IAM2614 – CEO Transforms Health Tech by Building a Healthcare Platform

I AM CEO Handbook Volume 3 is HERE and it's FREE. Get your copy here: http://cbnation.co/iamceo3. Get the 100+ things that you can learn from 1600 business podcasts we recorded.

Hear Gresh's story, learn the 16 business pillars from the podcast, find out about CBNation Architects and why you might be one and so much more. Did we mention it was FREE? Download it today!

Transcription:

The full transcription is only available to CBNation Library Members. Sign up today!

Ram Krishnan Teaser 00:00
The health care practice delivering care is running off of us as its base operating system. It needs us to do its work. You know, that means like we're generically speaking, you've heard of terms like practice management or electronic health record or revenue cycle management.

But we make the software that runs their business, helps them bring in new patients and handle those patients, get them onboarded through the intake process, setting up their appointments, collecting payment, documenting all of the clinical interaction.

Intro 00:34
Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:59
Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have an awesome guest on the show today. I have Ram Krishnan. Ram Krishnan, excited to have you on the show.

Ram Krishnan 01:08
Great to be here, Gresh.

Gresham Harkless 01:10
Yes, I'm super excited to have you on and talk about all the awesome things that you're doing. And of course, before we do that, I have to read a little bit more about Ram so you can hear about some of those awesome things that he's doing.

And Ram joined Valant in 2020 as an experienced technology executive to lead the organization through its next stage of growth.

His passion for listening to the customer and building strong teams coupled with his demonstrated ability to drive scalability and provide a solid foundation for Valant to grow as it finds new ways to serve the behavioral health care market.

Ram's robust experience began at GE, where he graduated with the Information Management Leadership program and went on to lead the Global Radiology and Service business units.

And after nearly 15 years at GE, he went on to lead multiple SaaS businesses through critical phases of growth. Ram graduated from the University of Virginia with a BS in system engineering and earned his MBA from the University of Chicago.

When he's not working, he's traveling, spending time outdoors, playing a little guitar and spending time with his wife and three kids.

And one of the things that Ram and I were just chatting about, he's also from the Northern Virginia area as well, too. So we were just kind of reminiscing on things that are there, not there, things we didn't know about. And it was really cool just to kind of go through that.

But I read one really cool story, and I would love to hear a little bit more about that, is I guess he led Valant to version 2.0 and migrating all customers to a new tech platform in a weekend, I heard.

So I don't know if that's an urban legend or true thing, but that's a Super Marvel feat at the very least. One of the things that I really, really loved is I was listening to one of his podcasts, and he had this quote that really, really stuck with me. He says, 50 years from now, I just hope and I hope mental health is just health.

It's not distinguished from physical health. It's one holistic view. And in that, we've harnessed and wrestled technology in a general way that it is a net positive for all humanity, not a negative, and that the solutions and software that come along to support it are hyper-focused on making their lives better.

So Ram, Excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Ram Krishnan 03:08
I can't wait man.

[restrict paid=”true”]

Gresham Harkless 03:09
Let's get it started then. So to kind of kick it all off. Let's rewind the clock a little bit, hear a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

Ram Krishnan 03:18
Yeah, wow. So I'm going to take you all the way back. And I don't mean to take you back too far. But it does, actually.

When you look back at your life, it all fits together. None of it made sense while you're going through it. But it always looks like a great story in reverse, right?

And that's what we all do. But for me, it started at UVA. I went to engineering school there and got a degree in systems engineering, which is basically you know, if you think about the manufacturer of a car or the design of a car, you have a chemical engineer working on the combustion system, a mechanical engineer on the gears, a material science engineer on picking the right materials to keep it lightweight and durable, electrical engineers wiring it all together.

It has a circuitry. All the systems engineer make sure it all works together well. And I spent the first 15 years of my career growing through the ranks of a large corporation. at GE and you know I think like GE is where I learned the foundations of management and leadership and you know I learned from watching great leaders.

We were a global company so I got to interact and I had to do business and I ran businesses that were global so understanding the nuances of how to lead a team in Japan versus one in Germany, versus one in Egypt.

Just the cultural differences force you to understand how do I need to change to communicate and lead in a context where people. We bought companies that had their own culture, and then we're this big, massive You know, multinational multibillion-dollar company absorbing them.

And how do you mesh and bring the value you think you'll add, which is your brand and your distribution and all of your like kind of like like processes, if you will, that were that scaled to some small company who who like.

Like solve the market problem and became excellent because of their nimbleness, their closeness to the market, their speed, their lack of like all this hierarchy and decision making and figuring out that balance.

Super instructive to me, like in terms of how to how to how to deploy these things at different sizes and scales of companies. I left GE at some point where I felt like You know, I want to run a company. I want to be CEO.

Like I decided at that point, I realized I wasn't going to be the CEO of GE, you know, like that 15 years. I realized I'm probably not going to be that here. And so I left and I left healthcare for about eight years and ran a couple of businesses. I ran a public company for five years, which could be a whole podcast on its own.

I could talk about that, the crazy stories I had there. But that led me to Valent, which is where I joined in 2020. And I came back to Valent, or came to Valent with the desire as I was transitioning from the public company to get back into healthcare, get into something smaller, get into a market in healthcare that hadn't really been, hadn't changed the way they worked with technology, where technology could really make a difference.

Didn't feel like there was a clear market leader. So it felt like, I could do something here with a team like we get in there and actually put an imprint on it and change the way the market works and for the betterment of all of us. Right. Because we're all potential consers of the of the of the service.

And it's a market with like unfortunately. Profound amount of tailwinds, you know, no matter what crazy happens in the world around us, it's just creating customers for the future for our customers, right? Like, it's just the more stresses and challenges that we hear about with social media or just the amount of things that were bombarded with every day. Unfortunately, it creates more demand for these services.

It's a great place to be to do good, right? Because the work that we're doing with our software to help our clients deliver on their mission ultimately sort of boomerangs back and affects ourselves in our own communities with our friends, family, and community that might be going to seek the same care. I've been a hired gun. I get hired to get brought in to fix something, improve something, scale something.

Unbelievably courageous viewpoint that a startup founder has to go tackle something like with so much ambiguity, but you have so much conviction against it. But I've always been able to take the baton from that and help those size companies become the next size. Yeah,

Gresham Harkless 07:54
I absolutely love that. And so I wanted to drill down a little bit more. I know you touched on a little bit in here, a little bit more on what you're doing at Valnt. Can you take us through a little bit more on how you're serving, making that impact and work with those clients that you have?

Ram Krishnan 08:05
Yeah, like if I took the most generic description of what we do, we're a system of records. So when you think of different types of software, there's some that's like a marketing platform, or there's some that might be an accounting platform.

We're a system of record. The health care practice delivering care is running off of us as its base operating system.

It needs us to do its work. That means we're, generically speaking, you've heard of terms like practice management, or electronic health record, or revenue cycle.

But we make the software that runs their business, helps them bring in new patients and handle those patients, get them onboarded through the intake process, setting up their appointments, collecting payment, docenting all of the clinical interaction in a way, and you can imagine how much AI is coming into place here now, but docenting the clinical interactions between patient and provider, making sure there's a record, bundling that up to get sent to insurance, to submit a claim and then helping them get paid for that claim and then staying in touch with that patient to make sure they come back for care for the follow ups.

Right. So it's that whole life cycle of a patient through a practice that we help a business owner manage and run to make sure they're compliant, they're delivering great service and care, and they're getting paid for the work that they do.

Gresham Harkless 09:26
Nice. And you might have already touched on this, but I almost wonder if, , again, being able to kind of see the forest for trees is like that secret sauce can be for yourself, the organization or combination of both, but that, and I wonder if that simplicity part.

Cause I almost feel like when you're able to see the forest for the trees, you're able to get a lot simpler with understanding what you're doing and not losing sight and all the things. Do you feel like that's part of your secret sauce?

Ram Krishnan 09:49
You're like writing the outline for what my book's got to be about. Not that I planned to, but you're like, it's a pretty impressive, Gresh. But you're right. I think this wasn't the first migration I'd done.

I'd done three before. And what you start to realize is no matter what you plan, they're going to be hard. No matter what you plan, that day's going to be hard, that week's going to be hard, but that month after and the four months after are going to be fine. And we'll survive.

We'll be okay. And just kind of building that experience over time and then just being convicted and setting a plan and leading from the front just gives you the confidence and conviction to know experience does help. help with that. But having seen the whole picture from end to end and gone through it, like you just know this is only one point and we'll survive it and it'll be more after that.

And you just kind of have to like, yeah, you do have to keep, I'll use that word conviction again, because if you waver, everybody around you will feel that and they'll waver too.

Gresham Harkless 10:53
Absolutely. That's such a powerful thing. And so I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack.

So you might have already touched on this, but it's an app a book or a habit that you have, but what's something you lean on that makes you more effective and efficient?

Ram Krishnan 11:04
I think also my personal secret sauce is using And everyone's businesses are different, but we sell software and we have salespeople, right?

So we have call recording software that we use for all of our sales reps. And there's a bunch of them out there. I won't name ours or any, because they're all kind of probably have similar things.

And we record every single conversation between a sales rep and a customer. Now, you might be thinking like, okay, is it awesome? Is that a hack? Because I get to like, crack the whip on salespeople?

No, not at all. Like, it's not even about them. It's actually the great I get to listen to hundreds of customer conversations. you know, and absorb what they're struggling with, what they're coming into a call with us for, because they call us because they have a problem.

And their problem is they are articulating that problem on the call. And they don't buy with us because we couldn't solve a problem that they had.

And so for me, in guiding the company on what should we build, where should we position things, what should we buy as a company, hearing these trends and patterns over lots and lots of calls, for me, is the equivalent of me going out in the field and having 100 meetings.

I can do that in three weeks just listening to all these calls. So to me, I think that's the hack I would share with people because When I talk to other people, I'm surprised how many people don't do this.

Gresham Harkless 12:30
Yeah, absolutely. I love that. So you might have touched on this as well, too. What would you consider to be a little bit more of what I like to call a CEO nugget?

Could be word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite client or if you hopped into a time machine, you might tell your younger self.

Ram Krishnan 12:45
There's a quote from this management guru guy named Peter Drucker who most people probably, his quote was culture beats strategy for lunch. And it's a great quote. It's one I heard like early in my career.

It's one that GE like focused on a lot, was culture. And it has stuck with me. And it's kind of what you know, what like we've tried to do here. And, you know, that culture beats strategy for lunch because strategies on a piece of paper, it's hans that make that strategy happen.

And so when we're all aligned, it's a lot easier to actually execute that strategy. The other like nugget I have with kind of woven through is just be laser-focused on asking your question or yourself all the time.

What problem am I trying to solve? Whether you're hiring a person because we need more people, do we really need more people?

Or do we have an inefficient process? Is there work we can take off the plate that is not adding value? It's the core of lean manufacturing principles and lean process improvement, lean startups, lean everything. Is there what problem are we really solving?

And same with technology. We need to have this new system in place. Like do we? Or is it just going to make our problems like crank out twice as fast?

Like what problem are we solving? And it's the same when we're selling our product to customers. Like do we know what problems they have? Let's make sure our platform solves their problems.

If not, they might churn in a year or two because we're not a good fit.

Gresham Harkless 14:10
Perfect. So I wanted to ask you now one of my absolute favorite questions, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And our goal is to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Ron, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Ram Krishnan 14:20
There's a book I read. It was on the shelf when I worked at GE early in my career, and I grabbed it and I read it. It's a Jack Welsh book, and the title is Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will. Out of that little title, I'll be honest, I skimmed the book, but all I had to really read is that title and the key points in the smary chapter.

It really had an impression on me. I think being a CEO for me at times is when you like, hate the culture of the company you work for, well, you get to look in the mirror and blame that guy.

Like, he's the one that can make the change, right? Like, when you don't like the team you're on, like, guess who you get to talk to? The guy in the mirror. And he gets to make that change.

If you don't like the strategy, it's that guy right there. Like, and I think like, that like, quote, control your destiny or someone else will, is a lot of why I think, you know, why, what a CEO has around them, like, right?

Like that comes with like great responsibility, right? With the number, the people and the, or the investor's capital or the customers you serve, like that you're responsible for.

But at the end of the day, you know, you're, you get to sort of control the outcome or at least the input to get that outcome to some extent. And there's no one to blame but yourself.

Gresham Harkless 15:42
Absolutely. Well, Ram, truly appreciate that definition. And of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know.

And of course, how best people can get a view, find out about all the awesome things you and your team are doing.

Ram Krishnan 15:57
Yeah, if you want to reach me directly, you can hit me up on LinkedIn directly. If you're looking to connect and you're looking for advice or just want to connect and talk shop, I'm happy to reach out to me personally on LinkedIn.
Our company's at valant.io. It's, you know, that's a internet extension IO, but it also for us stands for improved outcomes. Just a side note.

Gresham Harkless 16:21
Absolutely. And of course, to make it even easier, we'll have the links and information, the show notes as well, too. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Ram Krishnan 16:27
I appreciate it. It was a great time.

Outro 16:29
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media.

Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase. It's a community. Don't forget to schedule your complimentary digital marketing consultation at Blue16media.com.

This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.