Merritt Widen
Chairman & CEO, Co-Founder

Merritt Widen is a business leader with over 35 years of entrepreneurial experience in a wide array of industries in the US and Europe. He is Founder and Co-Chairman of Forefront TeleCare, Inc. a national leader in TeleBehavioral Health. He led Forefront and its predecessor companies for over 12 years as Chairman, CEO. He is considered a pioneer and thought leader in the emerging Telehealth sector and is one of the few people in America to have built a leading national Telehealth company from scratch. For nearly two decades previously, he was CEO of Heartland Financial Corp. a boutique investment bank advising startups and serving as court appointed investment bankers/managers for companies in reorganization in bankruptcy. Previously he was Managing Partner of Great Lakes Trading Co. which traded options, stocks and futures as members of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, Chicago Board of Trade, American Stock Exchange, Philadelphia Stock Exchange and Kansas City Board of Trade. He attended the University of Chicago, holds a BA with Special Honors in Psychology from Stanford University and a MBA from the Harvard Business School.​