Starting in December 2023, Alyssa stepped in as the CEO of Empower Aesthetics, a MedSpa platform by Shore Capital Partners, for which she previously served on the board of directors.
From May 2021-November 2023, Alyssa served the CEO and a director of Healthwell Acquisition Corporation I (a “SPAC”). After their successful $250 million IPO on the NASDAQ in August 2021 (“HWELU”), Healthwell’s team and board vetted over 100 companies and issued 14 LOIs in 24 months, completing private equity style due diligence on each.
From January 2018 through April 2021, Alyssa served as the CEO of Surgical Solutions, a health care services company first owned by Sterling Partners and acquired by Grupo Vitalmex in February 2020, a portfolio company of Australis Partners. She was named one of Crain’s Top Women Leaders in Healthcare in both 2018 and 2019.
Alyssa is the author of Amazon-bestseller, Leadership and Life Hacks: Insights from a Mom, Wife, Entrepreneur and Executive (ForbesBooks 2019).
From 2015-2017, Alyssa served as the Managing Partner of AJR Ventures, a firm that provide: strategic advisory services to private equity firms and family offices on their new business unit development and e-commerce strategies.
From 2014-2022, Alyssa served as a lecturer-in-management at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. In 2020, Alyssa became an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago’s Booth Business School, teaching a course annually on Women as Investors, Directors, CEOs and Executives, as well as the Global New Venture Challenge
Previously, Alyssa served as the founder & CEO of Bottlenotes, Inc. and author of Bottlenotes Guide to Wine: Around the World in 80 Sips®.
Alyssa was named one of Inc. Magazine’s “30 Under 30” coolest entrepreneurs in America.” Bottlenotes received the “People’s Choice Award” at the Empact Showcase at the United Nations, honoring the top 100 companies with founders under 35.
Alyssa earned a B.A. in Political Science and the History of Art from Yale University in 2000 and an M.B.A. from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business in 2005.
Alyssa currently serves also as an elected School Board Member for District 36 in Winnetka, Illinois.
When not immersed in business and civic life, Alyssa loves to run hard, do yoga, ski fast, watch her daughters play tennis and ride horses, and try as hard as possible to decipher a slider from a curve ball from her husband, 1990 MLB World Series champion and X10 Capital team member, Hal Morris.
Company: Empower Aesthetics
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company
Alyssa Rapp: Empower Aesthetics is one of the leading private equity backed MedSpa platforms in the US. Shore Capital is our financial sponsor. We are striving to partner with some of the brightest clinical leaders in the space- mostly women :)- and building a platform with geographic focus in Texas/Tennessee, up throughout the Midwest, and in the Southeast up the seaboard to Upstate NY. More on us is available at www.empower.spa.
My personal bio is available here: https://www.chicagobooth.edu/faculty/directory/r/alyssa-rapp
If you were in an elevator with Warren Buffett, how would you describe your company, your services or products? What makes your company different from others? What is your company’s biggest strength?
Alyssa Rapp: See previous answer for who we are.
What makes us different: we are partnering with women entrepreneurs who value clinical excellence, clinical training, and clinical outcomes. They partner with us as a managed service organization so they can offload the “chores” of running a business like finance, HR, digital marketing, technology, and more, and focus on team building and training and client experiences. The culture whose core values include winning as one team with a passion for service and commitment to excellence are what set us apart.
Quiet quitting, The Great Resignation, is an ongoing trend causing many businesses to struggle to keep talent engaged and motivated. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued, and misunderstood in the workplace. In your experience, what keeps employees happy? And how are you adapting to the current shift we see?
Alyssa Rapp: I believe that in-person time with teams, in the office, outside of the workplace, etc., matters tremendously. Even if we are now permanently in a hybridized work environment, inclusive of travel, even when corporate headquarters exist, the idea that we must have in person touchpoints in order to build trust and camaraderie is as true as ever. Thereafter, all of the obvious tools and techniques for assessing engagement are still required: 360 reviews, annual goal/career pathing sessions with key leaders in an organization, etc., so that people feel valued and heard and that they are being taken care of as people, not just employees, is always the key ingredient to building successful teams, in my experience.
Online business keeps on surging higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for the year to come and how are you capitalizing on the tidal wave?
Alyssa Rapp: We look forward to introducing more telehealth opportunities into our service mix where applicable (mostly in wellness service delivery at those MedSpas that provide them), as well as enhancing our ecommerce skills and capacity for product sales and even gift giving.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as THE real challenge right now?
Alyssa Rapp: The real challenge is building a growing enterprise while simultaneously be building the infrastructure to support it. Enhancing the engine while flying the plane. But we’re still flying/ascending so we’ll get it done!
In your experience, what tends to be the most underestimated part of running a company? Can you share an example?
Alyssa Rapp: There are all of the obvious expectations of being a CEO: managing all key stakeholders (the executive leadership team, the board, and in the case of Empower Aesthetics, our key seller partners who are key leaders within the organization as well). This is the expected work- and the time and relationship investment required to do each well is significant. What is the most underestimated part of running a company is all of the other “stuff”- and that each relationship you manage has to be bespoke. In meeting people where they are, some prefer frequent informal interactions, some prefer formal scheduled interactions, and then there is all of the “unexpected curveballs” you never saw coming that you have to make time for. “Getting it all done” is probably the hardest part, while investing enough in each individual relationship.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Alyssa Rapp: Time travel. Be in 4x places in one day without the planes, trains, and automobiles to get there.
What does “success” in 2024 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision
Alyssa Rapp: We have five MedSpa partners and counting in the Empower Aesthetics family. Success, in 2024, means continuing to bring in our next 3x partners currently under LOI and continuing to win as one team.
