Talkspace, Inc. announced the appointment of Swati Abbott and Liat Ben-Zur to its board of directors as new, independent directors, effective December 1, 2023. With the appointments of Mses. Abbott and Ben-Zur, the board has expanded from seven to nine members, seven of whom are independent.

Ms. Abbott is an independent consultant who previously served as Chief Executive Officer of Blue Health Intelligence (BHI), a healthcare data and analytics company spun out of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA), from 2011 until 2022. During her tenure at BHI, she worked closely with BCBSA to leverage data and advanced analytics to inform provider transparency, establishing high-performance networks and measuring success of value-based care. Prior to joining BHI, Ms. Abbott served as the President of MEDai, a Reed Elsevier company and leading predictive analytics company that assists healthcare payers and providers.

Her leadership and strategic vision led MEDai?s revenue to grow 300% within four years. Ms. Abbott previously served on the board of directors of Magellan Health from 2018 to 2022, and is currently on the board of directors for The Ensign Group, a company providing post-acute care, from 2020. Ms. Ben-Zur has over 27 years of digital product experience in healthcare, software, and consumer businesses.

She most recently served as the Corporate Vice President of Consumer Services at Microsoft, where she led efforts to reshape Microsoft's consumer services businesses. During her time at Microsoft, she notably turned around two declining services into $14B ventures and spearheaded the revival of Microsoft?s Edge browser and the launch of the world's first commercial GPT-4 solution with Bing. After more than two decades of leading technology innovations at Microsoft, Royal Philips, and Qualcomm, Ms. Ben-Zur is now serving as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Storm Ventures, and as a strategic advisor coaching leadership teams on product, growth, culture building and how to harness the power of AI to transform markets.

Ms. Ben-Zur previously served on the board of directors of Umicore SA from 2017-2021, as well as not-for-profits Allseen Alliance and Tender Loving Care Assistance Dogs, Inc., from 2012-2014 and 2010-2014, respectively.