CEO and Co-Founder
Cityblock Health
Iyah Romm is the CEO and co-founder of Cityblock Health, a care delivery and technology company spun out of Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs which focuses on the hardest problem in healthcare—providing sustainable, cost-effective services to populations with the greatest needs.
Iyah founded Cityblock with the philosophy that people want—and deserve—more health, not more healthcare. In 2018, Cityblock launched a groundbreaking model of health and social care tailored to meet the complex health and social needs of those living in poverty. Cityblock’s model is powered by a technology platform purpose-built for low-income populations and designed in partnership with Medicaid-eligible New Yorkers.
Iyah is known nationally as an expert policymaker and practitioner in the field of transforming healthcare delivery and financing. He has drawn on his experiences in the public sector in leading Cityblock, a venture-based tech-enabled startup, and attracting to it a world-class leadership team.
Before Cityblock, Iyah was the Chief Transformation Officer at Commonwealth Care Alliance (CCA) in Massachusetts. There, he helped to steward nearly $1 billion in insurance premiums and care for tens of thousands of Medicaid and Medicare recipients. Iyah also played a significant role in Massachusetts’ healthcare reform efforts, holding leadership roles at the Health Policy Commission, the state Department of Public Health, and as affiliate faculty at Dr. Atul Gawande’s Ariadne Labs.
Iyah studied Biology at Brandeis University and medicine at Boston University before dropping out. He is usually found with his wife and two kids, either chasing garbage trucks in Brooklyn or sailing.
