Lankford Wade is just four days on the job as CEO of UpStream, one of the Triad’s fastest growing startups, and he’s already planning rapid expansion.
Wade told TBJ that Greensboro-based UpStream plans to add another 100 care team members in the next 6 to 12 months. Wade joined UpStream on Monday, after former CEO and co-founder Sanjay Doddamani quietly left the company in April. UpStream did not provide comment on Doddamani’s departure.
As of December, UpStream employed more than 300, had partnered with more than 1,000 physicians and was providing care to more than 175,000 Medicare patients through its partnerships in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. UpStream did not provide updated data.
The 100 new employees are critical to UpStream’s mission. The value-based care and technology company helps primary care physicians offer top care to seniors by embedding clinical care teams, comprised of nurses, pharmacists and care concierges, in their practices and through its support platform.
“A big part of what we do and why we need these care teams to be staffed at the level they are is that we spend a lot of time upfront with the patient,” Wade said. “We believe that we are their advocate for their health care needs. We’re not replacing the primary care provider; we’re working in concert with them.”
Care teams, of about three to five employees, manage a certain number of patients across multiple practices, Wade said. By adding 100 employees to this sector, Wade hopes to prove that the Greensboro startup's model can work at scale.
“One of the big areas for focus for me is, if we’re going to add 100 people, we’ve got to make sure we’ve got the playbook in place …. to make sure that it is repeatable as we go forward,” he said.
New CEO brings wealth of health care finance experience to UpStream
UpStream, formerly known as UpSteam Healthcare, has raised $185 million to date, including a $45 million Series A in November 2021 and a $140 million Series B in December 2022. Wade said that UpStream does not currently need to raise any capital in the short-term.
Most recently, Wade served as CFO of Summit Medical Group/CityMD in New Jersey. He joined the health system during the Covid-19 pandemic and led Summit through its $8.9 billion acquisition by VillageMD.
He also served as CFO at US Anesthesia Partners and worked in other finance positions with Aetna, HealthSpring, General Atlantic Partners and Morgan Stanley.
“[Lankford’s] demonstrated history of leadership and unwavering dedication to patient care resonate deeply with our mission,” said Fergus Hoban, founder of UpStream. “I am confident that under Lankford’s leadership, UpStream will evolve and amplify its impact, helping seniors lead more enriched, content and self-reliant lives.”
Q&A with Lankford Wade
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Tell me about your background.
Most of my career has been in health care. I come from a family of clinicians, so I’ve always had a passion for health care. My grandfather was a neurosurgeon, my father was a dentist and my brother is an oncologist. When I was in college, I thought I was going to be a doctor, but my major was in economics, so I decided to work in finance for a little bit before deciding if I really want to go to medical school. I started my career working in investment banking during the .com boom. I then worked in private equity, investing in health care organizations. I really enjoyed that, but I felt like I wanted to be closer to the action. I also got bit by the entrepreneurial bug. I worked in two different private-equity-backed environments both as the chief financial officer.
What attracted you to UpStream?
I love working with physicians. I love empowering them with information. I love helping them to practice at the top of their license and meet the needs of patients daily. UpStream and its care model, in the way it embeds clinical teams alongside primary care practices to meet the needs of individual patients, called to me. I felt like there are hallmarks of things I have been successful with, so hopefully I can bring some additive perspective to the table. As I got to know the team and the investors and the board, my interest kept going up and up and up.
I’m really looking forward to getting to know our partners in Cone Health, in the Triad HealthCare Network, in the Medical University of South Carolina and in all the other practices we partner with. I want to figure out ways that we can help empower them to do what they do best and how they can help us and have our clinical teams feel like they’re a part of their organizations.
What are some of your goals as CEO?
The most important thing that a leader can do is to help the organization understand what the right roles are. I think of it like this – what are the right seats on the bus that we can create for people? And then giving people meaningful opportunities to be successful. That’s number one. Number two, how do we make sure that we put the right people into those seats? And to cultivate and develop them over time so that they can be successful in those roles, which includes providing support resources and getting barriers out of their way. Number three is making sure that we’ve got the right roadmap, so we know where we’re going and why we’re going. It’s not my job to drive the bus but it’s my job to make sure that others on the bus know the direction and to empower them to move the bus forward in that direction. And it’s my job to make sure that we’re singing fun songs along the way, so we can enjoy the journey.
Do you foresee any challenges in this role with UpStream?
I will be the first to say that it’s my first CEO role. My background is finance. I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve worked for CEOs that have allowed me to pick up the baton and run with it in areas that may not have been in the job description of a CFO. Some of the things that I’m most excited to learn in this role are the things outside of finance, like working more closely with our network and providers, helping to build an organization and a culture. It’ll be exercising different muscles, like being more of an external advocate and a salesman trying to bring on more partners.
An earlier version of this article incorrectly wrote that former CEO Sanjay Doddamani still lists UpStream as his employer on his LinkedIn. His LinkedIn lists that his tenure as UpStream's CEO ended in April.
