I spend most of my time on business strategy, marketing and relationship building. I love to understand how a behavioral health organization is losing demand and building systems that help them scale.
I came up inside the industry rather than from an agency. Before founding Scalable Growth I held a senior leadership role at American Addiction Centers, where I saw how marketing decisions actually land on an admissions team. I also hold an MPH, which shapes how I think about this work — behavioral health marketing is a public health function, not just a lead-gen channel.
The work we do has tangible real world impacts, we are making a difference in personal lives and on businesses. When we move a program’s visibility, someone finds help who otherwise wouldn’t have. That’s a rare thing in marketing, and it makes the hard problems worth solving. I also like that this industry is changing fast right now — AI search is retooling how families find treatment, and we get to build the playbook instead of inheriting one
Most of our clients are operators who care deeply about their programs and have been burned by agencies that didn’t understand the space. Earning that trust back — and then getting to be a real partner instead of a vendor — is the best part of the job. The good ones push us, and we’re better for it.
The project I’m most proud of is Scalable Growth itself. Building the tools, systems and processes has been satisfying, but the thing I care most about is the company we’ve built around them allowing the team to thrive.
We care about great work and results, not where you are located and when you deliver, as long as we are supporting our partners and growing our programs digitally. That trust runs both ways, and it’s produced results I’ll put against anyone’s. None of that happens without our partners, or without a team that wants to be here.
Hear Derek discuss behavioral health, marketing, and the experiences that shaped his approach to building Scalable Growth.
I live in San Diego with my wife Ashley, daughter Ari, and a full house of pets: two dogs and a cat. We love to travel, find local coffee shops, and eat our way through anywhere new. Being a dad is the toughest job I have ever had, and I am still trying to figure it out.
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