At Carallel we understand first-hand the challenges of caring for a loved one.

Informed by our own experience as caregivers, we have developed a scalable, technology-enabled caregiver support offering comprising both digital tools and personalized expert guidance.

Our comprehensive caregiver support solutions empower caregivers to more fully and confidently engage in caring for their loved ones, benefiting employers striving to retain employees, financial services and home care providers seeking to deepen client relationships, and payers and long term care insurance companies aiming to leverage family caregivers to achieve better outcomes.

You care. We help.

Meet the Carallel Team

Shara Cohen

President and CEO

Hillary Ebach

Co-Founder, Chief Operating Officer

John Banta

Co-founder, Executive Chairman

Alan Spiro

Chief Medical Advisor

Troy Mills

Chief Strategy Advisor

John Regan

Chief Commercial Officer

Paul Strauss

Chief Technology Officer

Lesia Stuart

Director, Clinical Operations

Jen Piscitello

Manager, Care Advocate Team

Shara Cohen

President and CEO

Shara is Carallel’s President and CEO. She has spent the last 20 years helping healthcare organizations think differently about how to involve and empower people more effectively in their care and health.

Prior to joining Carallel, Shara was Vice President of Customer Experience for Wolters Kluwer Health, a global leader in medical information and expertise. She joined Wolters Kluwer after their acquisition of Emmi Solutions in 2016. At Emmi, Shara and her team helped build a recognition across healthcare organizations that people want and can participate more actively in their care. Her mission has been to facilitate and enable that participation.

Healthcare is dependent on caregivers and caregiving is personal. Its challenges won’t be solved without empathetic connections that meet caregivers on their terms. Shara is committed to building solutions and partnerships that engage caregivers in ways that are scalable and personal, expert, and accessible.

She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a JD from Fordham University School of Law.

Hillary Ebach

Co-Founder, Chief Operating Officer

Hillary is a Co-Founder of Carallel and serves as its Chief Operating Officer. As a family caregiver herself, Hillary is passionate about delivering to caregivers the help they need during every step of their caregiving journeys.

Prior to joining Carallel, Hillary served in executive leadership positions in the media industry, most recently as General Counsel of Journal Media Group, a publicly-held owner of digital and print media properties. Earlier in her career, Hillary was a partner at the national law firm Seyfarth Shaw, advising Boards of Directors and senior management of early stage businesses in connection with corporate governance and commercial transactions.

Hillary earned a JD from Northwestern University School of Law, an MBA in Finance and International Business from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Northwestern University.

John Banta

Co-founder, Executive Chairman

John is a Co-Founder of Carallel and serves as its Executive Chairman. John also serves as the Managing Director of BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners L.P., a corporate venture fund sponsored by the BlueCross BlueShield Association. He is responsible for maintaining relationships with all relevant stakeholders to ensure the operational success of the Fund, and for the generation of strategic and financial return for participating Blue Plans. Neither Blue Cross Blue Shield Association nor BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners L.P. are affiliated with Carallel or its operations.

John previously served as the CEO & Managing Director of IllinoisVentures, the premier seed and early-stage technology venture investment firm focused on starting and building globally-competitive businesses deriving from Midwest Universities and labs. John is also the former President and COO of DigitalWork, Inc. and Vice President of Corporate Services for UBS PaineWebber (formerly Kidder Peabody).

John earned an MBA in finance and statistics with high honors from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business where he has guest lectured, and a bachelor's degree in finance from the University of Illinois.

Alan Spiro

Chief Medical Advisor

Alan is a healthcare leader with over 30 years of experience in bringing innovative ideas into operational reality and currently serves as Carallel’s Chief Medical Advisor. He was formerly SVP for Strategy and Analytics and Chief Medical Officer for Blue Health Intelligence, developing data science solutions based on the 100 million life database of the Blue Cross plans around the country.

Alan has a varied background, including having been Chief Medical Officer at Medica, a health services company, and a co-founder of Accolade, Inc., an on-demand healthcare concierge for employers, health plans, and health systems. At Accolade, Alan served as Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, spearheading the development of health advocacy programs that significantly improved health outcomes, resulting in substantial cost savings and clinical quality improvement. Alan served as Vice President, Chief Medical Officer National Accounts at Anthem, Inc. and prior to that was a Partner and leader of the Clinician Section of the Health Management Practice at Towers Perrin (now Willis Towers Watson).

Alan holds an MD degree from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, an MBA degree from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a BA degree from New York University. Additionally, he completed a joint MIT Harvard Research Fellowship in Nutrition at New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston and a Harvard Clinical Fellowship in Gastroenterology at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, as well as a University of Chicago Affiliated Residency in Internal Medicine.

Troy Mills

Chief Strategy Advisor

Troy is a Co-Founder of Carallel and serves as its Chief Strategy Advisor. Troy also serves as Chief Operating Officer for the Pharmacy division of WellCare, where his role includes all of the Pharmacy Operations and PBM operational support, along with strategic initiatives for the division.

Troy is the former Divisional VP of Walgreens Customer Care Operations, where he was accountable for the strategic direction as well as the service delivery for customer care which served over 1.5 billion customer interactions annually across its 8600+ stores and digital platforms. This included the inbound and outreach strategies for patients and the strategic programs. He also lead the shared services for the internal technology as well as the store facility support teams, and was responsible for the company wide voice of the customer program.

Troy also served as VP of Operations, Quality and India Services, at AON Hewitt, accountable for leading the 6100+ Shared Services organization as well as leading both the LEAN Quality Office and the Benefits Outsourcing Business Transformation Program.

Troy earned a Bachelor’s degree in Organizational Communication from the University of Connecticut.

John Regan

Chief Commercial Officer

John serves as Carallel’s Chief Commercial Officer, leading all business development and commercial activities. John has over 25 years of experience within the IT and venture capital industries. Throughout his career he has played key roles in early and growth stage venture capital firms as an active investor and has been Chairman of several start-ups.

John was formerly a Managing Director at Energy Foundry, an early stage venture capital firm backing promising energy innovators, and at Illinois Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm. He is a founding member of the Illinois Emerging Technology Funds. His portfolio investments won numerous awards including MIT Top 10 Technologies, EPA Product of the Year and the WSJ Annual Technology Innovation Award. Earlier in his career, John was Managing Director of Keystone Venture Capital, making investments in early and expansion stage companies and was an early member of Apex Venture Partners, a Chicago-based venture capital firm focusing on technology and business services.

John earned an MBA in Finance and Marketing from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in General Engineering from the University of Illinois.

Paul Strauss

Chief Technology Officer

Paul serves as Carallel’s Chief Technology Officer, responsible for technology, operational infrastructure, security, and product design and development.

Paul is the former Senior Vice President of Online Operations for Playboy Enterprises, VP of Technology and Operations of DigitalWork, and Senior Web Developer at Platinum Technologies. He has deep experience leading application development and design projects for high-profile enterprises, with a specialization in content management, digital asset management, subscription billing systems, application integration, and back-office operations for clients including American Express, Wells Fargo, DELL, MasterCard, and America Online.

Paul is also the owner and publisher of Awesomer Media, a network of men’s lifestyle and entertainment websites with a love of awesome gear, gadgets, gizmos, gifts and other goodies. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Tulane University.

Lesia Stuart

Director, Clinical Operations

Lesia is the Clinical Operations Director of Carallel. She possesses a deep understanding of the needs of caregivers, based on decades of professional experience in medical informatics, care management and clinical care, as well as her own personal caregiver journey.

Driven by a calling to help others, Lesia began her career as a registered nurse. She left clinical practice to direct care management efforts for commercial, Medicare Advantage, marketplace and Medicaid plans, first at Cigna and then at BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.

Prior to joining Carallel, Lesia spent the last 7 years of her career in medical informatics, focusing on quality and accreditation analytics. As the Director of Innovation at BCBST, Lesia implemented cutting-edge technologies which moved informatics to the next-generation of analytics. While part of the informatics leadership team, BCBST earned a spot on CIO magazine’s list of the 100 most innovative companies in the U.S.

Lesia holds a bachelor’s degree in health science administration from St. Francis College and a registered nursing diploma from Erlanger School of Nursing.

Jennifer Piscitello

Manager, Care Advocate Team

Jennifer serves as the Manager of the Care Advocate Team for Carallel, drawing from her personal and professional history in working with family caregivers to support them along their caregiving journey. Jennifer has worked with hundreds of families from the preplanning stage of elder care to immediate crisis situations. She has a compassion and genuine interest in helping others.

Prior to joining Carallel, Jennifer was the Regional Sales & Marketing Director for a private memory care company supporting ten memory care communities at varying stages of growth. She was with Brookdale Senior Living for most of her career holding a variety of sales and marketing position, most recently as District Director of Sales for eleven Chicagoland communities. Sharing her passion to serve others, she hired, trained, mentored and encouraged sales professionals, resulting in significant career development.

Jennifer is a Certified Dementia Practitioner, has a Sales Training certificate as well as advanced training in leadership. She has a BA in Interior Design from Iowa State University.