Lindsey Kratzer
CEO and Founder
Spark Health Advisors
The growth platform for health and benefits companies selling into the employer and payer markets.
Positioned to compete in this market, with direct access to the decision-makers who move it.
- Client engagements
- 30+
- Decision makers
- 100+
- Buyer interviews
- 100+
- Covered lives
- Millions
Across digital health, biotech, and provider organizations.
Influencers across benefits and healthcare.
Direct conversations with the people who buy.
Reached through the stakeholders we engage.
The Problem
The first thing worth knowing is where you actually stand.
Selling into the employer and payer markets is complex, and it keeps shifting. There is no single playbook.
The right approach depends on your stage, your buyer, your channel, and your product. Most companies come in assuming the traction they earned elsewhere will carry over. Some of it does. The parts that do not tend to surface a year in, after the effort is already spent.
What it costs
What follows are long sales cycles, low win rates, and a lot of effort that never turns into traction. Growth stalls.
What is Spark
The growth platform and the channel, in one place.
01The Platform
Prepares you to compete in the employer and payer markets.
Where a solution is not ready, we name the gap and close it. Product, marketing, financial value, and channel strategy.
02The Channel
Connects you to the decision makers who move solutions forward.
We leverage our network from the start. Members shape your buyer research, pressure test your positioning, and coach you on how this market actually buys.
The Client Journey
What working with Spark looks like.
Three steps, each one shaped around where your company actually is.
01
GTM Strategy
Buyer research built from primary interviews with the people who decide. Positioning and message. A defensible ROI story. Channel strategy and playbooks. You come out knowing exactly who you are selling to and what to say.
02
Market Activation
Dedicated time each month with our network. Members coach you on how this market buys and react to your positioning. This is where the sales motion starts.
03
Growth
The network becomes a channel and you are building real relationships across it. As your priorities shift, we source new relationships to match. The momentum compounds as the network grows around where you are headed.
Our Experience
Select companies we’ve helped grow across the healthcare ecosystem.
BiotechnologyDigital healthProvider organizations
The Network
The Strategic Executive Network.
Relationships that took years to build, working for you from day one.
These are working relationships built over years. When we bring you in, you arrive with our trust behind you, and you meet these people again and again rather than once across a conference table.
We stay in the middle the whole way. We curate who you meet, gather their feedback, and refine how you show up to the market.
Network Member Roles
- National and regional practice leaders at leading benefits brokers.
- Broker producers with employee books of business.
- Senior sales executives across health plans and TPAs.
- Health plan executives from national carriers.
- Partnership executives from digital health aggregators.
Represented Organizations
Who is actually in the network.
Collective intelligence informing our playbooks and our client work.
The Team
Your dedicated commercial engine.
Purpose-built for the employer and payer ecosystem, with senior leadership directly involved in the work.
Anish Patel
COO and General Partner
Shannon Shearn
SVP of Client Engagement
For Senior Leaders
Bring your perspective to the network.
If you are a senior leader within the employer benefits ecosystem—with experience across brokers, consultants, health plans, TPAs, or channel partners—we would like to hear from you.
A shared operating layer
Accessed via a customized portal, giving you a clear view of clients and conversations where your expertise matters.
Coordinated by Spark
Behind the scenes, we coordinate the network, research, content, and operating rhythm around each client’s success.
Resources
Take the thinking with you.
We share the frameworks, data, and methodologies we use to assess readiness and shape commercial strategy across the employer market.
Whitepaper
Decoding the Self-Funded Employer Buyer Cycle
Download
The 2025 Employer Buying Map
How employers actually buy today—the gatekeepers, the filters, and what it takes to build momentum.
Latest insights
Why Great Health and Benefits Solutions Still Struggle to Sell to Employers
If you've built a strong healthcare or benefits solution but aren't getting traction with employers, you're not alone—it's not a product issue; it's a system issue.
Read article
9 Key Insights for Accelerating Growth with Employers
Self-insured employers represent a $600B market opportunity but are increasingly difficult to reach — here are 9 keys to success gathered from over a decade of experience working with employers.
Read articleLet's see if it fits.
You have already proven this works. Now you need this market to see it. We will be honest with you about where you stand.