Our people make your people feel so much better that they improve their own health.

We are motivated to bring health to people in the cadence of their lives, beginning with and designing for those with low income.

Better than drugs.

Through clinical trials run from an academic incubator, we found that with a little scaffolding, authentic empathetic human connection can make people feel better, so much so that clinically-relevant outcomes improve above and beyond “usual healthcare”, and to an extent that one health plan CMO called “better than drugs”.

Extending the workforce.

We work with health plans or organizations that bear accountability for the health of their members, currently Medicaid and Medicare. We complement their services, supporting members so that their own staff can focus on those that need them most. At a time of workforce challenges in healthcare, we see an unending pool of gifted empathetic people from all walks of life, who want to help others. We identify and support these talented individuals in the service of patients and plan members.

Technology behind the scenes.

Though people are our leading actors, behind the scenes we advance science and technology to support our ability to be the best humans possible in service of others. We also bring social and clinical expertise to bear to amplify the efforts of those we serve. But we start where others end, with the human being, backing into health care as needed.

  • Maninder "Mini" Kahlon

    Maninder Kahlon, PhD

    FOUNDER & CEO

    Mini is a neuroscientist, was founding Vice Dean of Dell Medical School, University of Texas at Austin, and director of Factor Health, an incubator to test and scale approaches to improving health that start outside the clinic. Previously she was Executive Director & CIO of the Clinical & Translational Science Institute at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), the largest of 60 innovation hubs funded by the NIH. Mini has also led award-winning technical teams, invested in improving K-12 education, and advises public and private health transformation initiatives. https://www.linkedin.com/in/minikahlon/

  • Rhonda Aubrey

    Rhonda Aubrey, BSN, MHI

    CO-FOUNDER, VP PROGRAMS

    Over three decades, Rhonda has been building services for underserved patients. At Dell Medical School, UT Austin, she co-directed Factor Health an incubator that tested and scaled programs in partnership with Medicaid MCOs. Previously, she oversaw a network of federally qualified heath centers (FQHCs), Community Health Center Network, in the San Francisco East Bay. Rhonda is a nurse by background, and when not serving patients, she tends to her farm and farm animals in San Marcos, TX.

  • Bryon Jacob

    Bryon Jacob, MS

    TECHNICAL ADVISOR

    Bryon is co-founder & CTO at data.world, and was previously VP of technology at Homeaway. Bryon guides beheld’s approach to building technology to support human relationship-building, including the leverage of predictive and generative AI and large-scale data models. He has a BS/MS in computer science from Case Western University. Recently published: A Benchmark to Understand the Role of Knowledge Graphs on Large Language Model's Accuracy for Question Answering on Enterprise SQL Databases. https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.07509

  • Mark Berman

    Mark Berman, MD

    CLINICAL ADVISOR

    Mark was previously Chief Medical Officer at Better Therapeutics guiding the development of one of the first FDA-approved digital cognitive behavioral therapeutics. Mark trained in physical therapy (McGill), medicine (Yale) and primary-care internal medicine and population medicine (Harvard’s Brigham & Women’s Hospital). He completed a Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellowship at UCSF and spent time at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation working on obesity prevention policy. Mark is passionate about plant-based diets, active living and creating positive change in the world. 

  • Matthew Sither

    Matthew Sither, MEng

    FOUNDING ENGINEER

    Matt Sither has 20+ years of experience building full-stack solutions. An MIT graduate in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, he specializes in data visualization and analytics, having developed healthcare applications including an EHR-integrated social determinants of health dashboard and medical claims warehousing systems. Matt combines his expertise in multiple programming languages with a passion for creating intuitive user interfaces and implementing AI/ML solutions in healthcare settings.