After spending two decades in executive search, one truth has become crystal clear to me: the quality of a company’s Total Rewards strategy is often the single biggest predictor of long-term success — or quiet decline.
The CHRO and VP of Total Rewards aren’t just “HR people.” They are the architects of the employee experience. They sit at the intersection of talent attraction, retention, culture, and financial performance. In many ways, their role is both the linchpin that holds everything together and the moat that protects the organization.
That perspective is exactly why, when I took over scaling our portfolio company VantaUM, I approached it differently than most utilization management providers.
Most UM solutions are built from the TPA or carrier side. They optimize for the administrator’s workflow and treat the member and provider as afterthoughts. The result is predictable: delays, frustration, broken continuity of care, and ultimately higher costs from avoidable high-acuity claims.
We took the opposite approach.
We decided to build VantaUM as a true concierge utilization management layer designed from the member and provider experience first. We invested heavily in making the process feel human again — intake to physician-ready authorization in under two minutes, real clinical continuity instead of a different nurse every time, and zero nickel-and-diming.
But the bigger strategic bet was this: we wanted to work directly with Total Rewards leaders instead of routing everything through brokers or TPAs.
Self-insured plans give you — the Total Rewards professional — something incredibly powerful: actual control. You can curate the stack. You can choose partners who genuinely improve outcomes instead of just checking compliance boxes. You can build a health solution that is simultaneously more cost-effective and a significantly better experience for your people.
That’s what we’re doing at VantaUM. We sit on top of whatever TPA and broker you already have and become the high-touch utilization management seatbelt that protects both the plan and the people using it.
The early results have been exactly what I hoped to see after two decades of watching great Total Rewards leaders in action: lower friction, better provider relationships, faster decisions, and measurable cost savings — all without forcing a full replacement of the existing ecosystem.
If you’re a VP of Total Rewards or CHRO at a self-insured employer, I’d love to share what we’re building. No hard pitch, no deck full of generic slides — just a real conversation about what’s actually working (and what’s still broken) in the self-funded space.
You can reply to this post, DM me, or shoot me a note at jonah@wellsonyx.com. Happy to send over a short brief or jump on a quick call.
The best Total Rewards strategies I’ve ever seen weren’t about squeezing costs — they were about building systems that make people feel genuinely cared for while still being financially responsible.
That’s the bar we’re trying to hit at VantaUM.
Looking forward to connecting with those who are trying to do the same.
— Jonah Manning CEO & Co-Chair, Wells Onyx | Building VantaUM