Meet The MyFriendBen Team
MyFriendBen was co-designed with families and incubated at Gary Community Ventures. We’re deeply grateful to the original team of developers, project managers, advocates, and all-around wonderful people whose energy, insight, and support brought MyFriendBen to life.
Our Team
Sekhar Paladugu
Chief Executive Officer
Graciela Gonzales
Partnerships & Policy
Josh Mejia
Director of Engineering and Product
Pat Wey
Lead Software Engineer
Caton Brewster
Senior Software Engineer
Kari Chapman
Kari Chapman, Fractional CFO (CFO Selections)
Shantel Olguin
Shantel Olguin, Fractional Bookkeeper (ASP Team)
Designed for Scale
MyFriendBen’s rules engine is powered by PolicyEngine, a national, open-source rules as code platform. This backend calculator – plus our open source infrastructure – enables adaptation in other communities nationally.
MyFriendBen is currently live in Colorado and North Carolina, and we are are actively developing other state partnerships to dramatically improve access to public benefits at scale. Let’s transform the safety net together.
MFB's National Partners