The impetus for forming the Lead Quality Alliance arose from experiences shared among its Founding Members at an industry trade show in Chicago in 2023, regarding our mutual interest in supporting a positive response to the challenges of growing our respective businesses under increasing regulatory oversight that has followed the introduction of new technologies and evolving business models in our industry. As a group of industry veterans and business associates collectively representing major stakeholders within the sales leads supply-chain, we all witnessed the sector’s ascension from a nascent niche industry once dominated by direct-mail and manual cold-calling, to the explosive growth and technical evolution experienced with the advent of high-speed Internet, the Search Engine, Call-Automation, and the resulting proliferation of mobile devices and various digital marketing tactics. And lately of course – the advent and broad application of AI – which in our estimation has a lot to offer our industry and carries much promise as a significant part of the solution to the current focus on Consumer Choice, Data Privacy and the reduction of un-wanted robocalls & texts, by industry Regulators charged with enforcing TCPA, FCC and CMS consent and brand transparency compliance.
The primary objectives of growing the LQA are to identify and implement positive solutions from within the industry itself that align with and promote practical and necessary regulatory policies, while offering enabling technologies and business practices between stakeholders that will serve all constituents while supporting healthy growth of both the Lead Generation and Consumer Marketing sectors. We urge all relevant stakeholders who intend to build your business in this arena to consider joining this effort.
Leadership
Pat Murphy
Pat is a serial entrepreneur who brings more than 35 years of experience launching groundbreaking technology companies to LeadScorz®. His experience spans the development of online business applications and services across several verticals including financial services, healthcare, education and gaming. In his early career he designed and marketed several enterprise applications, then served in C-Suite roles for six cloud-based businesses, starting with N2H2 in 1997, followed by Mosaix Communications, Net2Trak, Vega Performance Marketing, InstaCover, and finally Orca Analytics, which became LeadScorz.
Pat co-founded and was CEO of Vega Performance Marketing, a digital marketing agency and technology platform that supported several Microsoft Product Groups (including Bing, Microsoft Rewards, Xbox, Office365) and became the Microsoft CPA Marketplace. It was this experience that identified the universal challenges faced by large enterprises of qualifying and managing incoming sales leads, and the inability of existing scoring solutions to address that need. This led Pat to create the LeadScorz Grading Engine™ and to launch LeadScorz Inc. with his long-time business partner Judd Boone. Pat has earned both a B.S. in Agricultural Economics and an MBA from Washington State University.
Mark Seghers
Mark is a former carrier executive and subsequent entrepreneur in the InsurTech and Insurance Marketings Space. With over 25 years’ experience as an industry leader, Mark has led companies in the leads, digital health, insurance quoting and technology consulting spaces. In addition to launching startups such as Norvax/GoHealth, LeadEnvoy, healthIO, Senior Insurance Marketing Association (SIMA), NOLHA, Inspire Health Tech and others, Mark has worked as an executive for Connecture, Milliman, Quotit, Health Benefits Direct and Connextions, and has served as a consultant to numerous carriers, agencies and benefits advisors.
While working in the Leads business, Mark saw that vast changes were needed in the industry to adopt reasonable standards and to align like-minded organizations to balance consumer needs, compliance, and profitability. This observation led Mark to create Inspire Health Tech to help insurance marketers provide AI-based Medicare plan recommendations to seniors. In 2023, Mark co-Founded the Insurance Marketing Coalition (IMC) which exists to champion ethical and legal generation and nurturing of Insurance Leads. Later that year, Mark joined Pat to introduce the Lead Quality Alliance to broaden and actuate these beliefs across all sectors of the leads industry.
Michael Cho
Michael is the Co-Founder and CEO of MyMedicareBot (“MMB”), a Medicare Insights and Sales Automation company. MMB helps Medicare health plans and brokers grow and retain their membership with actionable customer and market insights and innovative distribution technologies. Previously, Michael was the Founder of DestinationRx now ConnectureDRX which built and operated the first Medicare marketplace for CMS and leading health plans brokers nationwide. Michael is now applying his experience to help modernize the Medicare distribution industry he helped create and innovate since the passage of the Medicare Modernization Act in 2003. Michael received his MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA and a B.A. from Columbia University.
Farzin Espahani
With a proven track record spanning over 18 years, Farzin has successfully navigated the dynamic landscape of healthcare and technology. His leadership at QuinStreet, a leading provider of digital marketing solutions for health plans and agencies, has been instrumental in driving transformative projects that elevate the industry’s standards. By leveraging technology and data-driven insights, Farzin has helped QuinStreet deliver personalized and relevant experiences to healthcare beneficiaries, empowering them to make informed decisions about their healthcare options. His focus on innovation and compliance ensures that QuinStreet’s marketing practices align with industry standards and regulatory requirements, fostering trust and reliability among consumers.