Power Moves: After 8 years with LIFT Labs, Danielle Cohn is helping execs find their purpose across generations

From LIFT Labs to helping execs find their ikigai

A Philly ecosystem builder who left a long-held leadership role last year is hoping to inspire others as they make their own big life transitions.

You may know Danielle Cohn as the former head of the Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs program, which runs a national-facing accelerator for early-stage founders out of the Comcast Technology Center. When she left her role in October after eight years, she planned to take some time to recharge and explore other opportunities. She came to think of it not as a retirement — it’s too soon in her career for that — but an “inspirement,” she told Technical.ly this month.

The result of that reset: She’s now taking on the founder title herself.

Cohn has long pursued personal and professional growth opportunities, and the Japanese concept of ikigai resonated with her — that thing that gives a person purpose, or “what fuels your soul,” she said.

“I’m a builder,” said Cohn, who now splits her time between Chestnut Hill and Longport, New Jersey. “I’ve always been a very curious person, born with a growth mindset, and always — always — have thought about piecing together, what’s next?”

Connecting the dots of the past few challenging years, she realized she’d found her own ikigai during the COVID-19 pandemic — specifically while visiting her 86-year-old dad, Buzz, in a retirement community when he was in hospice following years of dementia and failing health. She felt grateful to be able to spend time with him — “my best buddy” — but also saw her mom grow exhausted from years as his primary caregiver, as well as residents’ loneliness.

“I’m a builder. I’ve always been a very curious person, born with a growth mindset, and always — always — have thought about piecing together, what’s next?”Danielle Cohn My Inspirement

“There has to be a new model for what our future lifestyle looks like,” Cohn recalled thinking. Digging into the care economy’s existing work, she became inspired by the likes of Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures and the company The Holding Co. She identified a gap, which became the inspiration for her new venture aimed at addressing the need for more affordable and inspiring multigenerational care.

Under the umbrella of her business services firm The Wave Ventures, the recently launched and aptly titled My Inspirement aims to help professionals figure out what a more sustainable, fulfilling career and, ultimately, life could look like for them.

For now, her work takes the form of workshops to help executives at any age or career stage determine how to “challenge their own status quo.” It’s not just for those looking to make a big life transition, but also for pros who want to supercharge their growth mindset or get re-inspired by their work to then motivate their teams.

“I decided that this chapter in my life is about sharing [what I’ve learned] with others,” she said. “So I’m essentially, through the workshops, sharing this journey — all the decades of my real-world personal and professional insights, and helping people to discover or rediscover their ikigai.”

But her long-term goal is much more ambitious: to build out new models of affordable, multigenerational lifestyles. That could include anything from shared real estate to education opportunities between different age groups. Throughout, “inclusive community” will be the priority so aging doesn’t need to be a lonely process.

Based on her own conversations and interviews with people at all stages of life, she said, there’s a real appetite for this idea of these more intentional communities.

“It isn’t about quote ‘retirement,’” Cohn said. “It is really about a multigenerational, diverse, inclusive, community-centered design of lifestyle.”

InstaMed’s cofounder and CTO is moving on

Four years after financial firm JPMorgan Chase announced it would be acquiring Center City-based InstaMed, the healthcare payment company’s cofounder and CTO, Chris Seib, is moving on.

InstaMed has been in Philadelphia since 2004 after both of its cofounders left Accenture to start the venture to streamline healthcare reimbursements.

“Today is a bittersweet day for me, as I leave InstaMed, a J.P. Morgan company and J.P. Morgan after over 18 years,” Seib wrote on LinkedIn last week. “I fondly recall the first few years sleeping on couches and giving ‘live action’ demos for potential investors, to navigating the financial crisis as a young FinTech business, to watching the growth, leadership and innovation within our excellent team, and to our exciting combination with J.P. Morgan Chase to create J.P. Morgan Healthcare Payments team. I am confident that this team will be making big impacts in Healthcare Payments for the next 18+ years.”

Next up, he wrote, he’d be spending time with family and “fostering an ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship in Southern California,” where he is based.

InstaMeda cofounder and CEO Bill Marvin and a spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase declined to comment on the transition and future plans for the company.

Committee of Seventy promoted Lauren Cristella to president and CEO

Committee of Seventy has a new head: Lauren Cristella, its interim president and CEO since January.

Over the past five years, Cristella has held several leadership roles with the nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for better government, including chief advancement officer and COO. The appointment makes her the first woman to lead the organization in its nearly 120-year history.

“The Committee of Seventy has promoted, supported and facilitated election integrity for more than a century, and it’s an honor to carry that mission forward,” she said in a statement. “At a time when our city is preparing to elect our 100th mayor, and American democracy is facing its greatest challenges since the Civil War, there’s never been a more important time for Seventy’s work to have an impact.”

The executive role was most recently held by Al Schmidt, who had resigned from the City of Philadelphia’s Board of Elections in November 2021 to take it. He left at the start of 2023 to become acting secretary of state for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania when Gov. Josh Shapiro took office. Schmidt’s tenure followed that of longtime CEO David Thornburgh, who transitioned to senior advisor after seven years at the helm.

Cristella previously worked in leadership roles at the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as the National Constitution Center. The South Philadelphia resident has also served as a president of the League of Women Voters of Philadelphia and is a board member of the Forum of Executive Women.