Chris Palmieri leads new venture capital fund focused on health care delivery

With that $100 million, Palmieri hopes to invest in 12 to 15 startups. He’s started looking for potential investments, even as he courts potential investors, with a focus on tech-enabled health care services. Companies he’ll consider for investments will have between $2 million and $10 million in annual revenue.
“Everyone is frustrated with how health care is being delivered,” Palmieri said. “The consumer experience is really lagging behind every other industry. People really want to lean in and be part of the solution.”
Winter Street’s staff consists of four people, including Palmieri and two venture partners, Jennifer Bell and Aaron Sells. Palmieri said he’s hearing from leaders of health insurance plans eager to learn about the innovations coming out of Winter Street Ventures and maybe put some of them to use.
“The promise of being able to work with entrepreneurs that are solving complex health care problems and hopefully improving how health care is delivered, that’s really exciting to me,” Palmieri said. “I wanted to do something that would have an impact on the industry that I love, [and] my time is better spent helping other CEOs and entrepreneurs.”
As Harvard opens the first phase of its long-awaited “Enterprise Research Campus” in Allston, its top executive on the project is leaving for a major real estate role at Vanderbilt.
Carl Rodrigues starts full-time as the Tennessee university’s first vice chancellor for real estate facilities and development on Nov. 1. He’ll lead the development and implementation of Vanderbilt’s master plan while working to redevelop its underused properties and overseeing maintenance and operations at its 340-acre campus in Nashville.
Meanwhile, Jen Cohen has been appointed interim chief executive of the Harvard Allston Land Co., taking over for Rodrigues to lead a roughly 10-person staff that oversees commercial development of Harvard’s land in Allston. Cohen has been director of real estate development there, overseeing all aspects of Harvard’s development in the Boston neighborhood.
Rodrigues had joined as its chief executive in 2022, taking over for Tom Glynn.
“Under Carl’s guidance, the HALC team helped advance the Enterprise Research Campus, initiated planning for the next phase of growth, and built a strong foundation for future projects,” Harvard executive vice president Meredith Weenick said in an email. “Perhaps most importantly, Carl has led a committed and capable team that remains focused on our mission as we continue this important work.”
The 900,000-square-foot first ERC phase, developed for Harvard by Tishman Speyer along Western Avenue across from Harvard Business School, is just starting to open; it will include an apartment complex, conference center, a hotel, and labs. Real estate trade group NAIOP Massachusetts plans to give its members an early look with a panel discussion and tour scheduled for Thursday.
Just weeks after Adam Chapdelaine started as the Mass. Municipal Association’s new chief executive two years ago, the MMA handed him an important homework assignment: Study the inadequacies of Proposition 2.5 and report back with an analysis.
The levy limit prevents municipal leaders from raising property tax revenue by more than 2.5 percent in one year without a voter-approved override (exceptions are made for taxes on new construction). The 1980s-era law is considered sacred in some quarters, but is also a source of stress in town halls across the state.
Last week, Chapdelaine and his team unveiled the results of that homework assignment. The picture isn’t pretty. The new report, written by Evan Horowitz at Tufts University on the MMA’s behalf, underscores its conclusion with its title: “A Perfect Storm.”
Cities and towns face historic budget pressures, in part because the Prop. 2.5 limit doesn’t allow municipal budgets to keep up, and because the portion of state aid to communities that’s unrestricted has fallen 25 percent since 2002 when adjusted for inflation.
The report points out that nearly two-thirds of states provide more unrestricted aid to municipalities than Massachusetts does and notes that city and town leaders are prevented by state law from collecting local income or sales taxes (except for hotel and restaurant taxes). The report coincides with Mayor Michelle Wu’s criticism of Prop. 2.5 in a speech last month to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, and in a scrum with reporters afterward.
So what can the MMA do about it? That’s Chapdelaine’s next homework assignment.
The group is vetting a series of proposed solutions. Expect tweaks to Prop. 2.5, such as providing leeway in years of high inflation, along with calls for more state aid and possibly greater taxation authority at the local level.
“I don’t think it’s a surprise to any city or town leader, but what it does is it puts numbers behind our experiences,” Chapdelaine said of the report. “It’s not just ‘things feel tight’ or ‘I think we’re having a bad budget year.’ The realities are there’s a structural challenge with costs outpacing revenue.”
It’s a frustrating time for Representative Katherine Clark, after more than a week into a federal government shutdown. But the House minority whip also sees reason for hope when she looks to the midterm elections next fall.
“I feel very good about winning the House [from the Republicans],” the Massachusetts Democrat said, in response to a question from PR executive Geri Denterlein at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce last week.
The Democrats only need to flip a few seats for that to happen. But Clark said the Republican Party’s redistricting efforts, particularly in Texas, have made it more challenging — though she pointed to a pending ballot question in California to realign districts there and offset the Texas realignment.
Clark portrayed winning the House next year as crucial to representative democracy, given how Republicans have been marching in lockstep with the Trump administration.
“I don’t see any ‘Plan B’ for our country if Democrats don’t win the House back,” Clark said. “I hate to be so blunt about it at such a nice event.”
Clark mentioned the future of the Affordable Care Act, a big sticking point in the budget negotiations between the House and Senate. Clark, like other Democrats, is concerned that millions of people could lose their health care coverage at the end of the year if certain ACA tax-credit improvements aren’t continued.
Many of her colleagues on the GOP side share Clark’s concern about the health care cuts, Clark said, but they will vote along with the president despite what’s best for their constituents.
Grace Lee, chief executive of St. Mary’s Credit Union, was interviewing Clark at the event and asked her what it’s like to be the highest-ranking woman in Congress.
“I feel a lot of responsibility around it [but] it’s also very disappointing,” said Clark, noting that even as minority whip, she is excluded from many important meetings. “The minority whip in Congress should not be the highest-ranking elected woman in the federal government. … I feel the weight of it sometimes. I also feel we have to do better.”