Up & Comers - 2018

Duane Reynolds is familiar with the struggles marginalized groups face in receiving healthcare. In his job, he's able to marry his passion for making the healthcare workforce more representative of its clients with the pursuit of health equity.

"There's a lot of change and progress that needs to occur when it comes to servicing diverse and underserved populations. With the advent of population health, there's now a window of opportunity to help people understand how social determinants of health and health equity improvements can make improvements for underserved populations that typically are high-risk," he said.

In which TV medical drama would you star? "Grey's Anatomy"

What musician would you dream of having perform at your next birthday celebration? Adele

What superhero are you? One of the X-Men

As chief of inclusion and diversity at Optum Advisory Services, Reynolds helped improve its internal hiring culture. Under his leadership, the organization experienced a 33% improvement in hiring minorities; 21% improvement in hiring women; 19% improvement in promotions for minorities and a 13% improvement for women.

Reynolds helped achieve similar results for numerous clients; he was recognized by a client for producing $3.7 million in savings for that organization.

Reynolds is transitioning to new responsibilities as the company integrates the recently acquired Advisory Board Co. into its portfolio.

"Whatever the future of my career holds, it will always be about the people I can impact, whether that be internal or directly impacting diverse patient experiences. It's not about the title, it's about the impact I'm having on addressing health disparities in our system," Reynolds said.