Melissa Owens is Sr Director CX, Healthcare Practice Lead, overseeing a team of specialists in healthcare IT operations, strategy and execution to leverage Cisco CX expertise in delivering healthcare-specific solutions. Melissa’s passion for healthcare IT runs deep, dating back some 30 years ago when she chose to become a biomedical engineer because girls from rural Wisconsin ‘just didn't do that.’ The healthcare IT career path was set, and it has spanned vendor-focused patient and clinician solution development and executive IT roles with health systems. Her decision to join Cisco was fueled by COVID-19 and a mission to help the most people by joining a company with the solutions and expertise to drive true healthcare transformation. Previously, Melissa was Regional Technology Officer for Ascension, serving as the chief IT executive for Ascension Wisconsin’s 23 hospitals and 125 clinics. There she oversaw construction of new facilities, an enterprise-wide Epic implementation, consolidation of the call center strategy, and deployment of virtual care solutions. She also led M&A for Ascension IT nationwide. On the health systems side, Melissa held IT executive positions at WI-based Advocate Aurora and Marshfield Clinic Health Systems, leading application and integration engineering, implementation, population health, lab, radiology, data warehousing and innovation teams. Additionally, she spent nearly eight years at Epic Systems Corporation in Verona, WI, leading interoperability teams, managing technical programs, and developing and launching the Beaker Lab Information System. Melissa holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering from Marquette University and a Master of Business Administration degree from Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University. A respected thought-leader on advancing interoperability, Melissa participated on the National Dialogue for Healthcare Innovation Council and briefed US Congressional staff on Marshfield Clinic’s success in interoperability.