Jonathan Lizotte is the Founder, Chairman & CEO of Designs for Health. Throughout the years, he has guided and directed the company to ensure that its mission and vision are realized. His focused, hands-on approach, with direct involvement across all business functions, is a key driver of the ongoing success of the company.
Jonathan’s entrepreneurial spirit has led to the founding of four DFH locations, helping to generate hundreds of jobs. Jonathan credits his business success to one simple philosophy, “Do what you said you would do, when you said you would do it.” This attitude, along with a team of individuals who share this understanding of business etiquette, is why over many years DFH customers have remained loyal to the brand.
Born and raised in Western Massachusetts, Jonathan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in finance from the University of Florida. He is also Treasurer of the Alliance for Natural Health, a non-profit Washington, DC based political advocacy group supporting consumer access to nutritional supplements, integrative medicine, and freedom of choice in healthcare.
With over 30 years in the integrative medicine, medical foods, and nutritional supplement industry, Jonathan is an expert in the business of the therapeutic use of natural products. Under Jonathan’s leadership, DFH has become one of the fastest growing, most respected manufacturers and distributors of nutritional supplements nationwide.
Phil joined Designs for Health in 2006, after a rewarding career in the construction industry, where over the course of 28 years he built two companies into very successful enterprises. As Vice Chair of DFH, Phil’s experience in building organizations and coordinating their resources has been a major asset in the development of DFH from a company with only one distribution center, into an organization with four distribution centers and two manufacturing facilities.
As Vice Chair of Designs for Health, Gail Lizotte keeps in close contact with the day-to-day activities of this growing enterprise. Since the early 1990s, Gail has overseen all DFH’s operations, which makes her the go-to person for many issues. Gail is also the coordinator of employee matters for all four DFH facilities. With her steady presence and her ability to connect with people, Gail is an enormous part of the heart of this company.
After several years serving as outside counsel to Designs for Health, Steve joined the company as its General Counsel in 2012. Prior to joining DFH, Steve was engaged in private practice in Connecticut for over 20 years. During this time, he focused on corporate and transactional matters for small and medium-sized businesses, including M & A, debt and venture capital financing, and commercial real estate. As DFH’s General Counsel, Steve’s focus is on protecting the DFH brand and supporting the company’s rapid growth. Steve’s aggressive litigation strategy in state and federal courts, has resulted in permanent injunctions and six-figure settlements against unauthorized online resellers of DFH products, helping to clear unauthorized sellers from Amazon. Steve also leads a team of attorneys and regulatory specialists that partner with the company’s business leaders to identify and navigate regulatory and other risks that are inherent in rapidly growing companies like DFH.
Amardeep Kahlon joined Designs for Health in 2022. He is a global business leader with more than 20 years of commercial experience across sales, marketing and business development roles. In 2019 Amardeep was recognized as a Top 50 Health Influencer by PR Week, serves on the global Board for the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), and is a member of the Google Advisory Board for the CPG Industry vertical. In his role as Chief Commercial Officer, Amardeep is responsible for leading and overseeing all aspects of the sales, marketing and innovation functions.
Mike Lambert joined Designs for Health as Chief Financial Officer in 2022. In this role, he directs the organization's strategic planning, financial analysis and modeling, treasury and tax management, accounting, internal controls, and financial reporting. Mike brings over 30 years of finance and accounting experience to Designs for Health, including 15 years of financial leadership in high-growth life science businesses. Prior to joining DFH, Mike led the financial organization for Deerland Probiotics and Enzymes, a specialty manufacturer of science-backed supplement solutions using probiotic, prebiotic, and enzyme technology.
Dr. Brady has over 30 years of experience as an integrative practitioner and over 25 years in health sciences academia. He is a licensed naturopathic medical physician in Connecticut and Vermont, is board certified in functional medicine and clinical nutrition, a fellow of the American College of Nutrition, and completed his initial clinical training as a doctor of chiropractic. Dr. Brady has been the chief medical officer of DFH since 2003 and has been a guiding presence in product formulation and design, clinical education and support, quality control oversight and strategic partnerships for the company. He also is a founder and serves as the chief medical officer for Diagnostic Solutions Labs, and is the former long-term vice president of the Division of Health Sciences and director of the Human Nutrition Institute at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, where he continues to serve as professor emeritus of nutrition. He has appeared on the plenary speaking panel of some of the largest and most prestigious conferences in the field including; IFM, ACAM, A4M, ACN, IHS, AANP, AIHM and many more. He is in clinical practice at Whole Body Medicine in Fairfield, CT, specializing in functional, nutritional and naturopathic medicine.
Rachael Pileggi joined Designs for Health in 2018 as an attorney for the company and leader in the Legal department. In her current role, Rachael is a strategic HR business partner and leader of the HR function, she also oversees the implementation, management, and effectiveness of the company's compliance programs. Before joining Designs for Health, Rachael worked as an advertising/marketing, FDA regulatory, and general commercial attorney for Fortune 500 and Russell 2000 public companies.
Tom Bertolino joined Designs For Health as Chief Information Officer in 2021. In this role, Tom leads the global master IT strategic plan and provides executive leadership for internal and external IT resources. Before joining Designs For Health, Tom worked 16 years at Anheuser-Busch in various logistics/IT roles and was elected to ABI's multi-year Leadership Development Program. For the last 8 years, he successfully led a software product development team at Cass Information Systems. Tom attended St. Louis University where he received a BS in Finance and an MBA with an emphasis in Management Information Systems.
Peter Barraket has more than 18 years’ experience across the health food, vitamins and dietary supplements industry. He started his career in accounting before moving into institutional and international banking, where he spent a number of years trading currency and commodity derivatives for a number of major Australian banks. In 1999, he moved into the corporate world and commenced working at Goodman Fielder (Australia’s largest food company at the time). He worked on a series of profit improvement initiatives and mergers and acquisition deals.
In 2003, he joined Australia’s largest vitamin and dietary supplements company, Blackmores, as its Corporate Development Manager, before being promoted to the company’s Chief Financial Officer and then Director for Australia. In 2012 he was recruited by Private Equity firm Next Capital to run the supplements division of one of their portfolio companies Vitaco – New Zealand’s largest vitamins and health food company. More recently he was the CEO of Mr. Vitamins, Australia’s largest independent health food retailer and also founded his own strategic advisory business called Natural Core, specializing in developing core business strategies for participants in the natural products space.