J. Lankford Wade is the Chief Executive Officer at UpStream. He previously served as CFO at VillageMD, Summit Health, and US Anesthesia Partners (USAP), and played a key role in VillageMD's acquisition of Summit Health. His extensive experience in financial management and strategic growth, including roles at Aetna and HealthSpring, make him a vital leader at UpStream.

Steve has worked with physicians for 25 years. Most recently, he was Senior Vice President of Population Health for Cone Health, serving as Chief Administrative Officer for Triad Healthcare Network (THN) ACO and Chief Executive Officer of HealthTeam Advantage (HTA), Cone’s provider-led Medicare Advantage health plan.

David 'Dave' Grapey, MD, MHA, is UpStream’s Chief Medical Officer. Prior to UpStream, he served as the Chief Clinical Officer for the Triad Healthcare Network ACO with over 1200 providers and 100,000 members in full-risk value-based contracts and as the Chief Medical Officer for a 5-star, provider owned Medicare Advantage Plan.

He has over 20 years of prior clinical experience as a board-certified urologist. He completed his medical degree from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and his residency at Northwestern University. He also holds a master’s degree in health care administration from the University of North Carolina.

Dr. Christina Rama, starting as an Oncology Registered Nurse, earned her medical degree from Wake Forest University in 2002. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine and served as Chief Resident, later taking on leadership roles at Cone Health, including Chief of Hospital Medicine. Recognized for her achievements with the "Outstanding Women in Business" award in 2020, Dr. Rama is also a dedicated mental health advocate, serving on the Board of Sanctuary House. She holds a Master of Medical Management from Carnegie Mellon University, highlighting her skills in healthcare management.

Will is Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary of UpStream, where he leads the legal and compliance departments. Will has served as a senior legal and policy executive at McKesson, a Fortune 10 healthcare company.

Jane is a top performing recruiting leader with experience in healthcare, professional services, and higher education. Prior to joining UpStream, she was SVP, Talent Acquisition and Provider Growth at VillageMD. As a very early hire at VillageMD, she built and led the talent acquisition, executive search, and provider recruiting functions. She played a critical role in the company’s growth from ~25 employees to over 5,000 during her tenure, including launching a specialized provider recruiting team and provider experience strategy.

John Way brings over 30 years of financial expertise as CFO at UpStream. His background includes impactful roles at Proto Labs and UnitedHealth Group, showcasing skills in corporate finance and healthcare sector management. John also contributes to global hunger solutions as a board member at Many Hands Many Meals. He resides in Minnesota with his family.

Nathan has 14 years’ experience in managing large scale community pharmacy with integrated management of chronic conditions and is one of the founding leaders of UpStream.  He has led the business and clinical operations through exponential company growth including adding over 80k available Medicare patients to the UpStream Practice, embedded CCM teams in over thirty PCP practices, and added over 200 new employees. As a clinical pharmacist and pharmacy manager, Nathan developed key relationships across and a deep understanding of North Carolina’s pharmacy and PCP landscape. He is passionate about improving patient outcomes and bringing out the best in his people.

Nathan holds a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Campbell University. He was awarded the 2011 Community Care Pharmacist of the Year Award in North Carolina.

Annamarie Mann, with over 20 years of experience in employee engagement and development, is the Chief Transformation Officer at UpStream. Her background includes leading Gallup's Global Employee Engagement and Wellbeing Practice and extensive work in leadership coaching. She has contributed to significant research on workplace trends and authored numerous articles in her field. Annamarie holds advanced degrees in Communication Studies and is pursuing a doctorate in Organizational Studies and Human Development.

With a background that includes executive positions focused on enterprise software development across a variety of industries, John brings significant technical experience and applies his knowledge of data-informed process improvement and modern software development to drive innovations that enable health delivery systems to focus on population health and develop their health informatics capacity. 

John served as Chief Data Officer for Prisma Health and as Vice President for the Care Coordination Institute (CCI). Previously, he served as the Deputy Director for Operations and Information Management and Chief Information Officer at South Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services.

John holds Bachelor and Master in engineering from the University of Colorado.