Voice is in our DNA

Our goal is to make healthcare affordable, accurate, and accessible for everyone, everywhere.

Meet our Founders

The Canary Speech team are industry leaders in voice AI, backed by decades of experience and research in speech recognition and machine learning technology. Our team brings expertise from Amazon Alexa’s founding speech lab and neurology at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Henry O'Connell

Co-Founder & CEO

Henry has spent more than thirty years leading healthcare technology companies. Following his neurology work at the National Institutes of Health, and C-Suite positions at Hewlett-Packard and Gilson, Henry served as president and CEO of MOXTEK, a leading supplier of nano-optical and x-ray components used in display electronics, imaging, and analytical instrumentation.

As the author or co-author of twelve patents and a frequent speaker at technology and healthcare conferences, Henry brings exceptional experience leading companies to success.

Jeff Adams

Co-Founder & Chief Speech Officer

Jeff is one of speech AI’s most prominent figures, with more than twenty years of experience in speech and language technology. He was recruited to lead Amazon’s founding voice AI team on the strength of his groundbreaking work on speech recognition at Nuance, and voice-to-text transcription at Yap.

Jeff was instrumental in developing the speech recognition technology powering household-name Amazon products like Alexa, Echo, Dash, and Fire TV. After departing Amazon, he went on to found Cobalt Speech & Language, an automatic speech recognition technology, and Canary Speech.

Our world-class team of experts in speech and language technology

Nate Blaylock, PhD

Chief Technology Officer

Nate leads Canary’s research and engineering teams. With more than 20 years in speech and AI, and over 40 peer‑reviewed publications, he is a recognized leader in speech and language technology. Before joining Canary, he led a large AI team at Nuance Communications, developing NLU models for production voice assistants in over 20 languages.

Jeremy McFadden

CFO & Chief Data Officer

Jeremy brings more than 20 years of expertise in healthcare technology and 3 CFO roles to Canary Speech. As CFO of Acessa Health, Inc, Jeremy scaled the company to successful acquirement. His professional career has spanned finance, technology, and healthcare roles at Philips Healthcare and Deloitte.

Kang Hsu, MD

Chief Medical Officer

Kang brings more than nine years of leadership in clinical innovation to Canary Speech. As Chief Medical Officer, he advances voice biomarker technology and ambient intelligence in healthcare through strategic partnerships and clinical validation. Previously, at Providence, Kang integrated clinical informatics, analytics, and quality initiatives, collaborated with Microsoft on AI in healthcare, and led EHR implementations for 16 hospitals.

Caitlyn Brooksby

VP, Marketing and Strategic Partnerships

Caitlyn leads Canary's marketing and communication teams with more than a decade of experience in the healthcare, technology, and start-up sectors. Before joining Canary Speech, her previous experience included Fortune 500 roles, including but not limited to 3M Health Information Systems, and Intermountain Healthcare.

David Brown

VP, Engineering

David heads Canary's software team, backed by 25 years of experience in leadership roles. David led Verizon's digital media services as Senior Director of Engineering, scaling streaming powerhouses like Disney, ABC, ESPN, and Hulu. His work powered top-streaming Verizon events such as the Super Bowl, World Cup, and the NBA Finals.

Doug Crockett

VP, Operations

Doug is a highly successful professional known for bridging the gap between business and IT. Doug brings proven expertise in assessing, planning, and delivering scalable capabilities to Canary's product team. His past work includes UnitedHealthcare, Accenture, and the US Army. His commitment to excellence and passion for innovation make him an invaluable asset to the organization.

Yvonne Kirsch

VP, Growth

Yvonne Kirsch is a commercial and partnerships executive with expertise across speech-to-text, voice AI, and emerging cloud technologies. She has led go-to-market strategies and built scalable operations for high-growth healthcare and speech-tech organizations. Yvonne brings a strong track record in both channel and direct sales, expanding international markets and cultivating partnerships for companies including Philips Speech Processing Solutions, Corti, and now Canary Speech.

Namhee Kwon, PhD

VP, Research

Namhee leads Canary Speech's research team, building AI and speech analysis modeling with over 20 years of experience in AI, NLP, and speech analysis. Her past work includes data mining/NLP processing at AI-based Reunify, software engineering at Samsung, and search/recommendation at Myspace.

Jim McNamara

VP, Growth

Jill Tripp

Executive VP, Growth

Jill is an award winning leader with over 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry. She has a proven track record of consistently exceeding objectives by expanding corporate reach, establishing credibility and providing value-added solutions for customers & partners across multiple industries including Healthcare, SaaS, MedTech, and Tech fusion. Her past work includes Area VP of Strategic Partnerships at Teladoc and Sales Account Executive at InTouch Health.

Herb von Winckelmann

VP, Growth

Herb is passionate about bringing solutions to market that improve patient care while delivering measurable value to customers. He has spent more than 30 years in healthcare and digital health, making him a pro at building strategic partnerships, developing go-to-market strategies, and leading enterprise sales across health systems, payers, providers, and technology organizations.