BehaVR is expanding its senior leadership team.
The Elizabethtown, Kentucky-based digital therapeutics company announced the appointments of Marc Griffin as chief commercial officer, Amir Gueron as chief financial officer and Jillian Ahrens as its first chief product and design officer. Together, the leaders will drive the company's growth and efforts to scale access to quality mental and behavioral health care, according to a news release.
"This is a critical moment in the evolution of mental health care delivery, challenged by both intense need and deep systemic constraints," said Aaron Gani, BehaVR's CEO, in the release. "BehaVR is uniquely positioned to scale clinically validated interventions to serve a wider range of patients, and with the combined expertise and industry knowledge that Marc, Amir and Jillian share, we will undoubtedly achieve this goal."
The new hires come just months after BehaVR merged with OxfordVR as it announced the close of a $13 million Series B raise. The round was led by Optum Ventures and Oxford Science Enterprises, with participation from San Francisco-based Accenture Ventures, and Confluent Health, Chrysalis Ventures, Thornton Capital and Future Labs Capital, all based in Louisville.
Griffin has nearly two decades of experience in go-to-market strategy and management consulting, having previously held roles at companies like AVIA, Cerner and DXC Technology.
"Addressing the mental health crisis is a top priority for providers and payers alike right now, and digital solutions will be a core part of addressing the demand," Griffin said in the release. "BehaVR is well-positioned to scale solutions to meet a wide range of needs, and I'm thrilled to be joining the team alongside Amir and Jillian to support these efforts."
Gueron, who most recently served as vice president of finance at TytoCare, will also support the company's accelerating growth, focusing on client value creation, funding strategy and financial planning and analysis.
Ahrens brings deep experience putting patients at the center of product design from her time at Pear Therapeutics and is tasked with guiding the experience design of BehaVR's suite of solutions that will span the care continuum across its products, the release continued.
In addition to Ahrens, former senior director of product management at Pear Therapeutics, Christian Santiago, will also join BehaVR as head of clinical deployment strategy and operations.
BehaVR also promoted its former chief platform design architect, Patrick Murta, to chief technology officer. Murta has deep experience and a prominent industry profile in strategic and standards-based clinical interoperability and value-based care integration, having co-chaired multiple industry standards-setting consortia.
Locally, BehaVR is partnering with Confluent Health, one of its key investors, to offer its VR programs around chronic pain and musculoskeletal care to Confluent’s clinicians. Confluent partners with physical therapy clinics across the nation and provides back-office support to them.
BehaVR already has a presence in some of Confluent’s locations with its neuroscience products. In the third quarter of this year, Gani told KY Inno in March he expects to announce a product related to Confluent’s moviMSK, a technology approach to musculoskeletal care.
