Making Therapy More Accessible
As a senior product marketing manager at Alma, Angela Gonzales (MMM ’14) draws on her MMM experience to help expand access to mental health care through thoughtful, technology-enabled solutions that support both clinicians and clients.
Angela Gonzales (MMM '14) is a senior product marketing manager with Alma, where she supports the mental health technology company's goal to simplify access to high-quality, affordable mental healthcare.
To complete that mission, she incorporates insights developed in Northwestern's MBA + MS Design Innovation (MMM) program, a dual-degree program between Northwestern Engineering and the Kellogg School of Management.
“Access means more than just making therapy available. It means helping people find a therapist who truly feels like the right fit,” she said. “When that match is stronger, the experience is more meaningful and the outcomes are better.”
The struggle to find any therapist, let alone one with whom a patient feels comfortable sharing difficult and often traumatic inner details, is real and growing. The American Counseling Association found that nearly half of the US population lives in designated mental health workforce shortage areas.
Angela and her colleagues believe Alma can help fill that void, while also helping therapists grow their practices. The company has more than 24,000 therapists in its network.
Angela leads a team of three product marketers focused on client engagement and the provider experience. She and her team work closely with product managers and product researchers to understand how users experience Alma today and where there might be room to improve.
“At its core, product marketing is about understanding people, what they need, what motivates them, what feels confusing or valuable,” she said. “And then it’s about translating that into how a product is shaped, positioned, and brought to market.”
Angela's goal is to help Alma introduce new features and experiences that build awareness, drive adoption, and help both patients and providers.
Increasingly, these improvements are supported by advances in technology, including AI. When used thoughtfully and responsibly, these tools can help extend access to mental health support whenever the need arises, Angela said.
“As these technologies become more embedded in everyday life, I’ve found myself increasingly drawn to the question of how innovation can make care feel more continuous, accessible, and responsive to what people actually need,” she said. “What has made this work especially interesting is that it sits at the intersection of technology, behavior, and human-centered design, which has defined so much of my career since MMM.”
Angela's background prior to MMM was engineering and operations focused. Since then, she's incorporated design thinking lessons from the program to a variety of industries, ranging from clothing to wealth management. But it is with mental healthcare that she said she feels most needed and useful.
She said the MMM program is to thank for that.
“Being surrounded by such a diverse group of classmates really expanded my worldview and pushed me to think more openly and empathetically,” she said. “It made me more comfortable asking questions, staying curious, and recognizing that some of the most valuable learning happens when you listen before trying to solve.”