Toyin Ajayi

Cityblock is a rarity: a for-profit, venture-backed provider of primary care, urgent care, mental health care, and social services aimed at low-income patients covered by Medicaid and Medicare. Ajayi, a physician who took the reins as CEO in 2022, argues that traditional fee-for-service medicine has largely failed marginalized people, who often have complex health needs. Cityblock’s value-based contracts with insurers incentivize the company to provide a broad set of services that, she argues, will improve patient outcomes. The 6-year-old Brooklyn, N.Y.-based “unicorn” has been valued at over $5 billion and serves over 70,000 members in historically underserved neighborhoods in Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Washington, D.C.