CEO Mentor Roundtable with Dr. Zahid Butt Event Summary

On January 25, 2020, OPEN Washington hosted Charter Member Dr. Zahid Butt, Founder and  CEO of Medisolv, for a CEO Mentor Roundtable event. We had a spectacular turnout of 35-40 attendees including CEOs, entrepreneurs, founders and corporate professionals from different sectors and a very insightful, wide ranging conversation with excellent networking. Zahid founded his business 20 years ago and has grown it to over 750 major hospital clients and over 5,000 physician users with significant growth potential ahead. He was a finalist for the 2016 E&Y Maryland Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and based on the exchange of ideas at this Roundtable, it is evident why. Zahid provided very thoughtful and engaging answers to a wide range of questions raised by event participants. Zahid describes himself as an “accidental” entrepreneur. While leading his very successful medical practice in the 90s, Zahid became interested in the role of technology in solving challenges in healthcare. He experienced his “a-ha” moment one night sitting through a 10:00 PM panel on technology at a medical conference and realized the enormous changes coming to the healthcare field due to innovations in technology. The insights from that panel eventually led him to make a fundamental transition toward entrepreneurship and start the company he continues to lead today. Zahid identified four points that contributed to his entrepreneurial success:

1. Dogged persistence
2. Making a product that others will want and pay for
3. Confidence that you will get through the tough days
4. Having a strong support system in place with your family
5. Natural curiosity and interest in continuously learning about the subject matter of his business and his industry allowed Zahid to see and exploit opportunities others did not.
6. Recognizing early as an entrepreneur that a business or product will succeed and scale if it solves a problem that needs to be solved, not a problem that is “nice” to solve.
7. Staying focused on the solution his company was providing, and on the market he was providing that solution to, and not getting distracted; Zahid was willing to say no to business opportunities that would take his company off track.
8. Understanding that to be a successful business leader, you must know your own strengths and weaknesses with honesty, recognize how that aligns to the capabilities your business needs to grow, and fill in the gaps by recruiting strong talent. As an example: Zahid knew he was going to build a company at the intersection of healthcare and technology, and he knew what business problem he wanted to solve, but he was not a technologist or a programmer. That did not deter him. He recruited programmers to develop the first versions of the product and solution he envisioned, and as the company grew, he continued to recruit the talent the business needed to attract customers and deliver great products and solutions.

It was clear to all attendees that Zahid had a true passion for his business and enormous energy to continue to lead it toward further success. In Zahid’s view, we are still at a very early stage in the market potential for data analytics and AI as it applies to the delivery of healthcare, and there is still a long way to go before the market matures. Thank you to all the participants who joined this Roundtable including Charter Members Saqib Rizavi, Irfan Malik, and new OPEN DC Board Members Craig Cofrancesco, Rahul Jindal and Shayan Salahuddin. We also had five Charter Member nominees and a finalist from the 2019 OPEN DC Start Up Pitch Competition attend and we appreciate their active participation. We especially want to thank Charter Member Mushtaq Khan for admirably facilitating the discussion, and Dr. Zahid Butt for keynoting a terrific CEO Mentor Roundtable event. The Roundtable was hosted in the McLean Room of the  McLean Community Center . We appreciate the staff or creating such a warm and hospitable space for us and look forward to additional events at this venue. Please join us for future events in 2020.  The calendar is summarized below and will provide updates as new events and locations are added. We look forward to hosting you!