Category: Employee Spotlight

At Ideon, we’re proud to have such a talented, diverse team leading the charge for a better and more connected health insurance and employee benefits industry. Our ongoing Employee Spotlight series showcases the people behind our product and unveils what life is like at Ideon. This month we’re featuring Cory Freshour, Sr. Director of Enrollment Operations!

Name: Cory Freshour
Department: Enrollment Operations
Title: Sr. Director of Enrollment Operations
Location: Atlanta, GA

Work

How long have you worked at Ideon?

I joined Ideon in April 2024.

Tell us about your day-to-day.

As the Senior Director of Enrollment Operations, I lead a team responsible for building and managing the enrollment data exchange between InsurTech platforms and insurance carriers. 

How have you grown professionally while on our team?

Over the past eight months, we’ve completed a team restructuring that has resulted in significant improvements and efficiency gains. The team quickly adapted to this new model and has shown remarkable resilience as we continue refining our processes and products. Leading this restructuring has been a major opportunity for personal growth and has also contributed to the growth and development of members on the Enrollment Operations team.  

What excites you about the future of Ideon?

Better Data. Better Benefits. I’m excited about the future of Ideon because we have the opportunity to drive meaningful change in an industry that still faces challenges in accuracy and member experience. By leveraging better data, we can improve benefits delivery and ensure members have the coverage they need when it matters most. 

What do you like about Ideon’s company culture?

I appreciate the thoughtfulness and intentionality that everyone at Ideon brings to their work. The team stays focused on the bigger picture, even when it means taking the more challenging path to achieve our goals. 

What attracted you to Ideon’s mission?

I’ve seen firsthand how impactful issues with benefits data exchange can be—whether it’s incomplete EOI forms that result in policies not being in place when families depend on them, or inactive medical coverage at a critical time for members. We have to do better, and Ideon is on a mission to make that change. 

Life

Favorite activity when you’re not working? 

My favorite activity outside of work is waterskiing, particularly barefoot waterskiing. I’m also enjoying the process of teaching my 6-year-old daughter, Meadow, and 8-year-old son, Dash, how to waterski. 

Favorite place you’ve traveled?

Telluride, CO. Snowboarding is another hobby.  

Interesting fact about yourself?

An interesting fact about me—I’ve managed to rupture both of my Achilles tendons, but thankfully, I’ve come back stronger and healthier than ever! 😁 

 

At Ideon, we’re proud to have such a talented, diverse team leading the charge for a better and more connected health insurance and employee benefits industry. Our ongoing Employee Spotlight series showcases the people behind our product and unveils what life is like at Ideon. This month we’re featuringTara Anguish, our Sr. Director, PMO!

Name: Tara Anguish
Department: Client Operations
Title: Sr. Director, PMO
Location: Upstate, NY

Work

How long have you worked at Ideon?

Almost 3.5 years.

Tell us about your day-to-day.

In addition to leading our PMO team, I get the opportunity to work with our clients, primarily for our enrollment and EOI products. This involves supporting our sales team as they finalize contracts, meeting new clients and setting them up for an amazing implementation with our team, advising clients as they make operational decisions, and bringing them live with our enrollment and EOI products. This last part is my favorite because we get to showcase the value Ideon brings in real-time!

How have you grown professionally while on our team?

Here at Ideon, I’ve been able to grow, particularly as a leader. I’m supported but given the autonomy to use my experience and expertise to make decisions, including making process and efficiency changes.

What excites you about the future of Ideon?

I’m excited to meet and work with more and more companies as they join our portfolio and see for themselves the value that Ideon brings. The health and benefits industry—particularly the enrollments and EOI realms—doesn’t have to be as difficult as it is now, and the team at Ideon can help. It’s exciting to be working with people and products that serve an industry in need with expertise.

What do you like about Ideon’s company culture?

Our leadership is thoughtful and cares about the personal development of each person on the team—so much so that this is one of the few cultures I’ve seen exude psychological safety. We support each other but also challenge each other in a really healthy way. We’re allowed to fail but encouraged to be stretched, learn, and grow. We’re all dedicated to making improvements in an industry that needs it—and that impacts us all. We feel connected to our mission every day.

Life

Favorite activity when you’re not working? 

Spending time with my family, which includes my husband and 3 kiddos. They are involved in lots of sports which makes life outside of work busy and full. They are growing into great humans!

Favorite place you’ve traveled?

Salamanca, Spain—I was lucky enough to partake in a full immersion study abroad summer program.

Interesting fact about yourself?

Less than 1% of the world’s population has heterochromia, and I’m one of them (left eye is blue, right eye is brown). This didn’t get passed down to any of my kiddos – perhaps my potential grandchildren??? 

 

At Ideon, we’re proud to have such a talented, diverse team leading the charge for a better and more connected health insurance and employee benefits industry. Our ongoing Employee Spotlight series showcases the people behind our product and unveils what life is like at Ideon. Next up… Christie Lickert, our Senior Operations Analyst!

Name: Christie Lickert
Department: Enrollment Operations
Title: Senior Operations Analyst
Location: Omaha, NE

Work

How long have you worked at Ideon?

I have worked at Ideon in Enrollment Operations for two years.

Tell us about your day-to-day.

I work with carriers and platforms, specifically with configurations for EDI and API feeds. Each day, the work I do is different. I can be working on anything from a brand-new implementation with testing to creating documentation on processes and training new team members.

What projects are you excited to work on?

I love working on projects that are challenging and give me a sense of accomplishment. I enjoy it when I can contribute to solving issues with an out-of-box approach.

What excites you about the future of Ideon?

Ideon has many partnerships that are so influential to the growth of our company. We are constantly trying to make the customer experience as seamless and efficient as possible. I am excited to see what innovative ideas my colleagues and I produce to help support that.

Describe your onboarding experience.

What’s great about Ideon is that we have every new employee meet with each department to get a look at what we do. It was interesting and informative to see what each team member’s purpose is. The team is also very welcoming and inclusive. Ideon is very thorough with onboarding and makes sure everyone has what they need to be successful.

Life

Favorite activity when you’re not working? 

I love reading and am part of a book club. My favorite genre of books is a tie between autobiographies and thrillers.

Favorite place you’ve traveled?

My favorite place I have traveled to is Sedona, Arizona. I absolutely love the red rock and enjoyed going on a “Pink Jeep Tour” which drove me up and down cliffs.

Interesting fact about yourself… Go!

I am obsessed with the Golden Girls. I still have all their box set DVDs, and my first dog was named after Sophia Petrillo.

 

At Ideon, we’re proud to have such a talented, diverse team leading the charge for a better and more connected health insurance and employee benefits industry. Our ongoing Employee Spotlight series showcases the people behind our product and unveils what life is like at Ideon. Next up… Virginia Loeffler, our Product Manager – Enrollments!

Name: Virginia Loeffler
Department: Product
Title: Product Manager – Enrollments
Location: New York

Work

How long have you worked at Ideon?

I’ve worked at Ideon for 6 years, since 2017. I started on the Quoting and Decision Support Operations team, eventually moving to Enrollments and the Product team.

Tell us about your day-to-day.

I work closely with carriers, platforms, and Ideon’s Operations team to identify strategic additions and changes to our Enrollment products. From scoping work to tracing issues and preventing future bugs, I work alongside the Engineering team to ensure that our outbound processes for enrollments are running smoothly.

What projects are you excited to work on?

I love projects that really identify a high-impact change. We have some special projects for current customers which provide a lot of clarity into industry processes that are historically “black-boxes.” These are processes where Ideon can increase the accuracy of the data and raise discrepancies early on for all parties involved.

What excites you about the future of Ideon?

We are in an industry with so much potential for change. Because of the nature of how insurance corporations develop, the connections that we are forging today are connections and processes that will be used for years to come. Making the right choices now isn’t easy, but it’s incredibly important. We get to craft and hone processes that could impact the lives of employees and patients for years to come!

What do you like about Ideon’s company culture?

I appreciate the ability we have to have difficult conversations–on topics that we care about as well as topics about the workplace. We have a strong desire for feedback, and to have that call for feedback come from leadership is unique for a lot of companies.

Life

Favorite activity when you’re not working? 

It’s a tie between Art and Video Games. I have a backlog of games to get through, and I love working on hand-animation and watercolor illustration.

Favorite place you’ve traveled?

France! I studied abroad in high school and was able to attend a French high school for 5 weeks. The region of France was called Pays de la Loire, named for the local river.

Interesting fact about yourself… Go!

I love learning languages – I studied French for 7 years (high school and university) and studied Japanese at college as well. Italian is next!

 

At Ideon, we’re proud to have such a talented, diverse team leading the charge for a better and more connected health insurance and employee benefits industry. Our ongoing Employee Spotlight series showcases the people behind our product and unveils what life is like at Ideon. Next up… Joe Piendel, our Director of Product Marketing!

Name: Joe Piendel
Department: Marketing
Title: Director of Product Marketing
Location: Rochester, New York

Work

How long have you worked at Ideon?

I’ve worked at Ideon for 2½ years.

Tell us about your day-to-day.

What really excites me about my role as Director of Product Marketing is that it allows me to collaborate with members of every team in the organization, which makes no two days the same. For example, I could be working with our Product Management Team to learn about the latest-and-greatest new product launches and strategize on how we will promote them, or with our Sales Teams on sales enablement and go-to-market strategies.

What excites you about the future of Ideon?

Ideon’s future is bright because of our mission to help advance the employee benefits industry into the future with cutting-edge technology such as APIs. It excites me to see our unique solutions in action, helping our customers tackle their pain points and assisting them in achieving new levels of efficiency and accuracy. I find it rewarding to be part of an organization that is so forward-thinking and customer-focused with the overall goal of improving members’ experiences in the health insurance and benefits ecosystem.

What do you like about Ideon’s company culture?

What I like is that Ideon fosters a creative atmosphere and encourages everyone to take risks. The team consists of some of the most intelligent problem-solvers I’ve ever worked with. It’s amazing how we confront the issues in our industry head-on to provide solutions that help our customers deliver positive end-user experiences.

What attracted you to Ideon’s mission?

Throughout my career, I worked for an insurance carrier, a broker, and an HCM company and have witnessed first-hand what the challenges are in our industry. Enrolling in health insurance and employee benefits is never on anyone’s “favorite things” to-do list because of the complexity and uncertainties associated with it.

What attracted me to Ideon is that we address many of these challenges, and we’re leading the charge to move our ecosystem into the digital age so that as an industry, we can provide the efficient user-experience that everyone expects in 2024 and beyond.

Life

Favorite activity when you’re not working? 

I am an avid sports and music fan, so when I’m not working, you’ll probably find me with my family at a sporting event or concert! When I’m not doing one of those activities, I’m on the golf course, cycling, or kayaking.

Favorite place you’ve traveled?

Last year, my wife and I traveled to the Grand Canyon with our two sons. To experience it through their eyes was incredible and will be a family trip we’ll never forget.

Interesting fact about yourself… Go!

I’m a huge Buffalo Bills fan and have been a season ticket holder for over 20 years. Go Bills!

At Ideon, we’re proud to have such a talented, diverse team leading the charge for a better and more connected health insurance and employee benefits industry. Our ongoing Employee Spotlight series showcases the people behind our product and unveils what life is like at Ideon. Next up… Sean Wilkins, our Engineering Manager!

Name: Sean Wilkins
Department: Engineering
Title: Engineering Manager
Location: New Jersey

Work

How long have you worked at Ideon?

Since June 2019.

Tell us about your day-to-day.

My day-to-day can vary a lot. Sometimes I am down in the weeds investigating specific issues for customers. But on other occasions, I take a long-term, bird’s eye view to assess where improvements are needed to enhance our service for existing customers or to accommodate new ones.

I also have the opportunity to work directly with customers on how our solutions can fit into their business processes to maximize value. We work hard to meet our customers wherever they are in their digital transformation, so it is important to have a breadth of experience across our solutions.

What projects are you excited to work on?

My team’s responsibilities mainly deal with, broadly speaking, “enrollments data flowing into our system.” One of our tools for importing data is a file-based translation service which we use to translate flat files, such as an XML, CSV, or JSON document. I have really enjoyed improving this service over the last year, in terms of reliability and scalability, as well as making the system easier to modify.

How have you grown professionally while on our team?

Being with Ideon since 2019, I have had a really great opportunity to build my career here. When I joined the company as a “Software Engineer” I was an individual contributor working on our soon-to-be-launched enrollments product. Since then, we’ve seen our team size grow and I have been promoted twice. Now as an “Engineering Manager,” I can leverage the skills and industry knowledge I gained during the earlier stages of the product development to help onboard new team members. I think getting early, on-the-ground experience set me up for success as a manager.

What excites you about the future of Ideon?

I really enjoy the process of taking an idea from concept to execution, seeing it evolve over time as we support more use cases and add functionality. I like sitting between our customers, engineers, and internal operations to hear all sides of the equation and help solve the problems each stakeholder faces.

What do you like about Ideon’s company culture?

I enjoy working with a team of really talented engineers. Prior to my experience at Ideon, I was at smaller companies where the engineering work was really a one-man show. In those situations, I didn’t have anyone to collaborate with. Coming to Ideon and getting a lot more feedback from peers really helped me grow as an engineer and was a breath of fresh air.

Life

Favorite activity when you’re not working? 

The most stereotypical computer nerd answer – video games! Aside from that, I enjoy reading and playing with my dog Dottie.

Favorite place you’ve traveled?

Rome, Italy. I loved the sheer amount of interesting things to do in Rome, from the food to the centuries of history there was never a dull moment when visiting.

Interesting fact about yourself… Go!

Despite my indoor nature as a computer guy, I achieved the rank of Eagle scout and did a lot of hiking and camping growing up.