Company leader
Kristina Saffran
Co-founder and CEO
Equip
Kristina Saffran is co-founder and chief executive of Equip, which CNBC describes as the largest virtual eating disorder treatment provider in the U.S. She was diagnosed with anorexia at 10, recovered through family-based treatment as a teenager, and co-founded the nonprofit Project HEAL before starting Equip to make that kind of care available at home and through insurance.
Anorexia at Age 10
Saffran has written that her anorexia began when she was 10, after her babysitter went on a diet and she tried it too, in an essay on why she founded Equip. In her freshman year of high school she was hospitalized four times for a total of seven months. “And though this may sound bizarre: I loved treatment,” she wrote. “It was safe. It was easy.” The hard part was coming home, where she kept relapsing.
Recovery Through Family-Based Treatment
When she started to relapse after her fourth hospitalization, her parents offered a choice between three months at a residential program and staying home for family-based treatment, in which parents plan, plate, and supervise every meal. She chose home so she would not miss another year of school. “To be clear, I hated it,” she wrote, but it was the treatment that made her well. Peer support, she added, is what kept her in recovery.
Co-founding Project HEAL
As she grew stronger, she learned that most Americans with eating disorders never receive treatment. In 2008 she co-founded Project HEAL to raise money for people who could not afford care. Studying psychology in college, she found that much of the treatment offered in the community had little research behind it, while family-based treatment, the approach that had worked for her, was hard to find and rarely covered by insurance.
Starting Equip
Saffran co-founded Equip in 2019 with Erin Parks. Equip kept the core of family-based treatment and added peer and family mentors along with medical, therapy, and dietitian support, all delivered by video, and later added programs for adults who do not live with family. “I started Equip so that no more parents have to bury a child,” she wrote.
CNBC included her among its 2026 Changemakers, noting that Equip doubled its staff and added 13 health plan contracts in 2025 and that actress Kerry Washington became an investor and adviser. Equip also runs Equip Academy, an accredited training program for clinicians.