The behavioral health and Applied Behavior Analysis industry saw a notable wave of leadership transitions to open 2026, with providers, accreditation bodies, and investment firms alike reshuffling their executive ranks. From first-ever C-suite appointments to post-acquisition pivots, the moves reflect an industry in active flux: managing growth, compliance pressure, and clinical quality demands all at once. The pattern extends a trend Acuity News has tracked throughout the year, as organizations at every level invest in clinical and operational leadership capable of navigating an increasingly demanding environment.
Early 2026 ABA and Behavioral Health Appointments
Rachael Coburn | Vice President of Accreditation, Council of Autism Service Providers (CASP)
CASP named Rachael Coburn its first-ever Vice President of Accreditation in January 2026, a newly created role reflecting the organization’s expanded ABA accreditation portfolio following its acquisition of Jade Health and the Behavioral Health Center of Excellence (BHCOE). Coburn brings more than 25 years of experience in autism services, including her tenure as founder and CEO of Prism Autism Education and Consultation.
Amanda “Mandy” Ralston, BCBA | Chief Executive Officer, KidsChoice
Amanda Ralston was named Chief Executive Officer of KidsChoice, an Oklahoma-based provider of autism and pediatric therapy services, in January 2026, following a majority investment by Aquitaine Capital, a women-owned private equity firm. A board-certified behavior analyst with more than 25 years of clinical and entrepreneurial experience, Ralston most recently served as president of the Centre for Neurodiversity Innovation.
Kathleen Stengel | Advisor and Executive Chairman of the Board, KidsChoice
Concurrent with the Aquitaine Capital transaction, Kathleen Stengel joined KidsChoice as Advisor and Executive Chairman of the Board. Stengel is a healthcare executive and BCBA with more than two decades of leadership in pediatric behavioral health and therapy services. She also serves as Executive in Residence at private equity firm Avesi Partners.
Jenna Kokoski, BCBA | Chief Operating Officer, Momentum Behavior Services
Jenna Kokoski has joined Momentum Behavior Services as Chief Operating Officer. A 20-plus-year veteran of the ABA field, Kokoski most recently served as COO of Jade Health, where she oversaw accreditation and clinical quality strategy ahead of CASP’s acquisition of the organization in late 2025.
Adrienne Bradley, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA | Senior Director of Clinical Performance Improvement, ABA Centers of America
Adrienne Bradley has joined ABA Centers of America as Senior Director of Clinical Performance Improvement. A former adjunct professor at Wayne State University and past president of Black Applied Behavior Analysts (BABA), Bradley is widely recognized for her work advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion within the ABA field. Her appointment reflects growing provider investment in performance infrastructure as federal audits raise the compliance stakes across the industry.
Dr. Tim Fuller, Ph.D., BCBA-D | Vice President of Clinical Training and Development, Caravel Autism Health
Caravel Autism Health named Dr. Tim Fuller Vice President of Clinical Training and Development. Fuller joins from Centria Autism, where he served as Director of Practicum and Research, and brings 25 years of ABA field experience spanning behavior analysis, instructional design, and clinical content development. He earned his doctorate in psychology with a behavior analysis emphasis from the University of Nevada, Reno.
Monica Mejia, Ph.D., BCBA | Chief Compliance Officer, Opal Autism Centers
Monica Mejia has joined Opal Autism Centers as Chief Compliance Officer. A BCBA with a doctorate in neuroscience and more than 15 years of ABA experience, Mejia brings deep expertise in clinical training programs, ethical and funder compliance, and quality assurance across multi-site organizations. She is fluent in English, Spanish, and French. Her appointment comes as Medicaid compliance demands on ABA providers intensify following a series of federal OIG audits that surfaced widespread billing failures across the industry.
Ashley Penney, Ph.D., BCBA-D | Director of Clinical Training, Autism Learning Partners
Ashley Penney has joined Autism Learning Partners (ALP) as Director of Clinical Training. A clinical leader with deep roots in early intervention research at Seattle Children’s Hospital and the University of Washington, Penney brings extensive expertise in ABA program development and clinical supervision to the national provider.
Mike Vassar | Director of Sales, EarliPoint Health
Mike Vassar joined EarliPoint Health as Director of Sales in February 2026, bringing enterprise sales experience from CentralReach, where he served as an Enterprise Account Executive. EarliPoint Health, which recently rebranded from EarliTec Diagnostics, develops FDA-authorized eye-tracking technology for autism diagnosis and ongoing outcome measurement.
Robin Sifre, Ph.D. | Director of Research and Development, EarliPoint Health
Robin Sifre has been promoted to Director of Research and Development at EarliPoint Health. A data scientist who spent several years at the company, first as a data scientist and then as Lead Data Scientist, Sifre contributed to the development and clinical translation of EarliPoint’s FDA-authorized eye-tracking platform for autism diagnosis and outcomes measurement. She holds a doctorate in child psychology from the University of Minnesota.
Dinesh Senanayake | Chief Executive Officer, RethinkFirst
RethinkFirst named Dinesh Senanayake its Chief Executive Officer on March 12, 2026. Senanayake joins from Paessler, a German IT infrastructure monitoring firm, where he served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. His prior experience includes the same dual role at Ventiv Technology, and executive leadership positions at Optima Healthcare Solutions and Net Health, both cloud-based healthcare software providers. RethinkFirst serves more than ninety-six thousand behavioral healthcare providers, one-third of Fortune 100 companies, and a significant share of the country’s public school districts.
Chris Cheesman | Head of Finance, Passage Health
Chris Cheesman has joined Passage Health as its first Head of Finance. Cheesman brings SaaS finance leadership from TripWorks, a booking and operations platform for tour operators, where he served as Executive Vice President of Finance. Passage Health is an all-in-one clinical and practice management platform built for ABA therapy providers, consolidating scheduling, billing, data collection, and authorization tracking into a single system.
Jamie Pagliaro | President and CEO, EarliPoint Health
Jamie Pagliaro was named President and Chief Executive Officer of EarliPoint Health in August 2025, joining from Rethink First, where he served as Chief Operating Officer. Under his leadership at Rethink, the behavioral health division became the company’s largest business unit. At EarliPoint, Pagliaro is leading the company’s commercialization of its FDA-authorized eye-tracking technology and its rebrand from EarliTec Diagnostics to EarliPoint Health, which accompanied an expanded mission spanning diagnosis, treatment enrollment, and outcomes measurement.
Dr. Ronit Molko, Ph.D., BCBA-D | Departed as CEO, Alongside ABA
Dr. Ronit Molko stepped down as Chief Executive Officer of Alongside ABA in January 2026, concluding a tenure in which she oversaw the merger of Autism Spectrum Interventions, Quality Behavior Solutions, San Diego ABA, and Temecula ABA into the unified Alongside brand. A pioneering figure in ABA with more than three decades of experience, Molko co-founded Autism Spectrum Therapies in 2001 and sold it to LEARN Behavioral in 2014. She continues as founder of Advaya Health and Wellness, a mental health and wellness practice, and through Empowering Synergy, her long-running behavioral health advisory firm, and is currently working on a new venture in the technology and AI space to support ABA companies.
Sara Mathews | Senior Vice President of Operations and Strategic Implementation, Catalight
Sara Mathews has been elevated to Senior Vice President of Operations and Strategic Implementation at Catalight, a nonprofit behavioral health organization and one of the largest behavioral health networks in the country, with more than 15,000 practitioners serving 24,000 clients and families annually through its family of companies, including Easterseals Northern California and Easterseals Hawaii. A licensed clinical social worker and MBA, Mathews previously served as Vice President of Network Operations at Catalight. Before joining the organization, she spent nearly seven years at Ascension as Vice President of Behavioral Health and Addiction Services Operations, where she focused on bridging payer and provider operations to improve patient outcomes. Her earlier career included director-level roles at Meridian Health Plan and Universal Health Services.
Chris Day | Chief Financial Officer, Already Autism Health
Chris Day has joined Already Autism Health as Chief Financial Officer. Day most recently served as CFO at Eventus WholeHealth, a physician-led long-term care company delivering integrated primary and behavioral health services to residents of skilled nursing and assisted living facilities. Already Autism Health, headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, secured its first institutional investment in January 2025, led by Triton Pacific Healthcare Partners, and has since expanded through the acquisitions of Commonwealth ABA and C.A.B.S Autism & Behaviour Specialists.
Erin O’Callaghan, Ph.D. | Senior Vice President of Clinical Quality, AnswersNow
Erin O’Callaghan has joined AnswersNow as Senior Vice President of Clinical Quality. A licensed clinical psychologist, O’Callaghan most recently served as Senior Director of Therapy Programs and Quality at Brightside Health, a telehealth platform delivering psychiatric and therapy services for depression, anxiety, and related conditions. AnswersNow is a virtual-first ABA provider founded in 2017 by Jeff Beck, LCSW, that delivers therapy directly through board-certified behavior analysts without the use of registered behavior technicians.
Yagnesh Vadgama, BCBA | Vice President of Payer Strategy and Network Development, CentralReach
Yagnesh Vadgama has joined CentralReach as Vice President of Payer Strategy and Network Development. A BCBA with more than two decades of experience in applied behavior analysis, Vadgama most recently served as Vice President of Autism at Magellan Health, a national managed behavioral health organization, where he oversaw the company’s ABA product and utilization management program. His move to CentralReach, the largest EMR and practice management platform in the ABA industry, marks a shift from the payer side to the technology and provider enablement side of the field. CentralReach was acquired by Roper Technologies for $1.85 billion in April 2025.
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