Alyssa Rapp

Alyssa currently serves as the CEO and Empower Aesthetics. Alyssa also serves as an independent director for two portfolio companies for Chicago based private equity firm, Shore Capital Partners, where she actively engages with fellow board directors and management teams on best in class execution, mergers and acquisitions and new platform strategies. Finally, Alyssa is an elected member of Illinois’ District 36 School Board.

Alyssa began her career as a Dot.com CEO in Silicon Valley, the founder and CEO of Bottlenotes, Inc., an ecommerce platform (“Netflix for Wine”), that grew into the leading interactive media company in the alcohol beverage category. Thereafter, from 2015-2018, Alyssa served as the Managing Partner of AJR Ventures, a strategic advisory firm for family offices and private equity firms on market development, digital and e-commerce strategies for select portfolio companies. During that same timeframe, Alyssa has served as a lecturer-in-management at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, previously teaching courses entitled the Global Dynamics of the Wine Industry and in the core curriculum annually entitled Managerial Skills. She also joined the faculty at the University of Chicago’s Booth Business School in 2019 as an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship, teaching a course annually on Women as Investors, Directors, CEOs and Executives, and was recently asked the lead the Global New Venture Challenge for Booth for its global executive MBAs.

From 2018-2021, Alyssa served as the Chief Executive Officer of Surgical Solutions, a B2b healthcare services business providing non-clinical surgical services to hospitals owned by Chicago based private equity firm, Sterling Partners. As CEO, Ms. Rapp led a successful turnaround of the enterprise, driving 21% sales growth with 90% customer retention, and successfully selling the company to a global strategic enterprise, Grupo Vitalmex. She served as CEO of the US subsidiary with the new parent. 

Since 2021, Alyssa has served as the Chief Executive Officer and Director of Healthwell Acquisition Corp. I, a $250MM SPAC (NASDAQ: HWEL) seeking to merge with a leading healthcare technology company. Alyssa has gained frontline experience as a public company CEO and director, leading the organization through the IPO and its robust merger and acquisition processes. Healthwell has diligenced over 100 companies and submitted more than 12 LOIs over 18 months, while navigating a challenging bear market. Healthwell announced its merger with Starton Therapeutics in April 2023 and expects the transaction to close in Q3 2023.

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. She is the author of Amazon Bestseller, Leadership and Life Hacks: Insights from a Mom, Wife, Entrepreneur & Executive (ForbesBooks, October 2019).