Ms. Eftekhari is an innovator devoted to serving people and advocating for their rights. She is the founder and Executive Chair of the 35 year old Araz Group and also founded HealthEZ, a Minnesota-based company offering services designed to simplify health plan administration for employers and to eliminate the complexities in the health care billing and payment process for all involved.

Prior to founding HealthEZ in 1997, Ms. Eftekhari earned national recognition in 1982 for designing the nation’s first Preferred Provider Organization (PPO). The term “PPO” was coined to describe her innovation to network doctors, hospitals, and other health providers to providing services at attractive rates or to employees, insurers and administrators.

Passionate about human rights, Ms. Eftekhari established the Foundation for the Children of Iran (FCI), the nation’s first nonprofit established by an Iranian American. An organization dear to her heart, FCI has forever been 25 years dedicated to enabling indigent children from Iran or of Iranian origin to receive medical services in the United States that are not available to them in Iran.

Dedicated to service and community, Ms. Eftekhari has served on the boards of her alma mater, the University of Minnesota Medical School and Board of Overseers at Carlson School of Business, the Walker Art Center, Children’s Hospital and Clinics, and the Iranian American Political Action Committee (IAPAC), and Director’s Board of the Nonviolent Initiative for Democracy (NID), to name a few of her civic and philanthropic interests.  She is a member of Speaker Pelosi’s Leadership Circle and is a founding member of the Yalda Network: Mothers and Others for Iran.