Wei Deng (NY, '08)

Tell us about Clipboard Health and how the idea came about.

Clipboard Health is a marketplace that enables healthcare facilities (such as nursing homes and hospitals) to hire nearby healthcare professionals, and empowers healthcare professionals to work when and where they want. To be honest, I knew nothing about the healthcare space when I started. The original idea was a financial instrument to invest in people’s education and collect a percentage of their income if they succeed (called income share agreements). In the process of executing on that idea, I talked to many students, including nursing students, none of whom cared about that financial product. But what many of them did want was help finding a better job with a better schedule, and thus I saw an opportunity to help a big group of people.

 

As CEO, what are some of the biggest challenges your company has been facing in the current environment?

Our business has grown quite a bit in the past few months in terms of demand on the facility side. In order to serve our customers with the same level of quality as in the past, we’ve had to grow our teams (including support, account management and general operations) quite rapidly. With that has come some growing pains, from training people quickly and figuring out the best organizational structure to operate efficiently while still continuing to give our customers the highest level of service.

 

Clipboard Health recently announced a stipend program for healthcare professional partners who test positive for the coronavirus. Tell us about the inspiration behind this laudable initiative.

To be honest, it was just the right thing to do. It helps our nurses, many of whom are contractors, feel financially secure that someone has their back and will take care of them if something were to happen to them on the front lines. That helps them so that they can continue to focus on taking care of patients.

 

As someone whose career has spanned the legal, investment banking and now healthcare technology industries, what advice would you give to someone who may want to change career paths but is hesitant to do so, especially in the current environment?

As any lawyer would answer, it depends. Especially if you don’t have certain obligations (such as kids or financial burdens), now may be the best time to make a career change, or to start a company! I really look at a career change not as an end state, but as another learning opportunity. There’s a lot of pressure, once you’ve picked a career, to feel like you have to “stick it out,” whether for your résumé, some feeling of accomplishment, out of guilt or a sense of self-identity (“I’m not a quitter”). But the reality is that you won’t really know whether you like something, or would be good at it, until you’ve tried. So I encourage people to not over-optimize or research and take a job that they think they’d likely enjoy, and then go from there.

 

The current environment is actually great for such a change. For one thing, no one will bat an eyelash if you change your career during this time. Also, the concept of having one career for your entire life has been challenged in the past decade anyway. In the tech industry, for example, people are sticking with a job for no more than two years on average, and I don’t see career changes as being that different.

 

In sum, my advice is simple: Most regrets for lawyers are errors of omission, not commission. What will you regret when you are 80 years old?

 

How have your experiences in the legal and investment banking industries helped you in your current role as CEO of a healthcare technology company?

My experiences as a lawyer have enabled me to understand the legal ramifications of our business and, as a result, be able to push the business forward while respecting the relevant rules and regulations. To be honest, just having the experience of reading heavy legal documents gave me the confidence to understand anything.

 

My investment banking experience has made it easy for me to quickly model out operational scenarios, both so that I can plan ahead (such as create a hiring plan based on the model), but also, and more importantly, be able to look at all the levers I can push within the business.

 

But ultimately, both law and investment banking are “people” businesses. And, as it turns out, most businesses are “people” businesses. What I took away most from my early experiences is how to build relationships and understand clients.

 

Any stories you would like to share about the impact of Clipboard Health on its employees and healthcare professionals?

I’m really proud of the organization that we’ve built. Clipboard Health is a fully distributed company and, as a result, we’ve attracted a lot of really awesome, qualified moms who want to work from home.

 

One employee, who did not graduate from college (as she was a teenage mom and never had the chance to finish), started with us doing support, and eventually was promoted to manager. She worked for us while she finished her college degree, and she told us that we changed her life by helping her achieve what she never imagined was possible.

 

Our platform has also been very helpful to people with young children or other responsibilities. For example, one certified nursing assistant was a single parent to four kids, struggling to make ends meet and to find a full-time job that could work with her parenting responsibilities. She came onto our platform and was able to make a full-time schedule off the shifts we offered and get paid instantly upon finishing a shift. She told us that, as a result, she could actually make a living to support herself and her kids.

 

These stories are reminders of why I do what I do.