Techstars’ 2021 UnitedHealthcare

As Mattermost’s head of legal, Jamie Hurewitz helps small businesses create scalable work-from-home models and assists companies transition from in-person to remote work more broadly. One program that Jamie Hurewitz mentors is the UnitedHealthcare Accelerator (UHC), created by Techstars.

One of Techstars’ many accelerators catered toward startups, the UHC Accelerator teaches applicants the skills needed to hone their idea, obtain funding, and operate the business efficiently. Applications opened on February 12, 2021, and ran for about 10 weeks. Within eight weeks of the closing date, Techstars contacted the final applicant pool. Like their prior two UHC Accelerators, in 2019 and 2020, Techstars placed increased emphasis on choosing entrepreneurs from underrepresented backgrounds, like women or members of racial or ethnic minorities.

The 2021 UHC Accelerator began on September 7, 2021, ran for 12 weeks, and contained 10 companies from a candidate pool representing 36 countries. The organization admitted candidates representing technology-oriented solutions to healthcare issues at all process steps. Examples included Confidant, at-home mental health services, Medzoomers’ home prescription delivery service, and Ruth Health, which assists pregnant women with at-home resources.

Regulatory Compliance in Business

Longtime Minnetonka, Minnesota resident Jamie Hurewitz serves as head of legal at Mattermost, where she is responsible for developing the legal and compliance framework for the early stage startup. Jamie Hurewitz's expertise includes employment and intellectual property law, as well as business regulatory compliance.

Compliance is the act of a business obeying rules and regulations pertinent to safe, legal operations in a region, state, or country. Examples of such rules are health standards and data security.

By being compliant, a business acts to maintain its reputation and prevent legal disputes. If a business contravenes any of the rules, it may be subjected to fines or even face charges for non-compliance, becoming vulnerable to financial losses in legal processes. Also, customers naturally tend to distrust entities with a history of noncompliance.

Regulations are not unnecessary obligations, and the majority of these rules contribute to helping businesses achieve better working environments. The purpose of these rules is to protect customers, businesses, and employees, among others. Some of these rules bring about more than one benefit. For instance, safety and security rules help protect workers from harm by reducing accidents and injuries in the workplace that would also directly or indirectly result in financial loss.

SOC 1 Reports Help to Ensure Regulatory

An accomplished legal executive based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, Jamie Hurewitz leverages nearly two decades of legal experience in the technology field to serve as head of legal at Mattermost. Jamie Hurewitz has extensive expertise guiding businesses through mergers and acquisitions, as well as overseeing all aspects of compliance.

Service Organization Controls (SOC) reports are a compliance mechanism that enable businesses to prove their service delivery and control competence to customers. Among these reports, the SOC 1 is required for certain B2B companies that function as service providers. Examples of these businesses include data centers, software-as-a-service providers, and payroll processing businesses.

SOC 1 is crucial because it helps a business ascertain as well as prove that the financial data of its clients is protected. It also supports the internal control over financial reporting process for the business. An SOC 1 report is prepared on behalf of a company by a third party, which must be a certified public accountant. The report is then scrutinized by a financial statement auditor when evaluating the business for compliance with certain regulations, like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which mandates penalties for fraudulent financial reporting.

The Minnesota State Bar Foundation

A tech and intellectual property lawyer, Jamie Hurewitz is the head of legal at Mattermost in Palo Alto, California. Licensed to practice law in Minnesota, Jamie Hurewitz is a member of the Minnesota State Bar Association (MSBA).

MSBA is the oldest professional organization for attorneys in Minnesota. The organization aims to champion justice, equality, and professionalism in the legal space. The Minnesota State Bar Association has a variety of resources and avenues through which it takes care of the professional needs of its members and works to advance the interests of the public. One of such avenue is the Minnesota State Bar Foundation, which MSBA created in 1932.

The Minnesota State Bar Foundation provides monetary grants to law-related and community programs and activities. The foundation offers legal assistance to people who are disadvantaged, and it tries to improve the legal profession’s vitality and the administration of justice. Fundamentally, the foundation's mission is to enable all Minnesotans to have access to justice. From June 2018 to June 2019, the foundation presented $92,500 in grants to 39 nonprofit organizations in Minnesota.