited to share that Elevate’s Brian Strom has been named an Outstanding Tech Innovator! Employee Benefit News (EBN) has awarded him for his impact on the benefits and human resources community.

What are the EBN Awards?

EBN is the top media resource for professionals in employee benefits, human resources, and workplace culture.

The EBN program honors leaders in the benefits and HR community. Now in its fourth year, the awards recognize employers offering superior programs, innovators creating tech-driven solutions, and expert advisers.

Elevate joins fellow award winners from Alight, BambooHR, Chime, Lockton, Shure, and Zoom. To see a complete list of the winners, see EBN’s article.

"Throughout the past year, HR professionals, tech pioneers and advisers have faced the challenges of addressing both new and longstanding issues within today's workforce. In the face of workplace transformation, they're finding innovative ways to prioritize their people, foster a strong culture and navigate the intricate and critical areas of healthcare, financial wellness, and mental health. These are true leaders driving organizational excellence." - Alyssa Place, Editor-in-Chief, Employee Benefit News

Why was Brian Strom chosen?

We’re quite proud of Brian Strom at Elevate.

As co-founder and CTO, Brian is involved in every aspect of Elevate’s development. Twenty years ago, as the CTO and co-founder of ConnectYourCare (now Optum), Brian wrote the original code for its health benefits platform.

Now, he’s applied that experience to Elevate, where he’s in charge of setting the technology plan. Elevate is the first completely cloud-based, API-driven, and AI-enabled consumer-directed benefits platform, all created under his leadership. Not only that, Brian also holds multiple patents for his work, including designing the first pre-funding solution for HSAs and multi-purse tables.

As a result, Elevate has been able to modernize the outdated technology of consumer health accounts. Strom was recognized for his achievements in modernizing technology and making health benefit accounts faster and easier to use. Add that to the list of accomplishments!

"CDH platforms are surprisingly hard to build—they're a combination of complex fund flows and many, many rules. We are pursuing perfection here at Elevate, and I find that pursuit very rewarding. Every morning, I look forward to logging in, seeing how cleanly we ran the prior day and figuring out what needs to change to get us one step closer to nailing it." – Brian Strom, Co-Founder and CTO, Elevate

Why does this matter to you?

Elevate is completely dedicated to a better technological future and how it improves people’s lives. This win shows we’re serious about innovation—and we’re excited about it.

For our partners like third-party administrators, health plans, PEOs, and financial institutions—our AI makes a difference. Less manual work means you can focus on the big picture, not just tiny, time-consuming details. Plus, partners can handle more claims without hiring more people—and take on more without the added costs.

Not only that, but our platform lets our partners set up plans with one click, so onboarding new clients goes quicker than before. Last, we let you put your own branding on our AI platform and get free custom reports (that’s right, not nickel and diming for your own information!) so your company gets a cohesive experience.

“I'm extremely proud of our team's ability to bring modern technology to an industry that has been relying on outdated systems for far too long, and we're honored that Brian received this recognition. His vision and technical expertise have been instrumental in our success in introducing AI and automation to make benefit accounts a more consumer-friendly experience." – Brian Cosgray, Co-Founder and CEO, Elevate

This is the second major award we’ve won this year. We were also recently honored with the 2024 Tech Award for AI Innovations in Employee Benefits by Lighthouse Research & Advisory.

Work with an award-winning partner! Contact us today to get a demo.