These are unprecedented times, and there are few words that capture the gravity of this moment in our history. The last few months have led to a lot of reflection, looking inward personally and as an organization, while also thinking long and hard about what we can do to help others. Through all of this, we’ve welcomed a new team member, and given her an opportunity to flip the script in our Aequitas Forum and interview me. We’re also incredibly excited to launch The Health Talent Exchange publicly, as the definitive, real-time hub for open jobs at growing companies across the industry, and, because we’re eternal optimists, went on the hunt for the silver lining in all of this chaos. We hope you enjoy this quarter’s Catalyst newsletter, and we sincerely hope that if you’ve been impacted by COVID-19 and need our help, you reach out to us.

— Tim Gordon, Founder & Managing Partner

The Shift to Value-Based Conversation

For the better part of a decade, I’ve had the unique privilege of working with 300+ companies and 500+ entrepreneurs to solve some of the biggest health challenges of our time as the Portfolio Director at StartUp Health.

In that same time span I had the opportunity to work with Tim Gordon, who as the readers here know, is the Founder and Managing Partner of Aequitas Partners, a firm that builds leadership teams for high growth health companies. Entrepreneurs find themselves in a vulnerable spot when they’re bringing in senior execs – you’re putting your trust, and your company, in the hands of someone new. And in my humble opinion, there are few who understand and empathize with that position better than Tim.

Example? It starts with the company name. Stemming from Latin, Aequitas stands for fairness and integrity. In fact, it’s where the English word “equity” comes from. It is these values that make Aequitas a great partner for not just new folks like me, whose first day was literally the day NYC announced its shelter-in-place order, but for each of the entrepreneurs with whom we partner.

This is why I am particularly excited to have sat down with Tim virtually and reflected upon the last month together.

Polina: Tim, you have a lot going on. In the two week span of when shelter in place in New York City was instituted, you kicked off a number of brand new searches, brought in a brand new team member (hi!), moved your family, and then celebrated your son’s first birthday. Explain yourself.

Tim: It turns out I’m a glutton for punishment. The crazy thing, too, is that it seems like a long list, but there were actually even more things than just what you mentioned going on at the same time. I think historically I do better when I’m busy, but even I can admit that this was kind of bananas. Ultimately, it was about rising to this challenge on two fronts: do whatever it takes for your family, and also at the same time do whatever it takes your other family, for the company. I probably blacked out a little bit for the last two weeks of March, but we made it through all that and got the team distributed, and got you up and running very quickly, which I don’t know that we had as much to do with that as you did. But I’m grateful, frankly, that March is behind us.

Why We Do What We Do:
The Health Talent Exchange

As a team whose daily work revolves around building teams for high growth healthcare companies, Aequitas Partners has been closely tracking the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic across the digital health industry. We’ve watched our clients step up and do incredible work during this crisis, quickly responding by adapting their technology to address patient needs and the larger healthcare community. Unfortunately, we’ve also seen this pandemic result in budget cuts and layoffs for healthcare organizations regardless of whether they are established businesses or new startups.

Not surprisingly, the health startup space is amongst the many industries suffering a wave of recent layoffs. Founders and CEOs who are at the precipice of growth had to reverse their plans and make difficult decisions, team members who’ve been committed to big causes are asked to make impossible sacrifices, while others have been galvanized to roll up their sleeves and join the fight against a looming pandemic. Through it all, our team speaks daily to people who share a unified purpose in health, as they remain vulnerable to uncontrollable forces. In each of the conversations, the first question is the same – How do I even begin?

In Search of Silver Linings:
Opportunity in Chaos

“Work wherever you feel safe and comfortable.” That’s what I said to our team over a month ago, and I haven’t seen any of them in person since. We didn’t mandate anything because this was before New York City effectively shut down, but everyone understandably opted to head for more square footage and stocked kitchens in the suburbs. Overnight, the world changed. It felt…sad. There was a solid week of culture shock and change management as we adapted to being a distributed company, but as we adjusted, I encouraged everyone to change their perspective. There is opportunity in here somewhere – let’s find it. What’s the silver lining?