Lessons Learned: My First Year at Artera

It has now been one year since I joined Artera (formerly WELL Health)! What a year it has been. Our company has grown so much and accomplished a lot in the past year. Today, we have 300+ employees with a presence in Hungary, one of Inc.’s fastest growing companies for the third year in a row, and the two-time Best-in-KLAS winner in Patient Outreach. 

As leaders, we tend to look ahead and focus on the next milestone or goal, but it is just as important to reflect on where we have been. One quote that has always stuck with me throughout my career is: learn from the past, prepare for the future, live in the present. 

So here goes…looking back on the last year, here are my top three learnings:  

1. Building a rockstar team isn’t a one person job. I’m extremely proud of the incredible Product Team we’ve built over the past year. I say “we” because it took our entire team to build this team. We’ve more than doubled in size – today we have 35+ team members at all levels and with diverse experiences (plus growth on our engineering team!). We’ve got some more growth coming, but we’re off to an awesome start. 

2. The strongest partnerships produce the greatest results. Hiring my counterpart, Ashu Agte, to lead the Engineering Team has had an incredible impact on me and the broader team. Together, Ashu and I have re-reimagined our R&D function into an empowered Innovation Organization (or iO). The iO is a partnership across our teams to work together to solve customer problems and iterate on those solutions, together. Our iO is a good mix of health-tech experts combined with rockstar SaaS folks – it’s important to have a combination of both to fuel diverse thinking and problem solving. I’m incredibly proud of the partnership we’ve formed; we are accelerating quickly and starting to see real impact across the company. Read my partner Ashu’s take on building an empowered iO in BuiltinLA and his blog, here.  

3. Remote work requires us to rethink how we collaborate and connect virtually. Over the past year as the pandemic evolved, our workforce has continued to adapt to this new style of remote work. It has challenged us to create new strategies to collaborate and work together (many of us have never met IRL!). To foster collaboration, we recently launched the iO Lab which is a monthly virtual meeting where our teammates from across the company can hear what’s happening in the Innovation Organization. Previously we would have had this meeting in-person with a pizza lunch, but today it is facilitated in a fun, interactive zoom format (with music of course!). And, we’re continuing to create new ways to collaborate and work together in this remote-world. 

In closing, it’s been a busy 12 months at WELL. The workplace has evolved and I’ve learned so much – and will continue to in the year ahead.  What have you learned in this new work environment? Do my lessons resonate with you? I would love to hear from you! Share your thoughts and engage with me on LinkedIn.

I’m also sharing a few of my favorite pictures from the past year….enjoy!♥