Dr. Barbara Van Dahlen, PH.D

Dr. Barbara Van Dahlen is the Co-Chair, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of WeBe Life Inc. A licensed clinical psychologist, she received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Maryland in 1991.

Dr. Van Dahlen is the former Executive Director of The President’s Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End a National Tragedy of Suicide (PREVENTS), a U.S. Cabinet Level Task Force, created by Presidential Executive Order in 2019, to build the first all-of-government and whole-of-nation effort focused on suicide prevention with our Veterans leading the way. As a key element of the PREVENTS effort, Dr. Van Dahlen developed the first national public health campaign focused on suicide prevention.

Named to TIME magazine's 2012 list of the 100 most influential people in the world, Dr. Van Dahlen is also the Founder of Give an Hour® www.giveanhour.org a national nonprofit organization that provides free mental health care to those in need including service members, veterans and their families. Dr. Van Dahlen led the organization as President until 2019.

Dr. Van Dahlen founded the Campaign to Change Direction® in 2015, a global initiative focused on changing the culture of mental health. Change Direction is a public health approach that encourages everyone to learn the Five Signs of Emotional Suffering that indicates someone may be struggling emotionally and may need help. Change Direction has attracted prominent global influencers to support its mission including former First Lady Michelle Obama, then Second Lady Dr. Jill Biden, and Prince Harry. Change Direction has gained tremendous momentum in the United States and internationally.

Dr. Van Dahlen is an expert on the psychological impact of war and a thought leader in mobilizing constituencies to create large system change in the mental health sector. She is widely recognized for her work in changing the culture associated with mental health in order to remove barriers and increase access to care. Dr. Van Dahlen has been a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and TIME, and has been interviewed by major media outlets such as AP, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, USA Today, CNN, NPR, Good Morning America, NBC Nightly News, Newshour, and such military media outlets as Stars & Stripes, AUSA Magazine, and the Pentagon Channel.

Dr. Van Dahlen is the host of the WeBe Channel series Ask Dr. B on YouTube and the mental health consultant for the ABC television drama, A Million Little Things. She currently serves as the Chief Psychology Officer for MindX Sciences. In 2020, Dr. Van Dahlen was named by Washingtonian Magazine as a 2020 Washingtonian of the Year.

Michael Akinyele

Mr. Michael Akinyele, MBA, SES, is the Co-Chair, Co-Founder, and Chief Operating Officer of WeBe Life, Inc., a digital health company harnessing the power of WE to improve global mental health and wellbeing. In this role, he is the member of executive management that is responsible for maintaining and driving operational results. He works closely with the CEO and other executive management team members. He is a skilled communicator and effective leader focused on spurring company growth, maintaining key operational procedures, creating new processes and ensuring day to day operational excellence.

He is the former, founding Chief Innovation Officer of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the largest federal civilian agency with a ~$270Bn budget and ~400K employees. He has decades of achievement advancing startups, corporations and government agencies. He is a collaborative leader, product and growth expert, and a health care futurist focused on inventing the future of healthcare delivery and payments.

Prior to his work at the VA, he served as the Director of Venture Development — Health Care at a private foundation with ~$2Bn in assets and ~$125M in annual disbursements. During his career he has led management consulting teams focused on developing and implementing solutions to strategic and operational challenges facing multinational corporations. In the U.S. health care industry, he has advised health systems, physician groups, academic medical centers, health plans, pharmaceutical companies, pharmacy benefit managers, and a Medicaid agency.

In addition to his role at WeBe, Mr. Akinyele is the founder of a startup venture studio incubating ideas and novel concepts focused on meaningfully advancing health equity and addressing societal ills. He is a member of the board of the Lymphoma Research Foundation (LRF), the largest foundation focused on funding research aimed at finding a cure and serving those touched by the disease.

Mr. Akinyele started his career managing physician practices in the Washington, D.C. metro area. He earned his Master’s in Business Administration from Stanford Graduate School of Business and graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Howard University.

Randy Phelps, PH.D

Dr. Phelps is co-founder and Chief Clinical and Science Officer of WeBe Life Inc. He is a licensed clinical psychologist with 40 years’ experience in mental health service delivery, research and national mental health policy. He worked at the top of the U.S. mental health care system for 25 years as a senior executive of the American Psychological Association (APA) in Washington DC. Dr. Phelps also spent more than a decade working with Give an Hour - a national nonprofit providing free mental health services to U.S. veterans, service members and their families - including as CEO. He has dedicated his career to advocating for mental health access for all persons.

At APA, the largest psychological association in the world, Dr. Phelps was a member of APA’s senior leadership team from 1994 – 2019, serving variously as Senior Advisor for Healthcare Financing, Deputy Executive Director for Professional Practice, and Assistant Executive Director for Professional Issues. He was APA’s liaison to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for a decade and a half, and a member of the VA Committee for Veterans with Serious Mental Illness. He worked closely with the U.S. Senate and House Veterans Affairs Committees, including providing testimony to both.

Dr. Phelps was also the Chief Executive Officer of Give an Hour, a national nonprofit providing free mental health care to those in need, including military populations, frontline COVID-19 healthcare workers, and victims of natural and manmade disasters. He served on the Give an Hour Advisory Board for over a decade, was a consultant and Treasurer for the GAH Board of Directors, and served in staff roles as GAH’s Vice President of Operations, and then as Chief Executive Officer from 2019 to 2021.

Dr. Phelps received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Utah in 1981. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, Distinguished Practitioner of the National Academies of Practice, Member of the American Family Therapy Academy, and recipient of APA’s Karl Heiser award for advocacy. He was awarded an APA Presidential Citation for his contributions to professional psychology, and received the Harold M. Hildreth Award for distinguished public service.

Prior to APA and Give an Hour, his career included clinical practice, teaching, research, and administration in the public and private sectors in Texas. Dr. Phelps’s practice specialized in family and marital therapy. Additionally, he was the director of psychological services in a private psychiatric hospital, on the faculties of the University of Texas Medical School and the University of Houston, and was chief of a public mental health treatment and research clinic for children and families in Houston, Texas.

Dr. Phelps has been principal investigator of numerous federal, state and privately funded clinical and outcome research studies. He has authored over 25 professional publications and has delivered more than 80 presentations in various fields of mental health.