New CEO Brings Noom Home to Princeton

Working from home has lost some of its luster in executives’ eyes, but working close to home? That remains a prized commodity.

When Geoff Cook, the CEO of digital health and wellness company Noom, was given the opportunity to pick where the company would relocate its headquarters, his hometown of Princeton was an easy choice.

Noom, which was previously headquartered in New York City, opened a 9,000-square-foot office at 1 Palmer Square in late September. It retains a Manhattan presence with additional offices at 5 Penn Plaza.

Noom was founded in 2008 by Saeju Jeong and Artem Petakov, who, according to a history on Noom’s website, were frustrated by an American healthcare system that focuses on sick care rather than well care. “Through years of experimenting, researching, and speaking with people from all over the world, they learned that weight and behavior change play a major role in addressing chronic diseases like diabetes and hypertension,” the website explains. “It became clear to Saeju and Artem that helping people achieve a healthy weight was a critical starting point for creating transformative long-term health outcomes.”

Noom uses principles from psychology and behavioral science, including cognitive behavioral therapy, to drive changes that can help people manage their weight and their mental health, guided by a mobile app paired with human coaching.

In 2019, the company signed a lease for a 120,000-square-foot office in New York City that went largely unused following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. The unoccupied space was sublet prior to the opening of the company’s Princeton office.

On move-in day for the new Princeton space, Noom announced a new weight loss program offering an off-brand GLP-1 drug that uses the same compounds found in medications like Ozempic and Wegovy.

These drugs were designed to treat Type 2 diabetes but have become popular tools for weight loss. They work by mimicking the action of the hormone GLP-1, which, in addition to its role in controlling blood sugar, also helps slow digestion and increase feelings of satiety, leading to a reduction in appetite.

Noom’s product comes at a reduced cost compared to mainstream GLP-1 drugs, with the first month starting at $149 and $279 for subsequent months.

The GLP-1 program comes with resources designed to help participants taper off the medication while still maintaining muscle mass and weight loss. Cook said they see the drug as a boost rather than a solution.

“When you’re trying to learn healthy habits like eating healthy or fitness, it helps if you have some early wins, it helps entrench the habit. If you’re getting rewarded for it, you’re more likely to keep doing it. If you do it long enough, it becomes part of your persona, you keep doing it,” Cook said. “And so if you combine the healthy habits with the reliable kind of weight loss of the med upfront, you can one day stop using it and taper off.”

Noom stands out from most weight loss programs with its psychology-based approach to fitness and health. Nowadays, there are multiple apps with similar methods, such as Omo, Eat Right Now, BetterMe, and more.

Cook said pairing GLP-1 with guided lifestyle changes designed to help keep the weight off is now what makes it different from other programs.

At the HLTH Health Conference held in Las Vegas in late October, Noom announced two additions to its GLP-1 program aimed at employers. Noom Med with Smart Rx, created in partnership with digital health company Waltz Health, allows employers and health plans to offer more cost-effective access to GLP-1 medications by bypassing traditional intermediaries.

Noom Weight with GLP-1Rx “caters to employers seeking to offer weight loss options without directly covering GLP-1 medications,” Noom explained in a press statement. “This offer allows employers to purchase Noom’s proven behavior change program with an option for members to receive a discount for anti-obesity medications, including Noom’s recently introduced compounded semaglutide product, GLP-1Rx. This option enables employers to offer comprehensive weight loss solutions and affordable access to GLP-1s without directly covering the cost of GLP-1 medication themselves.”

Cook joined Noom to usher in the GLP-1 era and bring about the recent changes. The serial entrepreneur and son of two electrical workers started running companies as early as college when Cook began an online editing business during his sophomore year as an economics major at Harvard University, where he was in the class of 2000.

“I was basically needing a school year job, and I thought, well, what could I do at Harvard?” Cook said. The answer? Writing and editing college admissions essays. “I could write reasonably well … so it started off as the ultimate side job and then made $10,000 the first year.”

By his senior year, Cook had a hundred people working for him. EssayEdge would eventually become a multi-million-dollar company run by Cook before it was sold to Thompson Peterson’s a few years after he graduated.

Following a move to Hopewell Township, Cook became CEO of an online social networking business called MyYearbook, founded in 2005 by his siblings while they were still students at Montgomery High School. In 2011, the venture was sold to publicly traded Latino social network Quepasa for $100 million (U.S., July 26, 2011).

Following the acquisition, however, Cook retained a personal and financial stake in the company and regained control in 2012 as the founder of MeetMe. What started as a single community-based messaging app eventually grew to include four additional chat-based apps — LOVOO, Skout, Tagged, and hi5 — and the company was rebranded as The Meet Group in 2017.

In the early startup days of MyYearbook, Cook had the choice to establish offices in New Hope, Pennsylvania, or in Princeton. His family was established in Hopewell at that point with his daughter attending Princeton Day School, but high rent prices and difficult parking made him choose New Hope.

Fast forward 18 years, and he had the chance to do it again with Noom.

Cook exited MeetMe in early 2023, and one conversation with former CEO of Match Group, Sharmistha Dubey, led to him working with the leading psychology-based weight loss app. The entrepreneurs were having breakfast when the conversation turned to mindfulness. Dubey was connected with a board member at Noom and knew about the company’s ongoing CEO search.

“She said, ‘Hey, do you want to be CEO of Noom?’ … I had just left my previous company. And the fact that I said mindfulness, I think made her think Noom,” Cook said.

He officially joined the company in July 2023, and now had to decide where to establish a home base.

Cook, by then a Princeton resident for the previous eight years, said moving the headquarters to Princeton was an easy choice with the ample cafés, restaurants, and good walkability. Along with the CEO, a good portion of Noom’s workforce lives in the region.

Since starting at Noom, Cook has hired around 120 people, with a greater part being from Princeton.

Cook said the transition is convenient for people in the area since they previously had to commute to New York City if they wanted to work in person. Now with two in-person locations, Cook said the company implemented a quarterly “offsite” system. Every couple of weeks, teams from the Princeton location visit the city office and vice versa. Each team gets to meet Noom leaders face-to-face and see how different locations function.

“There is something to be said for conversations with human beings in person,” Cook said.

Noom, 1 Palmer Square, Princeton 08542. Geoff Cook, CEO. www.noom.com.