Supportiv Welcomes Deborah Francis, Accelerating Growth Through Enterprise Partnerships
Supportiv, recently named one of the Bay Area’s fastest-growing startups, welcomes Deborah Francis, a health tech veteran in growth and partnerships, in order to better serve enterprises addressing mental health needs across the nation.
Deborah Francis joins the team to help scale access to Supportiv’s on-demand Precision Peer Support™ and Conversational Care™ offerings–beyond the over 1.2 million individuals served to date.
Growing to meet demand
Deborah Francis joins the Supportiv team as Vice President of Growth. She will accelerate Supportiv’s reach and ensure successful collaboration for health plan, employer, hospital system and employee assistance program (EAP) partnerships.
Deborah (Debbie) has over 20+ years of experience scaling digital technology and health and wellness platforms. She gained her behavioral health expertise across multiple successful health-tech ventures including leadership roles with Weight Watchers and Talkspace.
“The traditional mental health system can’t keep up with societal demand. Innovative, accessible, and scalable solutions like Supportiv are there to fill the gap. Expanding the team with such a talented and experienced leader like Debbie will expedite bringing peer support to the millions who need it across health plans, employers, hospital systems, universities and beyond,” says Helena Plater-Zyberk, Supportiv Co-Founder and CEO.
Adds Pouria Mojabi, Supportiv Co-Founder and President, “Supportiv’s unique approach of removing all barriers to care and eliminating the need for appointments is demonstrating market traction and high user engagement. We’re really excited to have a world-class growth leader joining us at this critical point in time when mental and emotional wellbeing is on everyone’s radar.”
Q+A with Deborah Francis
Why Supportiv, why now?
National mental health needs are at an all-time high, with increasingly more Americans recognizing the problem. Deborah shares:
“There’s now a national consensus about our nation’s mental health crisis. If we can’t currently meet escalating demand through clinical care, then we need novel, evidence-based solutions to fill the gap. The expansion of novel mental health tools, such as on-demand peer-to-peer support, benefits multiple stakeholder groups: consumers, employers, clinical care providers, and even government officials. Ron and I are both deeply excited to join Supportiv in providing an effective stopgap solution to so many in need.”
How did your past experiences lead you here?
“My work has focused on scaling solutions to what I see as pressing, human problems. From weight management, to homecare, to digital behavioral health, I’ve seen that innovation alone is not enough. We need to communicate and spread the word about solutions that are innovative, readily available, and easy-to-use. That’s what drives me to grow access to Supportiv’s ‘bleeding edge’ technology.”
What excites you about Supportiv’s online, on-demand peer support?
“The patented natural language understanding-based platform is available 24/7/365 – no appointment required. This provides immediate access (under a minute) to users when they need it most. Individuals receive live human support to cope with, problem solve and heal from their struggles. Supportiv puts the user first with the easiest user experience I’ve seen to date.”
Supportiv is excited to bring such a seasoned professional and her perspective onto the team. The addition of Debbie Francis will help Supportiv in improving and growing service to existing and future clients, fulfilling its mission of increasing mental wellness nationwide.
Learn more about Supportiv’s mission to provide Conversational Care™.
