Joseph Shields

CEO at Transparency Rising

Speaker

Joseph M. Shields, Esq. is the founder and CEO of Transparency Rising, a national nonprofit 501(c)(6) organization serving as a catalyst for pharmacy-benefit transformation and advancing competition, innovation, and trust across the nation’s healthcare and pharmaceutical supply chains.

Founded in 2023, Transparency Rising has grown into a nationally recognized coalition of more than 22 pass-through pharmacy benefit managers and aligned healthcare companies serving over 20 million covered lives. As an impactful platform for market solutions, Transparency Rising connects policymakers, purchasers, investors, manufacturers, technology companies, and pharmacy-benefit innovators—and accelerates new models, strategic partnerships, and scalable alternatives.

Under Joe’s leadership, Transparency Rising has empowered true net-cost and pass-through pharmacy-benefit companies to scale—establishing the model as a national market standard. Its work has supported landmark reforms enacted through the Consolidated Appropriations Act while advancing modern platforms, real-time net-cost analytics, broader access to lower-cost and innovative therapies, fair compensation, and new commercial pathways for medicines.

Joe has provided testimony, legal analysis, and policy guidance to the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, federal and state officials, regulators, employers, healthcare purchasers, and industry leaders. His work focuses on turning policy momentum into durable market change and creating the conditions for transparent healthcare companies to compete, grow, and scale.

Before founding Transparency Rising, Joe served three Governors in New York and New Jersey—Republican and Democratic—as a senior executive and trusted counsel. For more than five years, he led a statewide agency with a budget exceeding $100 million and more than 700 employees. His legal, policy, and technology work received national media attention and recognition for innovation from the Council of State Governments and other organizations.

In the private sector, Joe has advised global companies, philanthropic institutions, emerging growth firms, and businesses of all sizes on complex legal, regulatory, commercial, technology, and public-policy matters involving healthcare, pharmacy benefits, defense, and energy.

Joe earned his law degree from Temple University’s Beasley School of Law and graduated cum laude from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife of more than 20 years and their two children.