Meal delivery service snares Google director
A former Google director has joined the executive team at allied health and meal preparation service Kinela.
A former Google director has joined the executive team at allied health and meal preparation service Kinela, which has experienced a boom in demand in recent years and during the coronavirus pandemic
The NDIS-registered provider has announced the appointment of David Heymann as its Chief Operating Officer, saying he will lead the organisation through its next chapter on the back of a dramatic increase in demand for support services, triggered most recently by COVID-19.
The organisation was established in 2014 and currently delivers meals to the home of older Australians and people living with a disability, as well as providing telehealth services for people needing dietician, speech pathology and OT services.
Mr Heymann previously held senior roles with the internet giant, including most recent as Director of Partnerships Strategy and Operations.
He says there is currently enormous potential for creative organisations in the disability sector to innovate on traditional delivery, grow successful businesses and improve access to essential health and wellbeing services for those who need them most.
“It’s a truly exciting time to be joining the Kinela team as we look to scale our business and positively impact more Australians,” he said.
Kinela founder and CEO Karn Ghosh said the hire marked the a new step for the company as is developed new products and pursued new growth plans.
“As we continue to expand our operations and explore new ways to best support our nation’s vulnerable communities, David’s extensive experience, passion and dedication to innovation, customer experience and strategic partnerships will prove invaluable,” he said.
Kinela’s revenue has grown more than 150 per cent a year since 2017 and experienced huge growth in its customer base and food orders in the last year. It has also experienced growth of almost 200 per cent in allied health hours delivered since last June.
Mr Ghosh puts the company’s success down to its modern attitude and person-centric approach to health and wellbeing.
Kinela also maintains partnerships with food charities Foodbank and SecondBite.
Image: David Heymann (L) with Karn Ghosh
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I hope to see Kinela making it convenient for people with an intellectual disability to pay a regular amount to them as their co-contribution to meal provision (for ingredients) funded through NDIS plans. Currently, people on Disability Support pensions do not have a reasonable fortnightly based payment option. Bank direct debits and invoice based payments do not work for people with an intellectual disability especially because many people with an intellectual disability do not have email or internet access – this means only a Centrepay arrangement will work for them. Fortnightly payments are important for people to manage meagre budgets with pension payments coming fortnightly. Otherwise people have to attend at Post Offices and keep enough cash out of their pensions to pay. This is often too complex and can go wrong too easily with tensions between bills and other demands on their cash. Once someone has an NDIS quote agreed and so a plan to purchase regular number of meals through Kinela it would be most appropriate to be able to pay Kinela through Centrepay.