Rippl Appoints Industry Leading CEOs to Board Bringing Significant New Experience in Tech-enabled, Value-based Services and Senior-focused Mental and Behavioral Health

Innovators Iyah Romm, Co-Founder and former CEO of Cityblock Health, and Ryan Watts, Co-Founder and CEO of Denali Therapeutics, poised to Help Rippl Transform care for seniors with neurocognitive challenges

SEATTLE, May 15, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Rippl, a new kind of behavioral health company focused on dramatically expanding access to high quality, wrap-around care for seniors with neurocognitive challenges, added two industry veterans and innovators to its Board of Directors. Rippl welcomes Iyah Romm, founding CEO of Cityblock Health, a tech-enabled services company focused on scalable, Medicaid-focused solutions for complex health needs, and Ryan Watts, CEO of Denali Therapeutics, an organization working to defeat neurodegenerative disorders through therapeutic discovery and development.

These two leaders help to strengthen Rippl’s core mission: to break new ground in better care for the estimated 5.8 million Americans 65 and older who are living with dementia.

“Getting specialized care to seniors with dementia and other neurocognitive challenges is urgent. The ER simply can’t be our primary fix for helping patients and their families navigate these diseases day-to-day, yet that’s what is happening. We’re pioneering a new care model that partners with these patients, their families, and doctors to keep them at home and out of the ER,” said Kris Engskov, Rippl Co-founder and CEO. 

“Rippl couldn’t be more excited to partner with Iyah and Ryan for a multitude of reasons, but primarily because both have navigated these specific diseases in their own families, and each has a deep passion for expanding access to behavioral and mental healthcare for seniors. I can’t think of leaders better positioned to use their experience, smarts, and energy to help us build this critical new network of the highest integrity, best trained, most passionate group of clinicians to help seniors stay out of the ER said Engskov.

Iyah Romm, CEO of Cityblock Health

Romm has been a formal advisor to Rippl since November 2022, and has built a career pioneering new and more innovative approaches to value-based care. Recognized and respected as one of the most gifted health-equity-focused innovators in the country, Romm has a long history of working for underserved populations. Prior to Cityblock, where he served as founding CEO until March 2022, and remains on the Board of Directors, Romm helped lead the Commonwealth Care Alliance in Massachusetts as Chief Transformation Officer and served as the founding Policy Director for Care Delivery Innovation and Investment at the Health Policy Commission, where he directly contributed to Massachusetts’ landmark health care reform efforts.

At Rippl, Romm will help architect the company’s approach to value-based care solutions that directly address the clear health disparities that exist in senior populations with dementia and other neurocognitive challenges. Developing an equitable approach to expanding access and convenience to services within the large and growing population remains one of the company’s most important goals.  

“Rippl’s mission to create equitable access to critical, compassionate healthcare, paying special attention to underserved populations is deeply aligned with where I have focused every aspect of my career,” said Romm. “Both personally and professionally, I’m passionate about addressing the exploding need for dementia care worldwide, both for individuals directly impacted by cognitive decline, their caregivers, and their communities. Rippl is purpose-built to tackle this challenge. By joining the Rippl Care board, I hope to accelerate the expansion of this much needed solution.”

Ryan Watts, CEO of Denali Therapeutics

As Co-founder and CEO of Denali Therapeutics, Watts is at the forefront of discovering and developing medicines for major neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and ALS, most of which impact primarily senior populations. In addition to his role as CEO, Watts is also the Co-founder, President, and member of the Board of Directors at Denali. Prior to his time at Denali, Watts served as the Director of the Department of Neuroscience at Genentech, where he led drug discovery for Alzheimer’s disease.

Watts has spent the majority of his career in neurocognitive spaces, honing a deep knowledge and understanding of the science, research, and therapeutics landscape. At Rippl, Watts will utilize his front row seat to future disease therapies to better position Rippl to serve dementia patients, crafting an evolved care model that can optimize future solutions and care.

Watts said of his new role, “One of the greatest unmet needs of our time is the care of our aging population. Rippl’s focus on the care of people living with dementia complements Denali’s interest in inventing medicines, with the hope of cure. After recently losing my mother to dementia, finding ways to delay the disease and improve the lives of those living with it has become even more personal. I’m thrilled to be joining the Rippl board to advance our cause of comprehensive care for seniors suffering from dementia.”

About Rippl

Rippl is a new kind of mental health company focused on seniors and obsessed with its clinicians. Seniors with behavioral health challenges, especially neurocognitive conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, are overlooked and under cared for, often without access to high quality, real-time, practical care. Leveraging a value-based approach, disruptive technology, and a relentless focus on empowering and enabling its clinicians, Rippl is pioneering a new care model to dramatically expand access to high quality, wraparound behavioral health care for seniors, their families, and caregivers. Founded by a group of impatient optimists and doers from the country’s most iconic health care and consumer brands (who have all been caregivers themselves), and backed by visionary venture investors ARCH Venture Partners, General Catalyst, GV, F-Prime Capital and Mass General Brigham, Rippl is ready to take this urgent challenge head on. Our seniors deserve so much better. Join our movement at ripplcare.com.

SOURCE Rippl Care