What Makes Moxe?

Q&A with Chief People Officer, Deanna Swanson

As Chief People Officer at Moxe, Deanna Swanson says it’s the people who really stand out to her as what (or who, should we say?) makes Moxe special.

In this Q&A, Swanson shares some insight into Moxe’s culture, values, and her vision for the future.   

Q: What brought you to Moxe? Was there something about the culture that drew you here, or did you see an exciting chance to make an impact on the culture? 

Yes and yes. I love the startup world, and this role was an exciting opportunity to help an organization that’s fairly early in the maturation process. It’s been energizing to help my teammates define how they want to grow, what parts of the culture they want to maintain, and what they are ready to release as we evolve. 

Something that set Moxe apart for me was how mission driven it is. To have this aspirational goal to make a meaningful, positive impact for everyone in the U.S. by making healthcare more affordable was, and still is, very inspiring. 

Q: How would you describe the current culture at Moxe?

Focused, tight knit, and highly collaborative. A lot of the early hires have deep healthcare experience, and that’s part of what makes it a very mission-driven culture. So many of our employees have worked in the industry and understand the challenges, inefficiencies, and frustrations that Moxe helps alleviate.

Folks are able to apply their experience in a way that gives them incredible focus. They understand the depth of the problem and are very determined to solve it. 

I didn’t come to Moxe with healthcare experience, so I have a lot to learn about the industry. As we grow, there are more folks like me who bring perspectives and experience to Moxe from outside the industry, which is also beneficial. 

Ultimately, we all bring a growth mindset and are focused on solutions, which helps fuel that highly collaborative culture. People are willing to do what it takes—including considering others’ perspectives—to do what’s right for the company and our mission.

Q: How do you hope employees will describe the culture five years from now?

In five years, I hope that our employees can identify how they’ve grown. For me, growth is not necessarily a linear path; it’s not just about a title or level of responsibility shift. Growth is about answering the questions: Where do I want to go? What’s impactful for me? How do I want to contribute? 

Five years from now, I hope our employees will say that Moxe is a company that truly fosters leadership and encourages people to feel confident speaking up and sharing their ideas. Everyone that we hire has something important and unique to contribute. I want to make sure we provide opportunities for people to share their feedback—the good, the bad, and the ugly. I want everyone, especially those who may not have the loudest voice in the room, to feel heard. 

Finally, five years from now, I hope employees see and celebrate the meaningful impact they’re making in the industry.

Q: How do you see Moxe’s values of integrity, transparency, persistence, and collaboration permeate the culture? 

We talk about our values as the “Moxe mindset” because they are central to everything we do. We talk about them during the hiring process and we incorporate them into our 360 reviews. 

Every month at our all-company meeting, an employee shares why a certain value resonates with them and how it informs their work. Each value is important across departments, but collaboration may look different for a software engineer than a department leader, for example. It’s great for us to see what the values look like in other peoples’ work. 

Our values are not only foundational to how we operate as a team internally, but they inform how we show up to our customers, our prospects, and other industry partners.

Q: How do you foster the culture as Moxe grows? What are some paint points that have come with growth? 

Growth can be challenging because it can be unwieldy. In a young startup, everyone on the team is used to knowing everything. With growth, communication gaps can arise and folks can struggle to let go of responsibilities when it may make sense. 

As the company evolves, clear communication is increasingly critical. With change, we need to communicate what’s changing and why. Clear communication is a reflection of our core value of transparency, and clearly communicating is a big way we are going to nurture the culture as we grow.

Q: What has impressed you most about your teammates at Moxe? 

The Moxe team is brilliant! There’s an incredible amount of intellectual firepower here. There are people who bring so many different kinds of experiences within healthcare, and I’m impressed with the depth and breadth of our team’s knowledge. 

The team has done a fantastic job of bringing great people to the table: We hire people who want to do excellent work, are determined to succeed, and who see the value in collaboration. I love that everyone who works at Moxe is here, in part, because they want to do work that’s meaningful and impactful.

Q: Engineers make up about half of Moxe’s workforce. As an engineering-minded company, what do you think makes Moxe unique? 

The best engineers are looking for opportunities to solve really hard problems. They want to flex their creative thinking. Moxe is still small enough for our engineering team to be incredibly nimble; we can have an eye on more bleeding edge technologies in a way that can be more challenging in larger shops.

Also, our SVP of Engineering, Krishnan Bhagavatheswaran, is very much a servant leader who is focused on empowering his team to actively innovate and be disruptors. (You can read more about Krishnan’s leadership style and vision for his team here.) We encourage everyone to share their ideas and help shape our path forward. 

Working at Moxe is an exceptional opportunity for people who want to make an impact, use their creativity, and solve big problems.    

Q: What can you share about Moxe’s programs or initiatives that set it apart in terms of employee appreciation?

Figuring out how we can best show appreciation and support our employees is a work in progress and something that I’m passionate about continuing to develop.

Working in the startup space can be intense. We want to ensure we are helping our team maintain a healthy balance between the work they’re doing at Moxe and their personal lives. A couple of things we’re currently doing include: working with Healthy Minds @Work^®, a science-based, data-driven program that specializes in helping employees learn skills they need for well-being; and having quarterly wellness days where we ask folks to log off, take a day for themselves, and do something that helps them create more balance in their lives. 

We are also hoping to create more opportunities to volunteer in the community as a team, as well as have more facetime with each other. There are challenges that come with employees working across the country, and we are invested in figuring out how we can continue to connect, support, and build the team to take Moxe to the next level.

Something that’s important to me—and was a major focus before I joined the team—is driving diversity, equity, and inclusion. I want people who join Moxe to have a sense of belonging and feel empowered to let their strengths and individuality shine through.

About Deanna: A seasoned people operations leader, Deanna (she/her) works closely with our employees and leaders to foster Moxe’s culture and ensure that we are an excellent place to work. She is passionate about building diverse and inclusive performance-driven teams in partnership with strong leaders.