Noto Expands Leadership Team to Advance a New Model of Specialty Care for Complex Mental Health Conditions

Dr. Doug Nemecek, Bruce Brandes, and David Cohn Join Noto to Lead Clinical Strategy, Build Health System Partnerships, and Expand Intensive OCD Treatment

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Noto, the company that’s transforming specialty mental healthcare to end the mental health crisis, starting with NOCD for OCD, today announced three senior leadership appointments: Dr. Doug Nemecek as Chief Psychiatric Officer, Bruce Brandes as President of Health Systems, and David Cohn as General Manager of Intensive Treatment Services.

These appointments mark Noto’s next phase of building a better model for specialty mental healthcare, which is required to serve complex, condition-specific populations: diagnosing people earlier, delivering evidence-based specialty treatment at scale, and supporting people when their clinician isn’t available. The company is applying the clinical operating system infrastructure developed from scaling NOCD to each specialty it owns, while building deeper relationships with health systems and health plans, and expanding the services they provide to the OCD community.

“We built NOCD because people with OCD were spending years cycling through a mental healthcare system that wasn't designed to identify or properly treat them. Noto is about taking what we learned solving that problem and applying it across other complex mental health conditions,” said Stephen Smith, Co-Founder and CEO of Noto. “Doug, Bruce, and David bring the expertise to help us continue building that model at scale, and we couldn’t be happier to have them onboard.”

Dr. Doug Nemecek, Chief Psychiatric Officer, brings more than two decades of experience at The Cigna Group, alongside a career treating patients and leading behavioral health services. At Noto, he will focus on improving clinical quality and expanding the company’s specialty-care model across other complex mental health conditions.

“The challenge in mental healthcare isn’t simply a shortage of clinicians. We need a system that can consistently connect people to high-quality care designed for their specific condition and measure whether that care works,” said Dr. Nemecek. “Noto has shown what’s possible when care is specialized and personalized, and now we have an opportunity to extend that model to help more people with complex mental health conditions.”

Bruce Brandes, President of Health Systems, will lead Noto’s work with health systems to identify and connect more patients with complex behavioral health conditions to specialty treatment. Brandes has spent nearly four decades scaling healthcare technology companies, including leadership roles at Livongo, AirStrip, and care.ai, which was acquired by Stryker in 2024.

“We have many of the resources needed to build a better behavioral health system, but they remain fragmented,” said Brandes. “Health systems have the data and trusted patient relationships to identify people earlier, health plans are motivated to fund care, while specialty providers have the expertise to deliver the right care. Noto can align the key stakeholders to deliver a more proactive, seamless approach to behavioral health.”

David Cohn, General Manager of Intensive Treatment Services, will lead Noto's higher-acuity treatment capabilities, beginning with intensive OCD treatment through NOCD. Outpatient ERP works for most people with OCD, but some need more than what outpatient care can offer. Today they are typically referred to outside programs that don't share their therapists, their treatment plan, or their history. Cohn previously founded and scaled a leading telepsychiatry company called Regroup that later became Array Behavioral Care, where he served as Chief Growth Officer.

“People shouldn’t have to navigate an entirely new system every time the intensity of care they need changes,” said Cohn. “By building intensive treatment into the same specialty care infrastructure, we can support people when they need more care and transition them seamlessly as their symptoms improve.”

Together, these appointments advance Noto’s strategy to expand specialty mental healthcare and deliver it earlier, deeper, and more broadly – identifying people with complex conditions already seeking help in health systems, extending specialty treatment to additional populations, and supporting members who are in the greatest need of care.

NOCD serves as the model for that expansion. Noto is now extending the infrastructure built through NOCD to additional specialty populations, including PTSD through Rebound Health, while continuing to expand the depth of care available to NOCD Therapy Members.

About Noto

Noto is an AI-enabled platform that’s transforming specialty therapy to end the mental health crisis, by scaling virtual specialties for complex psychiatric and behavioral conditions: NOCD for OCD, Rebound for PTSD, and more to come.