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Nikita Singareddy ’13 Named to Forbes 30 Under 30 List

Nikita Singareddy ’13 is the CEO of Fortuna Health, helping people navigate the Medicaid system.

Nikita Singareddy ’13 has recently been selected for the 2025 Forbes 30 Under 30 list, a symbol of “achievement and recognition” for individuals under 30 years of age in their respective industries. Singareddy is the co-founder and CEO of Fortuna Health, a platform analogous to a “TurboTax for Medicaid.” An avid debater and CaMD Scholar while a student at Andover, Singareddy worked in numerous industries after graduating before starting Fortuna Health.

Having grown up in Australia, Singareddy entered Andover in tenth grade. In an interview with The Phillipian, she spoke about her time in the debate club Philomathean Society (Philo) and the intellectual exploration that came with debate. As a CaMD Scholar, Singareddy researched the media portrayal of immigrant sex workers, a topic that prompted the criticism of a conservative commentator online. 

Philo — I was a ride or die from the second I got to campus. Hugely influential for me as a certified debate kid and a lot of my closest friends came from Philo, [with whom] I’m still close with today… Being a CaMD Scholar is one of those wonderful opportunities that Andover gives you. You can go really, really deep and you get to do the type of research and interviews that college Ph.D. student researchers are supposed to do,” said Singareddy.  

She continued, “If you want to know the truth, I cried when I read [the critical comment]. When you’re fifteen, sixteen years old, you don’t expect your work to go beyond Andover… But actually, I had a bunch of Andover faculty members, some from the English Department, writing defenses of not just me as a student, because it’s not about that… [They were] more a defense of Andover’s educational style and the way that it’s very fiercely independent.”

Singareddy went on to obtain a degree in History with a concentration in Statistics at Columbia University. During college, Singareddy also pursued a wide range of internships and advocacy projects, from working in digital privacy and governance to advocating for a 15 dollar minimum wage. 

“I am not someone who likes to be bored, so picking things that interest me and then just leaning into it to find out more has just continued to connect me to wildly fascinating people and projects… I always make it very public that I’m leaning into those things and after I’ve talked about it, I also ask for things. I’m not afraid to ask. A lot of the internships that I did were not real internships, as in they weren’t available. I just tried to create them as opportunities and manifested it in a structured way,” said Singareddy.

After college, Singareddy worked at various healthcare companies before joining with two business partners to solve a problem in the healthcare system: Medicaid, the government’s health insurance program for people of low incomes. They eventually created the premise for Fortuna Health, which helps people navigate the complex Medicaid system.

“Every state has its own rules related to Medicaid eligibility. There are multiple different Medicaid programs you [or] your household may qualify for. And then you have to go through actually enrolling in that program… It can be very confusing to a lot of people, particularly if you’re doing multiple at the same time. So what Fortuna does is create that as an end-to-end digital experience. So the first part starts in just understanding if you’re eligible. We try to create that magic moment of letting you know in less than 60 seconds if you or your household qualifies for one of the government coverage programs,” said Singareddy.

She continued, “Then we take you through a kind of guided enrollment, personalized to you, as efficacious and easy to understand as possible. And then we are submitting applications, triaging applications, doing a bunch of automations to process those with the administrative body on the back end. So the TurboTax analogy is pretty similar to how you might do your taxes on TurboTax instead of doing it directly with the state.”

Kicking off 2025, Singareddy and her partners Ben Wesner and Cydney Kim were named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, recognizing their work as younger entrepreneurs in creating Fortuna Health. Singareddy reflected on the honor, highlighting the feeling of validation that the recognition gave the company, especially as a young organization compared to the rest of the healthcare industry.

“I’m really, really proud of our work, [and] I’m really proud of our co-founders. But most importantly, our entire team is under 30… A lot of healthcare, [and] generally a lot of industries, are full of people who’ve been in the space far longer than you have. So to build anything, you need to be a little bit naive, [have] a lot of passion, and also be really thoughtful about what you’re working on. And I think our team has the perfect combination of those things. And so getting [30] under 30, I think, was another way of being appreciated for doing that,” said Singareddy.

Singareddy reflected on how many moments that turned out to be formative ones happened by accident. She concluded by noting that her approach to life–leaning into spontaneity — has so far been a worthwhile method to making a meaningful life.

“So many of the best things in my life have come from doing unexpected things or leaning into the randomness. I have found that that has brought me to the things that have given me the most pleasure and enjoyment and the things that have made life worth it. And so that means if a path that has not been trod is in front of you, take the weird path. I highly encourage taking the weird path,” said Singareddy.