POV - Kent Tangen - Leading in Tech for Decades, Mental Health Isn’t Like the Rest

With over 25 years of experience, veteran tech and business leader Kent Tangen is CEO of ieso, a digital mental health company using clinical, evidence-based AI to expand access to quality care through seamless integration with partners’ digital platforms.

In this Q&A, the CEO shares insights on the unique challenges of innovating in digital mental healthcare, balancing cutting-edge technology with patient safety, and discusses how responsible AI adoption can expand access to quality care for underserved populations.

You’ve led transformation across a diverse set of industries including media, education, and finance. What makes mental healthcare different – and what leadership lessons still apply?

Experience across different industries reveals the same pattern: speed and quality have always been enduring differentiators. These aren’t always explicitly requested by customers; they’re inherently expected. It’s why I’ve been focused on these twin levers my entire career – and at ieso, my primary responsibility as CEO is optimizing for both.

Mental healthcare is no exception. But the stakes are incredibly high. We’re not just talking about customer satisfaction or operational efficiency (though, of course, those are important). We’re talking about people’s well-being and lives. So, as technology evolves at a rapid pace, the critical question becomes: how do we responsibly adopt these innovations while upholding the highest standards of quality, ensuring safety, and delivering strong clinical outcomes?

Speaking of, how do you balance quality, safety, and speed when building in the mental healthcare space?

“Move fast and break things” might be a badge of honor in Silicon Valley tech bro circles, but that mindset is antithetical to healthcare, especially mental healthcare. We should avoid it. 

That said, we can’t afford to be stagnant. Innovation i

n this field requires responsible experimentation. We have to be willing to take smart, calculated risks without introducing new risks – but never at the expense of patient safety or clinical integrity. 

Our job is to operate close enough to the cutting edge to make real progress, but not so close that anyone gets cut in the process. That’s the balance ieso tries to strike every day.

Digital mental health has been “the future” for a long time. What’s different now?   

We’ve been talking about the promise of digital mental health for years. But it finally feels like we’ve reached a convergence of three critical enablers: scalable cloud computing; omnichannel delivery capabilities; and truly conversational, context-aware generative AI agents.

This is a game-changer. Together, these advancements make it possible to deliver high-quality, measured digital mental healthcare – safely and confidently – to populations that have traditionally been out of reach or underserved. 

Think about someone managing both type 2 diabetes and depression in a rural community with limited access to care. Or a mom juggling two jobs who doesn’t have the flexibility for weekly in-person therapy. The new wave of digital mental healthcare, done right, has the potential to reach people like this and support them with meaningful, personalized support that improves their lives.

What does it take to build digital mental health products that actually deliver outcomes at scale – and avoid becoming just another app on someone’s phone?

Without question, it starts and ends with the team – their values, their expertise, and their commitment to delivering these capabilities. 

Building a team that brings together a mix of clinical expertise, scientific rigor, and lived experience is critical. You can’t build meaningful mental health solutions without deeply understanding – and, importantly, involving – the people you’re trying to help. We work hard to make sure our team reflects that reality and stays grounded in it as we build and continuously test, enhance, and refine our products.

Equally important is fostering a team of innovators. These are people bold enough to explore what’s possible, yet thoughtful and responsible in ensuring every experience we deliver is safe, effective, and genuinely helpful. Because if we don’t deliver real outcomes, we’re just adding noise to an already crowded space.

What’s your advice on building a culture that embraces innovation, without compromising on responsibility?

Part of the answer lies within the question itself: innovation and responsibility must coexist, and doing so should be a deliberate reflection of your values. Leaning too heavily on one at the expense of the other serves neither your customers nor your organization.

Aim to build your culture around this idea, that innovation and responsibility are partners. Rigorously emphasize safety protocols while innovating, ensuring they’re robust and well-integrated. Also maintain clear visibility into how your innovations perform in the real world – and stay accountable for it – so that when expectations aren’t met or something goes wrong, you can identify issues early and respond swiftly.

What’s one common mistake you’ve seen in digital mental health, and what should leaders be doing differently?

Broadly speaking, I often see promising solutions that overlook the “last mile” – the critical question of how the product will actually reach those who need it most, in a way that fits seamlessly into their daily lives. 

This can’t be an afterthought. You’ve got to be clear-eyed from day one about the real needs and preferences of the customer or end user: How will someone find this? Use it? Stick with it? What kind of human support will they need along the way?  

It’s also critical to ask early on: What’s the intended relationship between your solution and clinicians or therapists? In the case of ieso, the goal is to augment the therapist network – enhancing their effectiveness and reach – without introducing additional overhead or complexity.

If your product can't plug into the messy realities of care delivery and make life easier for patients and providers, then it’s not a solution, it’s just software.

Get out of your crystal ball. Where is all of this headed? Are we entering a new era in mental healthcare?

There’s no question we’re entering a new era. The global need for high-quality mental healthcare is vast and growing – and expanding access to support that’s safe and effective is essential to building healthier, more prosperous communities and societies.

Again, the powerful convergence of scalable technology, omnichannel delivery, and advanced AI means we now have a strong foundation for mental health professionals to extend care and reach people we’ve historically failed – people, for example, with comorbid chronic conditions, in rural areas, in underserved communities, or stuck on months-long waitlists. 

Here’s what excites me most: research increasingly demonstrates that improving mental health doesn’t just help individual well-being, it lifts entire communities. It boosts overall health outcomes. It strengthens families, schools, and workplaces. 

ieso stands at such a pivotal moment of innovation and opportunity in the mental health landscape. The organisation can take pride in what the team has accomplished so far, while remaining deeply excited about the collective impact they  will continue to make in the years ahead.

Interested in learning more about mental health? Explore the Mental & Behavioral Health Community on the HLTH Community platform!