Expanding our Leadership Bench to Continue Powering the Future of Virtual Care
I started out my career in recruiting and know first-hand the kind of effort it takes to find the right talent. Now as a founder and CEO, recruiting is one of the most important — and one of my favorite — parts of the job. Almost nothing beats the feeling of welcoming a new “Wheelie” to our team, especially when it’s a leader who is passionate about the problems we’re solving.
That’s why I’m excited to welcome Shoshana Deutschkron as our first Chief Marketing Officer. Shoshana is a strong leader who brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in marketing, along with a deep interest and understanding of the health tech industry, marketplaces, and future of work landscape. As our first CMO, she’ll be focused on further scaling the impact of Wheel’s marketing efforts, including expanding our best-in-class marketing team.
But what’s even better than welcoming one new leader is welcoming four. We’re also expanding our commercial leadership bench to include Brandon Castel as Vice President of Sales, Daniel DeSantis as Vice President of Partnerships, and Brendon Kelly as Business Lead, Behavioral Health.
Our new marketing and commercial leaders have outstanding track records in their respective fields. And together, they’ll help Wheel scale as the market continues to respond strongly to our white-labeled virtual care offerings. They’re eager to fundamentally change the healthcare experience for millions of people across the country. And just as importantly, they’re each committed to building upon our values-driven culture.
I sat down with each new leader to hear more about what excites them the most about Wheel, the healthcare challenges they’re focused on addressing, and what they’ve learned over the last few weeks from working with our incredible team of Wheelies. Here’s what they shared:
Shoshana Deutschkron, Chief Marketing Officer
Shoshana is thrilled to join Wheel as our first CMO during what she’s calling our “golden, gritty era of growth.” Just as importantly, she’s motivated by our mission to increase access to high quality care. In her own words, “Access to care is a critical, timely need for all of us. Too many of us are subjected to subpar healthcare experiences and difficulty finding care. Every single one of us is a patient in a world that is facing a shortage of healthcare providers.”
And thanks to her time at online work marketplace Upwork, she predicts that “similar to what we saw with the evolution of work, care delivery will evolve to meet patients where they are — virtual, in-person, or both.” She also believes that “a better future of work should be extended to healthcare workers. We need their capacity unlocked not only for their benefit, but for all of us. And the work we’re focused on at Wheel will help us do that.”
Brandon Castel, Vice President of Sales
Brandon has held multiple leadership positions at leading healthcare companies, where he’s witnessed just how challenging it is to “fix” healthcare. He’s also personally motivated by Wheel’s drive to address clinician burnout because his wife is a nurse. “What excites me about Wheel is our focus on improving the clinician experience. This focus coupled with Wheel’s vision of a hybrid care model and workforce is going to be the future.”
At Wheel, Brandon is eager to partner with the entire Wheel team to enable even more companies to deliver high-quality virtual care. “I could not be prouder to work alongside a team that is connected, authentic, driven, and excited for what’s next in healthcare.”
Daniel DeSantis, Vice President of Partnerships
As a longstanding telehealth expert and advocate, what stood out to Dan about Wheel was the opportunity to address key challenges plaguing healthcare. As he puts it, “Far too often, the healthcare experience in our country is suboptimal. I look forward to supporting innovators across healthcare power virtual care through our tech infrastructure and 50 state clinician network.”
But most importantly, he’s thrilled to partner with the entire Wheel team. In his own words, “I get to learn from and grow with an incredibly talented and diverse team during a pivotal period of growth — including experts in health tech, marketplaces, clinical care delivery, and product and software development.”
Brendon Kelly, Business Lead, Behavioral Health
For Brendon, a mental health advocate and experienced commercial leader, working at Wheel is his “dream job.” And it’s a job that’s squarely aligned with both his personal and professional passions of making a positive impact in the mental health space. As he puts it, “I could not be more excited to build and lead Wheel’s behavioral health go-to-market strategy to help increase awareness, access, and quality of care for the millions of people in desperate need of support.”
Throughout his first few weeks at Wheel, Brendon’s also been drawn to the incredible team and culture we’ve built at Wheel, quickly recognizing that, “Wheel’s culture has only further convinced me I’m in the right place — everyone goes out of their way to ensure you feel supported, included, and valued.”
Welcome to the Wheel, Shoshana, Brandon, Daniel, and Brendon. We’re so happy you’re here. And if you’re interested in joining a mission-driven company building the future of virtual care, please visit wheel.com/careers to check out our open roles.
