Out of left field, Penn Medicine dropped an RFP for its health system’s food and housekeeping services, a contract worth $1.3 billion over 7 years to the winning bidder. With only a few weeks to submit a technical bid, I led a creative team in developing a pitch focused on a high-tech yet care-centered approach to hospital support services. Our proposal included the story of an Aramark employee who beat the odds on a frightening diagnosis thanks to Penn and the support of his coworkers—demonstrating the deep ties both orgs share with Philly.

I teamed with design to create a patient hospitality brand—PennWell—to launch across seven regional hospitals, integrated into a bedside ordering app, hospital marketing, and housekeeping and courier robots. We showed Penn how to advance smoothly into the future of healthcare with AI-powered room and equipment sensors that conserve energy and labor usage, and we introduced America’s first fully robotic kitchen—built to dish out high-quality hot meals for staff working the night shift.

Penn was impressed by our commitment to this city, their brand, and the future of healthcare. We won the bid and secured the most lucrative U.S.-based contract in company history.

Self-charging robots clean hospital floors and act as follow-along sidekicks for medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, food trays, and admissions kits.