Despite joining Kalderos at very different points in their careers, team members have come to the healthtech startup ready for transformative professional growth.
Nearly three decades into his tech career, Senior Director of Engineering Anjan Samanta joined Kalderos to advance his work in healthcare IT.
“I have rapidly acquired in-depth knowledge of this domain, owing to the invaluable support of colleagues across teams,” he said. “I am making significant strides towards realizing both my personal and professional objectives at Kalderos, just as I had envisioned. I am enthusiastic about continuing my journey with Kalderos.”
Project Manager Sylvia Ho was at a vastly different professional inflection point when she first joined the Kalderos team — she was a third-year pharmacy student working as an intern. After graduating and joining Kalderos, Ho found the opportunity to expand her expertise across lines of business.
“At a startup like Kalderos, I’ve had the opportunity to work cross-functionally and immerse myself in various aspects of the business,” she explained. “I’ve collaborated with the technical teams, gaining insights into their roles to understand how I can support them from my position. I’ve also learned to advocate for my team, our customers and myself, helping me achieve my professional goals.”
What Kalderos Does
With teams in Chicago and Boston, Kalderos is committed to solving challenges across pharmaceutical discounts through its tech-enabled Drug Discount Management platform.
Leading with Purpose
Over the course of her own career, VP of Finance Kelsey Andriatch transitioned through accounting roles into financial planning and analysis and corporate finance, and from public accounting to corporate roles and then into healthtech. When she landed at Kalderos four years ago, Andriatch took on an array of responsibilities: overseeing the accounting and finance functions; managing a team; leading banking, tax and audit engagements; reviewing financial reporting; leading strategic initiatives and participating in customer meetings.
“My years at Kalderos have been where I’ve experienced the most growth and opportunity,” Andriatch said. “Being in a startup atmosphere has encouraged me to be innovative, creative, scrappy and bold.”
“My years at Kalderos have been where I’ve experienced the most growth and opportunity.”
Samanta echoed these sentiments, emphasizing the company’s focus on career growth.
“The leadership team at Kalderos is deeply committed to fostering the professional growth of their employees,” he noted. “During my tenure in the engineering department, an extensive career development framework was implemented, encompassing the entire engineering team. This initiative received substantial support and guidance from various departments, including HR, talent acquisition and engineering leadership, notably my direct manager.”
For Ho, the impact of supportive leadership has been instrumental in her growth.
“I’ve been fortunate to have great managers who listen and advocate on my behalf, which has played a significant role in my continuous personal and professional growth. It’s essential to know your goals, and it’s OK if they change over time. The key is to advocate for yourself, seek out projects that will help you develop new skills and work with your managers to find ways to add value to the team,” she said.
Like Samanta and Ho, Andriatch has found her leaders to be crucial supporters of her growth, and she has worked to do the same for her own reports.
“The leaders I’ve worked for have harnessed and developed my leadership skills and have made me driven to constantly be better than I was yesterday,” she said. “As a manager, I set tangible annual goals for my direct reports, and I try to include goals related not just to their day-to-day job but also focus on soft skills which push them out of their comfort zones and create opportunities to lead.”
“The leaders I’ve worked for have harnessed and developed my leadership skills and have made me driven to constantly be better than I was yesterday.”
According to Samanta, the company’s emphasis on employee growth and development has resulted in heightened engagement, enhanced performance, increased retention, strengthened teams and augmented innovation.
Individualized Journeys
Much of what makes Kalderos so successful at fostering its team’s career growth is its personalized approach.
“Kalderos provides training programs and crafts personalized career paths. Employees are assigned challenging projects and presented with growth opportunities,” Samanta noted.
Ho explained that the company recently introduced an optional individual development plan for employees interested in advancing their careers.
“The IDP provides full creativity and autonomy, allowing individuals to tailor their development based on their personal goals,” she said. “This initiative encourages employees to share their professional aspirations with their managers and advocate for their growth, fostering a culture of self-driven development.”
Beyond formalized planning, Andriatch emphasized the importance of regular career-focused conversations to integrate setting goals and tracking progress into daily relationships at the organization.
“We put extra effort into making sure our employees feel engaged and can see a path that aligns with their career goals and map out clear expectations that will lead them to the next step in their career,” she said. “Keeping these topics in the regular rotation has allowed me to promote members of my team. It feels like a clear and seamless process that I haven’t experienced elsewhere.”
Thriving Culture
In addition to advancing careers, the culture at Kalderos also promotes personal fulfillment. Andriatch reflected on how this has played out in her career, helping her grow into a “confident, outspoken leader.”
“In the last year, I’ve managed a strategic customer-facing project which has forced me out of my comfort zone and into many public speaking opportunities,” she explained. “It has challenged me to solve problems on the fly and be the subject matter expert on a highly technical topic that is very valuable to our business.”
Samanta noted that this aspect of the culture — which is most conducive to the thriving of employees — is guided by the company’s ethos of “executing bold endeavors.”
This innovative spirit is supported by the underlying mission of the company — to take on the most stubborn challenges in healthcare..
“Since graduating from pharmacy school, I’ve wanted to contribute to the goal of providing affordable and accessible care to patients,” Ho said. “Working at Kalderos has allowed me to deepen my understanding of the complexities of the healthcare system and share my insights and ideas on achieving these objectives, benefiting both myself and the patients we serve.”
That sense of care doesn’t only apply to the patients at the heart of Kalderos’ work — it extends to the internal team, as well.
“Having a culture where we work hard and have flexibility in where and how we work has benefitted my personal life by allowing me to be mentally and physically present for my family and friends while still being extremely committed and accountable at Kalderos,” Andriatch said. “I’ve felt challenged and pushed to be my best every day, and I’ve felt support from every level on the totem pole.”
