# Jeff McDonald

> Jeff McDonald is the CEO and co-founder of Kythera Labs, a Franklin, Tennessee data technology company founded in 2019 to make fragmented healthcare and life sciences data more consistent, traceable, and useful. A theatre arts and stage design student turned serial entrepreneur, McDonald moved through enterprise technology, Evariant, Expression Health, and Trilliant Health before assembling a familiar team to build Kythera's Wayfinder platform on Databricks. His career is tied together by a practical conviction: trustworthy answers depend on disciplined work beneath the surface.

- **Role:** CEO and Co-Founder at Kythera Labs
- **Organizations:** Kythera Labs, Trilliant Health, Expression Health, Evariant
- **Education:** College studies in theatre arts and stage design
- **Known for:** Co-founded Kythera Labs in 2019., Led Kythera during three consecutive Inc. 5000 appearances in 2024, 2025, and 2026., Led Kythera as it received the 2026 Databricks ISV Innovation Built-On Partner of the Year award.

## Career timeline

- **Early career** — Worked at a technology rollup and developed an enterprise strategy for technology and services serving healthcare organizations.
- **Before 2014** — Joined healthcare startup Evariant with responsibility for innovation.
- **2014** — Bootstrapped Expression Health; an early Hadoop deployment used 50 second-hand servers housed behind a beauty parlor.
- **2015** — Co-authored 'Connecting the dots: using big data to build an efficient, integrated service line' in Healthcare Financial Management.
- **Before 2019** — Expression Health merged with two companies to form Trilliant Health, where McDonald served as Chief Product Innovation Officer.
- **2019** — Co-founded Kythera Labs with a team drawn from Evariant and Expression Health.
- **2021** — Kythera expanded its partnership with Datavant and announced a Databricks partnership for its Wayfinder platform.
- **2024** — Kythera debuted on the Inc. 5000 at No. 4,249 and became a CMS Qualified Entity with access to nationwide Medicare claims data.
- **2025** — Kythera rose to No. 1,945 on the Inc. 5000; McDonald appeared on the Rare Connection podcast to discuss AI and real-world data.
- **2026** — Kythera was named Databricks ISV Innovation Built-On Partner of the Year, launched its Clinical Semantic Bridge MCP on Databricks Marketplace, and ranked No. 1,870 on the Inc. 5000.

## Achievements

- Co-founded Kythera Labs in 2019.
- Led Kythera during three consecutive Inc. 5000 appearances in 2024, 2025, and 2026.
- Led Kythera as it received the 2026 Databricks ISV Innovation Built-On Partner of the Year award.
- Co-authored a 2015 Healthcare Financial Management journal article on using big data to build an integrated service line.
- Helped develop analytical products and data technology platforms across more than 20 years in healthcare.

## Latest updates

- **2026-08** — Kythera Labs ranked No. 1,870 nationally and No. 30 in the Nashville metro on the 2026 Inc. 5000, its third consecutive appearance.
- **2026-07** — Kythera Labs launched the Clinical Semantic Bridge MCP on Databricks Marketplace.
- **2026-06** — Kythera Labs received the 2026 Databricks ISV Innovation Built-On Partner of the Year award; McDonald wrote about the company's native Databricks architecture and plans for governed multi-agent systems.
- **2026-04** — McDonald discussed his career, stage-design background, team philosophy, and the early Expression Health server story with NashvilleVoyager.
- **2026-03** — McDonald told healthcare leaders not to let fear drive AI decisions and emphasized organizational alignment and an early practical win.

## Links

- Website: https://www.kytheralabs.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-mcdonald-6b605b2/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/jeff-mcdonald
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-26