Ash Strengthens Leadership as It Scales Medicare Advantage Care Gap Closure Programs

Ash has announced two additions to its leadership team: Jon Stout has joined the company's Board of Directors, and Matt Benton has joined as Chief Financial Officer. Both appointments add operating and financial leadership as Ash accelerates its work helping Medicare Advantage health plans close HEDIS care gaps at scale.

For health plans evaluating gap closure partners, leadership depth is a real signal — it shows whether a vendor understands the pressures plans operate under, from Star Ratings to member activation. Stout and Benton both bring firsthand experience scaling health tech companies inside the payer ecosystem, which is precisely the environment Ash operates in.

Jon Stout Joins Ash's Board of Directors

Stout is President of Motivo Health, a clinical supervision platform for the behavioral health workforce. He spent more than a decade at Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, including as Head of Value-Based Programs and Chief of Staff to the CEO, before joining AbleTo Inc., a digital behavioral health platform, as Chief Growth Officer. Stout helped scale AbleTo through its acquisition by UnitedHealth's Optum, then served as a Venture Partner at Optum Ventures.

That combination — years inside a health plan, then years scaling a health tech company through a payer acquisition — is a rare vantage point for a board seat.

"I've spent my career watching health plans and health tech companies work around each other," Stout said. "Ash is built to close that gap — literally. I'm looking forward to helping the team think through what disciplined, payer-aligned growth looks like as they scale."

In this role, Stout will draw on his experience sitting on both sides of the table to pressure-test growth decisions from every angle that matters to a health plan customer, including refining Ash's gap closure program to help payers activate hard-to-reach members.

Matt Benton Joins as Chief Financial Officer

Benton joined Ash as CFO in March 2026, bringing more than a decade of finance leadership at fast-growing health tech companies. In this role, he'll build scalable financial infrastructure, connect growth goals to financial reality, and support investor relations.

He most recently served as CFO of Nayya, an AI-native benefits intelligence platform serving more than 4 million employees across Fortune 500 employers, where he led finance, legal, and revenue operations through 5x growth. Before Nayya, Benton spent six years in finance leadership roles at AbleTo Inc., rising from Manager of Strategic Finance to Senior Vice President of Finance. At AbleTo, he co-led a $500 million recapitalization with UnitedHealth Group and, 18 months later, the company's full acquisition by UnitedHealth — helping scale the business roughly 15x along the way.

"Health plans are under real pressure to close care gaps at scale, and that's the exact problem Ash was built to solve," Benton said. "I don't see my role as just to build finance that keeps up with Ash's growth — it's to give everyone here the information and advice they need to make the most sound decisions they can, and the discipline to back the right bets as we scale, so that Ash can serve a real need for as many health plan members as possible."

A Shared Track Record Scaling Through a Payer Acquisition

Stout and Benton overlapped at AbleTo Inc. during its scale-up and acquisition by UnitedHealth, giving Ash's leadership team firsthand, shared experience building a health tech company from the ground up to a payer-scale exit.

"Jon and Matt have both been in the room when a health tech company scales the right way," said David Stein, CEO and co-founder of Ash. "That kind of experience is exactly what we need as we deepen our work with payers. Matt brings the financial discipline to scale responsibly, and Jon brings a board-level view shaped by years on both the payer and operator side of growth. We're fortunate to have them."

What It Means for Health Plans

Closing HEDIS gaps at scale takes more than a kit and a mailer — it takes a partner that understands how health plans make decisions, budget for programs, and measure success against Star Ratings. Stout and Benton's shared background inside payer-facing health tech gives Ash a leadership bench that's built specifically for that dynamic, at a moment when the company is deepening its work with Medicare Advantage plans nationwide.

Ash has processed more than 4 million biomarkers across the US, offering more than 100 biomarkers in all 50 states, and is HIPAA compliant with a CAP-accredited, CLIA-certified lab network.¹

Read the Full Announcement

For the complete press release, including additional background on Stout's and Benton's careers, see the full press release.

If you're a health plan looking to close HEDIS gaps for hard-to-reach members, get in touch with the Ash team to talk through what a gap closure program could look like for your population.

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