Vanessa Pawlak, Partner, IBM Government Health & Human Services Global Leader
Vanessa is a Consulting Magazine 2020 Top 25 Consulting Leaders Award Winner, the consulting profession’s most prestigious recognition worldwide. She currently serves as IBM Consulting’s Global Industry Leader for Government Health & Human Services, covering HHS Departments, Ministries of Health, and other National Health System authorities worldwide.

As an IBM Consulting Partner/VP, Vanessa has 20 years of consulting experience with highly regulated government programs and has previously held the industry title of SVP, Chief Compliance & Privacy Officer.

Over the course of her career she has worked in 41 U.S. states and territories with over 80 healthcare organizations nationally including all 10 largest health payers, many providers, and directly for state health commissioners managing multimillion-dollar budgets. She has experience with 17 Blues health plans and other large national payers.

She is published regularly in leading health industry literature, and speaks frequently at industry conferences. She builds high performing teams that deliver results and is most known for her dedication to building a safer, healthier world.

Vanessa is also the former VP who led Cognizant’s Global Government Health & Regulatory Compliance Service Line and U.S. West Region. Cognizant is the largest and leading service provider for Government Managed Healthcare Programs in the U.S. (Medicare and Medicaid).

Prior to Cognizant she was an Ernst & Young Global Health Partner/Principal of Advisory Consulting Services. While at EY she built and led EY Health’s Regulatory & Compliance capability with focus on Government Programs operations.