“We're committed, passionate, and data-driven and not afraid to push boundaries” –Stephanie Tilenius of Vida Health

When you start talking about health in general, the most common phrase used is: “Health is Wealth.” And this statement is true in every sense. The advancements in technology have greatly helped in enhancing our modern healthcare. Over the past decades, healthcare research has boomed and we’ve successfully eliminated many horrendous diseases.

Yet, at the same time, we’ve also seen a rise in various chronic health issues. Mental health problems too, are on the rise. The difficult part about any chronic disease is that there aren’t vaccines to prevent them. While you can be on medication, you might not completely recover and there’s a constant fear of the disease coming back. When it comes to mental health, a disorder here can affect everything about you- your mood, behavior, thinking, etc. Yes, technology is improving, but there are still hundreds of diseases we need to fight to establish a healthy Utopia.

Taking a step towards this goal is Vida Health. Vida helps individuals avoid and overcome chronic and mental health problems. Vida empowers people to transform their lives through better health. How do they do this? They have a unique way of working that involves data and an approach that’s driven by technology. But most importantly, there’s a human-centered design at Vida that’s molded with empathy and compassion. With Vida, individuals are pushed to tackle even the most persistent health challenges.

“Vida helps your population avoid and overcome chronic and mental health conditions”

According to Vida, in an organization, 1 in 3 employees have a chronic condition and 1 in 4 have a behavioral/mental health condition. There’s individual support given at Vida with their evidence-based programs that tap into the behaviors underlying health. Vida has a unique way of making it easier for people to address the root cause of chronic conditions.

“We support individuals with evidence-based programs that address behaviors underlying health and make it easier for them to address root causes of chronic conditions,” says the Vida Health website. There’s a lot to know about Vida. The work they’re doing is impeccable and more importantly, it’s helping thousands of people overcome diseases they never thought they could. Behind this wondrous achievement is a world-class team- a committed, passionate, and data-driven team who isn’t afraid to push boundaries. This unique team has a combined experience from Stanford, LinkedIn, Google, Dignity Health, Kaiser, Proteus, etc.

And leading this strong team with an everlasting impact is Stephanie Tilenius. A charismatic leader, Stephanie is considered the entrepreneur and ‘intrapreneur’ who founded Vida Health and is the CEO. She’s keen on building products, platforms, and businesses from the ground up. At Vida, she’s brought in a distinctive work culture. Healthy lunches, walking meetings, and more- she’s redefining how workspaces can embrace a culture of everyday wellness.

Praise for Vida

“Vida offers a breath of different programs, that was very attractive to eBay because we didn’t have to partner with a separate pre-diabetes program or a chronic care program or a smoking cessation program. We wanted to use technology to deliver and delight our employees, we wanted to make sure that the employee was always in the center of everything that we do.”

–James Sumortin, Senior Benefits Program Manager at eBay

“Many associates tell us they love their personal coaches, and West Marine leaders now recognize Vida as a benefit that has helped substantially enrich the experience and improve the lives of many Associates at West Marine.”

–Ken Hirte, Director of Total Rewards, West Marine

“Vida is a true calling for me”

Stephanie has a personal reason to start a health-based organization. When she saw her family- her own father suffer from four chronic conditions- diabetes, heart diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and obesity, she felt the need to help. She and her brother went to lengths to provide the care her father needed. It was clear that her father needed continuous attention and care day-to-day. This was when she realized that she couldn’t sit and allow these chronic diseases take over everything around her- her country and her family.

That gave rise to Vida Health. “Vida is a true calling for me,” she said in an interview with Thrive Global. Vida was established to help people suffering from chronic conditions. Vida Health is a key player in the healthcare industry for its mobile continuous care platform for preventing, managing and overcoming chronic and mental health conditions. Vida solutions have been deployed at various Fortune 500 companies, large national payers, and providers since its establishment in 2012. You’ll also find Vida on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

With a firm belief that technology will certainly transform healthcare “into a continuous, proactive, predictive system”, Stephanie set out to combat chronic and mental health diseases. Her idea? She believed that everything will be a mobile solution. She knew that was possible with data and she also understood the vast potential of data to deliver for healthcare solutions.

“We’re at a tipping point”

Stephanie also understood that healthcare can be expensive. “We spend $3.4 trillion on healthcare- that is the same size of Germany’s GDP!” she said in an interview. “Wages are flat as healthcare costs are growing faster than inflation.” Vida stats show that nearly 40% of adults in the US alone have one or more chronic health conditions. That’s 117 million people. Plus, as already mentioned, 1 in 4 people have a mental health condition.

Now, if you have both diabetes and a mental health condition, your cost to the healthcare system is 4 times more expensive. “We’re at a tipping point — we’re living on borrowed time and spending so much of our national GDP on healthcare,” Stephanie mentioned. At Vida, this is another problem she’s addressing. With her background, skills, and her irreplaceable talent, she’s confidently served millions of people dealing with chronic physical and mental health conditions.

“I’m passionate about helping entrepreneurs”

While Stephanie is the founder of Vida Health, she has an impressive reputation for bringing out some of the best solutions in various other companies she’s worked before. Prior to Vida, Stephanie was an Executive in Residence at a venture capital firm- Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Here, she held her position from 2012 to 2014 and channeled her focus on companies within its Digital Growth Fund. Here, she also worked with late-stage KPCB portfolio companies that had a special emphasis on the Digital Growth Fund. While she was here, Stephanie invested in Nextdoor and MyFitnessPal.

Before joining Kleiner, Stephanie was the Vice President of Global Commerce and Payments at Google. From 2010 to 2012, Stephanie supervised digital commerce, payments, and product search while working for the search giant. It was clear she loved working on products and solutions from scratch. At Google, she was the pioneering force in building platforms like the Google Wallet, Google Shopping and Google Express.

Her career path goes even further back. While Kleiner and Google were companies she worked for two years each, she dedicated nearly nine years to eBay, before joining Google. She held the position of the Senior Vice President of eBay.com and global products before she moved to Google. As the SVP of eBay, she was the driving factor in leading the eBay Marketplace turnaround. Stephanie was also involved with PayPal as its VP of Merchant Services. It was here that she built off eBay PayPal business from the ground up into a multi-billion business. Stephanie has also worked at Intel, AOL, and Firefly.

She’s the best!

Here’s what they say about Stephanie Tilenius

“Stephanie is one of those unique leaders that is strategic, high-integrity, visionary and inspirational. I had the pleasure of working with Stephanie on the challenges of improving the eBay Marketplace and developing our technology and platform strategy. As a technologist, I really appreciate how Stephanie “gets it”, how she sees technology as a strategic weapon and the great working partnership and trust she establishes with her tech teams on aligning to her short-term and long-term business goals…”

 -James Barrese, Strategic Technology Advisor and former CTO at PayPal

“I was lucky enough to work with Stephanie 2x: at PayPal and at eBay. At PayPal, I watched her build the Merchant Services business - establishing PayPal as *the* payment standard for the internet (not just a payment service of eBay). I was always struck by her *intense* drive to win and her strategic thinking (she's got her fingers on the pulse of every aspect of the market!)… From a leadership perspective, I'm often struck by how much she truly cares about the people and the culture - more so than most execs I've worked with. She's also an incredible truth-seeker (probably the thing I admire most). In sum, Stephanie is unstoppable - definitely want her on my team!”

-Amy Klement, Partner at Omidyar Network

 “I’d love to meet Oprah Winfrey”

Yes, Stephanie would love to meet Oprah Winfrey, she said in an interview. She believes that Oprah Winfrey was the agent of change who cared deeply about doing the right thing. This is why she is part of various organizations and is also the Board member of various enterprises. She’s part of the Board of Directors of Tradesy and RedBubble; and also a Board member of Coach Inc. since 2012; and also of Seagate Technology.

That’s not all. Stephanie is also the Chair of the Advisory Board of the Harvard Business School California Research Centre. While she found her true calling at Vida Health, she had previously co-founded PlanetRx.com and has immense experience in working with technology and business enterprises.

Unmatched Potentiality

That defines Stephanie Tilenius. Her experience as a senior executive within the consumer internet sector has earned her worldwide recognition. Speaking of her education, Stephanie studied at Harvard University then joined Brandeis University to do a BA in Economics and finally an MA in International Finance. She contributes her leadership, strategic insight, digital and e-commerce expertise, and her experience as a company founder to everyone who seeks her aid. Truly, her potential is unmatched!

“We support individuals with evidence-based programs that address behaviors underlying health and make it easier for them to address root causes of chronic conditions.”

“We believe that outcomes matter.”

“Your organization has access to human coaches, licensed therapists, and other health professionals trained to provide guidance, offer supportive accountability, and address barriers that help your populations achieve results.”

“Our expert care team is made up human coaches, licensed therapists, and other health professionals trained to provide guidance, offer supportive accountability, and address barriers that help individuals achieve results”