Recently, we had the privilege to chat with Charu Ramanathan, PhD (GRS ‘04), a serial entrepreneur driven by a passion for leveraging technology to advance health equity and access. Her journey from a PhD student to a successful founder of multiple companies offers valuable insights for aspiring entrepreneurs, especially women in STEM. Currently the CEO and co-founder of Vitalxchange, Ramanathan shared more about her experiences and challenges, and gave us her advice for the next generation of innovators.
Can you tell us about your background and your journey into entrepreneurship?
I am a PhD in biomedical engineering. I joined the graduate program around 1995, graduated with my masters and then my PhD in 2003. The technology I worked on was electrocardiographic imaging, and it was really ripe for clinical translation. So I licensed the technology, got a team together with my co-founder, Ping Jia, who was also a PhD student at Case Western, and started CardioInsight.
After running CardioInsight for 8 years, we sold it to Medtronic in 2015. I worked for Medtronic for a couple of years, but then decided that my best place was to be an entrepreneur. I started Lokyata, a microfinance credit scoring startup, and eventually, Vitalxchange, a digital health platform focused on early childhood development and parent-led interventions for children with developmental delays or early signs of autism.
What are some of the entrepreneurial skills you've learned along your journey?
Being a very mindful entrepreneur is not just going through a checklist. My fulfillment and sense of purpose really came when I started to think about how deliberate I could be with my actions in terms of the problems I'm solving and how I'm solving them.
It's that steadiness that keeps you very tenacious and feeling good along the way because the entrepreneurial journey can be a big onslaught on your mental health. For me, being very mindful and deliberate so I know why I made a decision even if it doesn't pan out, is a really important aspect of the path to success.
As a woman in a male-dominated field, what challenges have you faced?
As a scientist, I wasn't so aware of the gender bias initially. But as you get into the business world, you really start to see those biases. It's really important to recognize if someone is uncomfortable with a woman founder. I can answer all their questions, but if they have a foundational problem with the fact that I'm a female founder, that's something I can't fix.
It's important for female professionals to understand this because you'll waste a lot of time and start losing your power if you second-guess yourself. My identity as a female founder is extremely important, and I feel like that's how I can pay it forward to other professionals.
How do you approach work-life balance as a female entrepreneur?
You know, we talk about work-life balance. That's just not realistic. There are way more demands on my time and expectations that I've placed on myself, not just what other people have placed on me, with respect to my role as a mother, daughter, and wife. But on the upside, these things make me a better time manager. They build resilience in many ways and help me think about my coworkers with a lot more empathy. I try to encourage them to create their own balance as they achieve key milestones for themselves and for the company because I'm going through that journey along with them.
What advice do you have for young women in STEM fields who often find themselves as the only woman in the room?
I always ask myself, "What's the worst thing that could happen?" It helps put challenging situations into perspective. I also use humor to defuse tense situations and connect with others in the room. Remember that judgmental people will remain so regardless of your performance, so focus on those who are open-minded and supportive. And keep in mind that you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, so don't be afraid to speak up and contribute.
Would you have any final advice for students and aspiring entrepreneurs?
Don't lose the fact that along this journey, you're also becoming a productive member of society. It's really important that you surround yourself with experiences that shape that piece of it, and most often than not, you don't just get it in the classroom. You get it from interaction with other human beings that are not part of your bubble.
Step outside your comfort zone. Go volunteer in a soup kitchen. Attend a music event of a genre you don't usually listen to. Engage in a charity. Do something in a real-life experience, not just a virtual one. When you show civic responsibility and contribute to the community, you learn how real people live in different parts of our society, and then you start to grow as a human being, and find real problems to solve. And I think that's really, really important.
Vitalxchange is one of the CWRU-founded ventures in the CWRU Alumni Venture Fund portfolio.
This article was written by CWRU Alumni Venture Fund Fellow Evelin Urbancsok, class of 2025.