When Madhavi Vemireddy took the reins of Cleo, a benefits platform that provides end-to-end caregiving support to working families, it was because her predecessor was grappling with the very challenge that the company has made central to its mission. In January, former CEO Sarahjane Sacchetti had decided to step down when she realized it was no longer tenable for her to balance her role at Cleo with her own caregiving responsibilities after she lost a parent to a terminal illness.
Since its founding in 2016, Cleo has become the go-to family benefits platform for more than 180 companies that want to help support their employees with their caregiving commitments, from PepsiCo to Salesforce; in 2022, its overall membership increased by 60%. With its acquisition of CareTribe, a digital health platform cofounded by Vemireddy, Cleo expanded its offerings to elder care last year. Since Vemireddy stepped into her new role—first as co-CEO, and more recently as the full-time CEO of Cleo—the company has only deepened that investment, rolling out its caregiving services globally and introducing tools like the Family Health Index, which helps assess whether families and caregivers are at risk of burnout.
Cleo’s focus on caregiving is also personal for Vemireddy, who has an autistic son and, like Sacchetti, faced her own challenges navigating elder care and terminal illness—an experience she found confounding even as a physician.
As Vemireddy wraps up her first year leading Cleo, she talked to Fast Company about what she learned from being a co-CEO, how Cleo is using data to preempt families’ needs, and how AI-powered tools will shape Cleo’s product in the coming year. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
What have you been working on since you became the co-CEO of Cleo back in January?
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