Design by Chris Nicholls
“We love small businesses—we are a small business. But it’s just about making the greatest possible impact for the most American workers.”
Before her life was upended, Chelsea Ryckis was a driven, successful college student. A young woman who had excelled at everything she put her mind to, she was one of the top college athletes in the country, on track for medical school, and confident about her abilities to achieve her goals.
But a traumatic brain injury changed everything. While at softball practice, Ryckis was hit in the head by a fly ball, knocking her off her feet. She then attempted to return to playing too soon after the concussion, aggravating the injury. At the time, her health care providers didn’t recognize the seriousness of the injury, but it soon ended her ability to play the sport. It also created crippling reactions to light and sound that left her barely able to complete her bachelor’s degree.
The drive and confidence she felt before her injury was replaced by confusion and fear—she didn’t feel like herself, and she didn’t know how to get better. Simple things, such as making change at the store, were difficult. She was so sensitive to light and sound that she moved into a trailer behind her parents’ house.
Despite its dramatic effect on Ryckis’ life, the health care system was slow-moving and not helpful in diagnosing or treating her symptoms. Eventually, she was able to enroll in a brain injury rehabilitation program—which she paid for herself—and began the slow process to recovery. “I had to figure out ways to digest information about how to make myself better,” she says. “I learned the power of advocating for your own health.”
“It was an injury that was invisible to others,” she adds. “There were moments when I felt like a shell of myself, and wondered—am I ever going to be my normal self?”
After years of time and effort, Ryckis says she found a way to “bounce forward” rather than bouncing back. Instead of returning to her old self, she created a new narrative for her life and found success along a new path.
Although born and raised in Canada, Ryckis’ professional journey took her to the U.S., first as a fundraiser for a nonprofit, and then as an agent for Colonial Life.
A fiduciary role in the benefits world
Today, Ryckis is the president and co-founder of Ethos Benefits, an Orlando, Florida-based brokerage that works with mid-sized and large companies. Ryckis and her husband, Donovan, first began as business partners, combining their strengths: He brought the financial expertise and experience with fiduciary concepts, she brought the systems management and human capital experience.
“We decided to go exclusively into group benefits, and we were going to work to find the right fit for employers when it came to building custom health plans and bringing the fiduciary component that Donovan had learned on the financial side into group health plans,” she says.
“Fiduciary has become kind of a buzzword,” Ryckis notes, adding that even with so much regulatory focus emphasizing the fiduciary role of both retirement and health plan advisors, the concept is still not well-understood by some. “The word is being used so often that it’s getting watered down, but the impact and consequences of not understanding it have never been larger.”
The company has worked with businesses of all sizes for years, but has recently shifted its focus to larger, self-funded businesses. Ethos recently sold its small business unit so it could fully commit to its new direction. Ryckis notes that by focusing on larger employers, her company can implement change and innovation on a larger scale.
“We believe there’s only one way to control the cost of health care in the long-term, and that’s by controlling the cost of claims. And we found we weren’t always able to bring these solutions to smaller employers,” she says. “Those types of plans didn’t give us access to the type of data that we could use to take action and save money in the long term.”
“We love small businesses—we are a small business. But it’s just about making the greatest possible impact for the most American workers.”
Focusing on businesses at a larger scale allowed her company to innovate further and explore new options. For example, Ryckis launched a “Care Coach” program in 2023 for clients with reference-based pricing health plans. The program assigns a care coach to each employee in an organization to help make health care delivery more efficient and less expensive.
Ryckis says she has learned to manage processes, not people, adding that her company works with clients to find the best plan for them over time. “I think there is a tendency in our industry to say that self-funding will solve all programs for employers,” she says. “I agree that’s the only way to control cost in the long-term, but there’s a finesse that comes with these programs. I think, unfortunately, there are employers out there with a bad taste in their mouth for this kind of program because it wasn’t implemented properly when they worked with other advisors in the past.”
Communication and engagement
Ryckis embraces change and is bullish on advances like artificial intelligence, saying it has allowed her company to streamline processes and standardize routine procedures. But she adds that the technology can be problematic in other areas, and that it still has some growing to do. “I’ve heard about a lot of brokers using AI to create benefit guides, to create notices to employees, things like that,” she says. “We might try that, but it’s really important to review that information before you put it out there, because AI can only do so much.”
Another area of innovation that Ryckis focuses on is finding ways to improve the employee experience. “Concepts like custom health care plans, direct contracting and reference-based pricing aren’t new, but there has been a big push recently towards these types of data-driven health plans,” she says. “But I think there needs to be more focus on innovation within the employee experience. You can have the most innovative program in the world, but if the end user doesn’t find it useful and impactful, does it really matter how innovative you are?”
Ethos uses text messaging and social media platforms to help communicate and educate. “It has to start with communication, but that doesn’t just mean more emails or posters in a break room,” she says. “It requires engaging content. We used to live in an era of information; we are now in an era of attention. Who can keep somebody’s attention for more than 10 seconds? That’s where I think innovation is going to come in.”
As part of their effort to harness new technology and platforms, Chelsea and Donovan Ryckis recently created the Ethos Effect Podcast, an ongoing series of interviews with business trailblazers and innovative thinkers. Each episode “offers a deep dive into the stories of those who have embraced their core values and used them as a competitive edge to challenge the status quo.”
“Highly tenacious”
Embracing innovation while providing a personal touch — that’s what Bryan Orr says helps set Ryckis apart from others in the field. Orr is the president of Kalos Services, a commercial and residential construction firm based near Orlando. His company employs approximately 300 people and has been working with Ethos for more than two years.
“Chelsea is very open-minded about using technology-based solutions, employee outreach-type solutions, but these were also things that required a lot of legwork,” Orr says. “She has an intense personality but is also very empathetic.”
He adds that the Ethos approach was significantly more hands-on than other brokers he’d worked with. “Chelsea and the whole team have a level of care for individual employees and their individual needs that you don’t usually see,” he says.
Orr also describes Chelsea as an excellent problem solver who is “highly tenacious.”
“Agencies will tell you what you want to hear, but when the rubber meets the road, they’re not going to put their name on the line,” he says. “But she’s consistently willing to do that. She is personable, but good at being highly dogged at problem-solving.”
Ethos works with Kalos on a care-coaching program, which provides employees with access to coaches who can answer questions and provide guidance. “That was an innovative solution that they came up with,” Orr says. “People have a lot of questions and concerns about their care and the decisions surrounding care. So, it’s been really nice to have someone who they can talk to and get consistent answers to their questions. It’s not just a broker, but someone who actually engages in setting up appointments and talking to the providers and health insurers. It takes a lot of burden off of our HR team.”
Health care can be frustrating for both employees and employers, but Orr says he knows he can go to Ethos, and they will not pass the buck but listen and help, even when he’s fed up with the health care system.
“It’s hard to find a person who’s firm and direct, but who you know will have your back,” he adds. “They can talk you off the ledge, and she’s done that with me and with my HR team a few times. That’s really rare.”
Connecting… on the green
One of Ryckis’s other passions is golf. She is part of a nonprofit group in Florida that seeks to empower women through the game of golf—a pastime that has been an essential part of networking for many men in business, but one where women sometimes feel left out.
“Golf can be a little pretentious, in my humble opinion. It’s that accessibility thing,” Ryckis says.
The program is called the “Ladies Executive Golf Society (LEGS)” and has chapters across the country. Ryckis, who is president of the Orlando chapter, says it’s intended to be a welcoming environment and inclusive space for women of all levels of achievement. The group’s web page says the goal is to build community, connections and business relations for women through the sport.
“What’s interesting is that men often have less of a problem going and golfing 18 holes with no experience,” Ryckis says. “But women think twice. So, my mission is to help empower women in all areas of life.”
Ryckis says her local LEGS program has generated close to $200,000 in business for its 70 members, while also raising and connecting women with new job opportunities. In addition, Ryckis also helps lead a “Golf & Grit” group that works to introduce women to golfing across the country.
As if she doesn’t have enough on her plate, Ryckis also teaches yoga, mentors young women in the benefits and insurance industry, and works with the Wonder Woman Mastermind, a group that supports and shares resources among women business leaders. The group has monthly meetings where they discuss leadership, business, professional development and related topics.
Ryckis cites a sense of community as one of her core values. “The whole point in everything we do is community connection,” she says. “Sometimes in this industry, it’s really easy to isolate yourself because others may do something you don’t like, or work with a vendor you don’t like, or whatever. There’s all this divisiveness within our industry, so whenever I get a chance to speak or share my influence, it’s all about collaboration over conquering.”
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Photography by Kevin Garrett
Chelsea Ryckis always knew what she wanted — but then her life took a different path
Chelsea Ryckis always knew what she wanted — but then her life took a different path
metamorphosis
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