Company
Valera Health was founded by a team of clinicians and psychiatrists, providing keen insight into the needs of our patients. Recognizing the tools needed to provide complete care, we’ve adopted a thoughtful approach to therapeutic and medical services. Our mission is driven by our need to provide high-quality telehealth services to our patients, making the process easy and accessible. Our telehealth outcomes are extremely positive, and we credit that to Valera’s complete care model, which focuses on prioritizing a patient’s overall mental health.
Through strategic planning and measured growth, we’ve expanded our network of insurers, accepting in-network benefits for millions of patients across the United States.
Our team consists of expert-level licensed clinicians, therapists, and psychiatrists. We take into consideration the needs of our patients, and have built a team of specialists with experience in a variety of areas.
Inclusive Clinical Programs 
We know that behavioral healthcare isn’t one-size-fits-all, and we’ve tailored our complete care model to meet the needs of the individual. We believe that no one should be excluded from receiving the care they need, and our diverse team reflects the change we bring to the space.
Mission-Driven 
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Our team consists of expert-level licensed clinicians, therapists, and psychiatrists. We take into consideration the needs of our patients, and have built a team of specialists with experience in a variety of areas.
Inclusive Clinical Programs
We know that behavioral healthcare isn’t one-size-fits-all, and we’ve tailored our complete care model to meet the needs of the individual. We believe that no one should be excluded from receiving the care they need, and our diverse team reflects the change we bring to the space.
Mission-Driven
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MEET OUR
Team
We’ve assembled a team of clinicians, technologists, and operational experts with the goal of redefining what the best virtual mental healthcare model with the highest quality and optimal access would look like. The result has attracted amazing provider and healthcare partners and delivered superb clinical outcomes.
Thomas Tsang | MD | MPH
CEO, Co-Founder
CEO, Co-Founder
Thomas Tsang
He was the former CMO at a Merck subsidiary focused on commercializing digital solutions. Prior to Merck, Tom was part of the team that developed the Affordable Care Act on the House Committee on Ways and Means and worked on the development of a national framework for the use of electronic health records as Medical Director at the Office of the National Coordinator for HIT, HHS. He started his career as Chief Medical Officer working at Charles B. Wang, a Federally Qualified Health Center serving the immigrant Asian population in NYC and served on the Board of Health for NYC. He currently serves on several boards including BCBS Kansas City.Craig Albright
CEO
CEO
Craig Albright
Craig has more than 25 years of experience leading successful growth and transformation strategies at healthcare organizations. His work has consistently demonstrated a commitment to organizational excellence and quality care. Most recently he was the CEO at Benevis, a dental practice management org with more than 2 million patient visits per year across 17 states. Previously, Craig was the CEO of InHealth Medical Alliance, Inc., one of the largest globally capitated primary care physician groups in Florida. Prior to that he was CEO of JSA Healthcare Corporation, then a division of DaVita Medical Group. He was also a CEO and/or board member for several portfolio companies of Three Arch Partners.Thomas Tsang | MD | MPH
Chief Strategy Officer, Co-Founder
Chief Strategy Officer, Co-Founder
Thomas Tsang
He was the former CMO at a Merck subsidiary focused on commercializing digital solutions. Prior to Merck, Tom was part of the team that developed the Affordable Care Act on the House Committee on Ways and Means and worked on the development of a national framework for the use of electronic health records as Medical Director at the Office of the National Coordinator for HIT, HHS. He started his career as Chief Medical Officer working at Charles B. Wang, a Federally Qualified Health Center serving the immigrant Asian population in NYC and served on the Board of Health for NYC. He currently serves on several boards including BCBS Kansas City.Lauren Mills | LCSW
COO
COO
Lauren Mills
Lauren Mills began her career as a clinical social worker providing counseling to children and families in a community-based mental health program at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. Lauren later became a Clinical Supervisor and oversaw operations of a Medicaid funded program for children and adolescents and owned a private psychotherapy practice. Through this work, Lauren became passionate about increasing access to mental health services through technology and joined AbleTo, where she helped develop and scale a telemental health program and national provider network serving thousands of patients as Clinical Director. Following AbleTo, Lauren joined Aetna and led new product development as the Strategy and Product Management Director for National Account Commercial Business. Lauren holds a Masters in Social Work from Columbia University and is currently pursuing an MBA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Lauren lives outside Providence, RI with her husband and three year old daughter.
Prashant Gharpure
CTO
CTO
Prashant Gharpure
As a Chief Technology Officer, Prashant Gharpure leads the execution of the company’s technology strategy and is responsible for the management of software development, informatics, and infrastructure operations. Prior to Valera Health, he served as the CTO at Phynd (acquired by symplr). With over 30 years of experience in software product architecture and development, Prashant helmed technology leadership and consultative positions at various startup companies. He currently lives in the Atlanta area and is a passionate wildlife photographer.Amel Hammad
CFO
CFO
Amel Hammad
Amel has over 20 years of experience in healthcare finance, accounting, operations, and strategy. Prior to joining Valera Health, Amel specializes in developing financial, operational, and strategic solutions for companies and equity sponsors concentrating on analyzing current financial environments and leveraging overall business intelligence tools to develop and implement strategies to minimize financial risk and strengthen organizations’ financial standing.Maor Cohen
Chief of Staff
Chief of Staff
Maor Cohen
Maor has spent his whole career in healthcare, with a consistent focus on ensuring information is shared across different functional areas in organizations to improve outcomes for patients. Most recently, he worked in business operations, financial modeling, market analysis, and growth strategy for several health tech startups; and founded one to deliver virtual reality music, pet, and reminiscence therapy to socially isolated older adults. Prior to that, he developed nationally scalable processes for delivering care to K-12 students at SchoolCare, and advised health system executives and frontline leaders on data-driven best practices in provider engagement at the Advisory Board Company.Michele McCleary | MBA
Director of Operations
Director of Operations
Michele McCleary
Michele has worked as the Regional Vice President at Elements Behavioral Health and Head of Operations & Expansion at Defining Wellness Centers.Naomi Yau
Director of Product Management
Director of Product Management
Naomi Yau
Naomi is passionate about using technology to improve mental healthcare, accessibility and the patient experience. She believes in the interdisciplinary nature of creative problem-solving, reflected in her time incorporating music, fitness and social/mental health at Drums Alive. Prior to Valera, she worked at Kaiser Permanente, using her product and engineering background to drive virtual and digital care initiatives spanning several clinical specialties across the Southern California region.
Noam Shahaf
Vice President of Research & Development
Vice President of Research & Development
Noam Shahaf
Noam formerly served as Head of Technology and Strategy in an elite technology unit in the Israeli Defense Forces. He is passionate about building innovative people-centered products, and brings more than 10 years of experience managing projects in IT and mobile technology, cyber security and business research. Noam Tzur
Development Team Lead
Development Team Lead
Noam Tzur
Noam formerly worked as a Software Engineer at Quickode, VMWare and ORCAM. He received his B.S. in Computer Software Engineering from the Jerusalem College of Engineering.Nakeishia Simic
Director of Human Resources
Director of Human Resources
Nakeishia Simic
Nakeishia Crawford Simic joins the Valera team as the People Operations Director. She has almost 15 years of Human Resources experience. Nakeishia has extensive telehealth experience as a Senior Vice President of Human Resources at a telehealth organization.
She brings to Valera an extensive background in people management, HRIS, strategic people operations leadership, recruitment and employee relations experience to name a few. Nakeishia has also spent several of those years of experience in the technological startup world.
Christine Rambert | LCSW
Associate Clinical Director of the Child and Adolescent Program (CAP)
Associate Clinical Director of the Child and Adolescent Program (CAP)
Christine Rambert
Christine Rambert has 10 years of clinical experience providing psychotherapeutic services to culturally diverse and bilingual populations from children to older adults. Bilingual in Spanish, Christine has worked collaboratively within multidisciplinary teams in various outpatient settings to deliver integrative behavioral health care. Christine has extensive training in therapeutic modalities which include CBT, DBT, ACT and TF-CBT. She earned an MA in Sociology/Anthropology from Northeastern University and a Masters in Social Work from NYU Silver School of Social Work. Christine is also a registered yoga teacher (RYT-200) with Yoga Alliance.
MEET OUR
Board of Directors
Valera Health is fortunate to have a board composed of national business-leaders, healthcare experts and VC partners who are guiding us to be a high-performing scalable mission-based company.
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Manish Agarwal
Manish Agarwal
Mr. Agarwal joined AXA Venture Partners in 2015 and focuses on early stage investments, based in New York. He led AVP’s US and Israeli early stage investments including PG, Limelight, Mindoula and K4Connect. Prior to AVP, Manish held a number of investing, operational and strategic roles. Most recently, he was the Head of Financial Protection for Equitable, responsible for the company’s life insurance business.Manish started his career at McKinsey & Co. where he led client teams in engagements across strategy, corporate finance and operations & technology.
Ofer Sharon
Ofer Sharon
Ofer Sharon, MD is the CEO of OncoHost Ltd. a clinical stage precision oncology company combining blood based proteomic analysis and powerful machine learning tools in order to predict response to immunotherapy and provide clinicians with potential combinations strategies to overcome treatment resistance and improve patient outcomes.Dr. Sharon is a physician and entrepreneur with close to 20 years of experience in clinical and commercial product development for startups in the health tech, biotech, and medical device industries. Ofer is the co-founder and President of Valera Health a commercial stage US-Israeli startup company developing a digital platform for payers and providers for severe mental illness serving more than 4 million patients in the US. Prior to joining Oncohost, he served multiple roles in global pharmaceutical companies including Medical Director for AstraZeneca (Israel), new technologies scout for Medimmune and Medical Director for MSD (Israel). He co-founded several healthcare companies, mainly focusing on bioinformatic and machine learning platforms for clinical deterioration detection and early intervention.
James Nahirny
James Nahirny, Chairman, Board of Directors.
Mr. Nahirny was the Managing Director of Bain Capital Ventures and past chairman of the New England Venture Capital Association and Managing Partner of Leerink Capital Partners. Mr. Nahirny was a former partner at McKinsey consulting and is the Founder, Managing Partner of Alsora Capital. James Nahirny serves on several community and industry boards, including Children’s Hospital Boston Board of Overseers, New England Venture Capital Association, and Yale Entrepreneurial Society.
Arick Rynearson
Arick Rynearson
Arick Rynearson joined The Whittemore Company (TWC) in 2007 with a focus alternative investments, including early stage investing. A serial entrepreneur with deep background in finance, operations and strategy, Arick represents TWC in a number of early stage investments, including several in the health tech space.
Keith Schraad
Keith Schraad
Keith Schraad is Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona. Prior to joining AZBlue, Keith was Director of the Arizona Department of Insurance and served as Vice Chair of the NAIC’s Innovation and Technology Committee. Prior to that, Keith worked with several technology startup companies and formerly served as a State Senator in Kansas.
Adam Fine
Adam Fine
Adam Fine is a co-founder and CEO of Windham Venture Partners. Adam is currently Director at Coravin, GlySens, CuraSeal and HelpAround, Board Observer to SpineView, MC10, Holaira and VytronUS. Adam is a mentor in Blueprint Health, a healthcare IT accelerator in NYC. Prior to Windham, Adam was VP & GM at I-many, Inc., an enterprise software company. Prior to joining I-many, Adam was a New Business Development Analyst at Cordis Corporation, a Johnson & Johnson company focused on interventional vascular devices such as stents. In that capacity, Adam worked on a range of licenses, acquisitions, divestments, as well as strategic investments with Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation (JJDC), J&J’s strategic venture arm. Prior to J&J, Adam was a research analyst at Coopers & Lybrand’s Integrated Healthcare Consulting practice.
Lauren Brueggen
Lauren Brueggen, Heritage Group
Lauren Brueggen joined Heritage Group in 2018 and serves as a Partner for the firm. Prior to joining Heritage Group, Lauren was a Principal for the growth equity fund of Spring Mountain Capital, a New York-based alternative asset management firm with $1 billion of assets under management. Lauren spent seven years at Spring Mountain Capital focused on making growth equity investments in healthcare and technology businesses. From 2007 – 2011, she was an Associate at The Wicks Group, a private equity firm with over $1 billion under management. Prior to Wicks, she was in the Restructuring and Mergers & Acquisitions Group of Jefferies & Company, a middle market-focused investment bank. In 2017, she was named to GrowthCap’s Top 40 Under 40 list of growth equity investors.
Lauren graduated from Northwestern University with a B.A. in Economics. She resides in Nashville with her husband and three sons.
Avery Klinger
Avery Klinger, Aquiline Technology Partners
Avery joined Aquiline’s Technology Growth team in 2022 and is a senior associate at the firm. Prior to joining the firm, Avery worked as an Investment Banker at Cain Brothers, where he focused on advising growth-stage companies in the healthcare technology, healthcare services and insurance industries.Partners
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