MedTech Masters Q&A: Kylle Jordan

MedTech Mas­ters Q&A is baaaaaack! And we couldn’t be more excit­ed to kick off our fall series with medtech mover and shak­er Kylle Jor­dan, busi­ness devel­op­ment man­ag­er at Des­ti­na­tion Med­ical Cen­ter. Her 15-year career is packed with expe­ri­ence lead­ing inter­na­tion­al affairs and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment ini­tia­tives in the medtech indus­try. This year, Min­neapo­lis-St. Paul Busi­ness Jour­nal rec­og­nized Kylle’s out­stand­ing accom­plish­ments, nam­ing her to the pres­ti­gious 40 Under 40 list. Con­grat­u­la­tions, Kylle! We’re hon­ored to share more about Kylle and what this dynamo is up to – let’s go! 

What is your back­ground in medtech? How did you get start­ed? 

I don’t have for­mal train­ing, just many years of work­ing with founders. I’m often asked if I have a sci­en­tif­ic back­ground (I don’t) or a his­to­ry of invest­ing (again, nope). I got my start in this space via eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment. My degrees are in inter­na­tion­al eco­nom­ics, which I used ear­ly in my career at the Cana­di­an Con­sulate in Min­neapo­lis. We worked with Cana­di­an inno­va­tors seek­ing to enter the U.S. health­care mar­ket, as well as Amer­i­can com­pa­nies expand­ing to Cana­da. I got my first expo­sure to reg­u­la­to­ry and payer/provider dif­fer­ences across bor­ders in that role. I then worked with med­ical device man­u­fac­tur­ers who were expand­ing their phys­i­cal oper­a­tions through the Busi­ness Devel­op­ment team at the Min­neso­ta Depart­ment of Employ­ment and Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment and GREATER MSP. Com­pa­nies seek­ing their next man­u­fac­tur­ing or R&D loca­tion would com­pare the cost of doing busi­ness in Min­neso­ta to that of Boston, Cal­i­for­nia or Texas – and as you might imag­ine, we were not only cost-com­pet­i­tive but offered ancil­lary ben­e­fits through the dense net­work of medtech com­pa­nies in the state. I round­ed these expe­ri­ences out with a role at Med­ical Alley build­ing an inter­na­tion­al net­work of sim­i­lar region­al ecosys­tems and gain­ing a far more nuanced under­stand­ing of the chal­lenges medtech founders face, as well as the net­work that exists here to help them suc­ceed. 

Tell us about your role with Des­ti­na­tion Med­ical Cen­ter – what are you work­ing on these days and what ener­gizes you? 

This is a dream job – my pri­ma­ry goal is to build aware­ness in inter­na­tion­al health tech­nol­o­gy clus­ters of oppor­tu­ni­ties to work with Min­neso­ta-based inves­ti­ga­tors and experts when they first enter the U.S. mar­ket. I get to speak with founders and inno­va­tors from around the world, help­ing them take the next step in their busi­ness jour­ney through the Min­neso­ta ecosys­tem and Mayo Clin­ic net­work all while improv­ing out­comes for patients. DMC has invest­ed in an inno­va­tion dis­trict in Rochester – Dis­cov­ery Square – that allows us to offer a ‘soft land­ing’ for glob­al inno­va­tors. Not only do we have this real estate option, but also con­nec­tions in the Mayo Clin­ic to help these founders build their clin­i­cal evi­dence; as well as the dense ecosys­tem of orga­ni­za­tions in Min­neso­ta that help their inno­va­tions make it to mar­ket, includ­ing the team at Bell­mont Part­ners. I’ve been told that our abil­i­ty to con­nect these inter­na­tion­al teams direct­ly into the spe­cial­ized sup­port they need – whether that is legal incor­po­ra­tion in the U.S., under­stand­ing how to achieve reim­burse­ment, con­tract man­u­fac­ture, and so much more – is tru­ly unique amongst U.S.-based inno­va­tion clus­ters. 

DMC recent­ly cel­e­brat­ed its 10-year anniver­sary. What are some of the biggest changes the orga­ni­za­tion has expe­ri­enced, as well as accom­plish­ments achieved over the past decade? 

We sure did, and we’ve accom­plished great things so far: 

• 15% increase in the num­ber of jobs in Rochester, out­pac­ing out­pac­ing mid­west­ern peer cities 
• 29% increase in the num­ber of con­struc­tion jobs  
• Mayo Clin­ic’s $5 bil­lion Bold. For­ward. Unbound. in Rochester invest­ment announce­ment  
• 391,000 square feet of new research and inno­va­tion space deliv­ered  
• 100% increase in the amount of down­town hous­ing  
• $1.6 bil­lion in new state and local tax rev­enue  
• 300% increase in the size of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta Rochester grad­u­at­ing class 
• 15 vacant or under­uti­lized blocks redeveloped
• 3 new or upgrad­ed pub­lic spaces  

My team with­in DMC is build­ing our inno­va­tion ecosys­tem here in Rochester, so our future is focused sup­port­ing tech­nol­o­gy part­ner­ships with Mayo Clin­ic and wel­com­ing entre­pre­neurs to our com­mu­ni­ty. 

Why do you think the health care and medtech indus­try is so promi­nent in Min­neso­ta? 

I half-joke that in this case, neces­si­ty is the moth­er of inven­tion. The Mayo Clin­ic exists in Rochester due to a ter­ri­ble weath­er event – which is not dis­sim­i­lar to the sto­ry of Medtronic’s found­ing. But what has sus­tained and dri­ven this indus­try to the glob­al­ly rec­og­nized hub it is today is col­lab­o­ra­tion. Whether that’s in the form of com­pet­i­tive man­u­fac­tur­ers com­ing togeth­er to push for­ward leg­is­la­tion that helps the entire indus­try, or indus­try pro­fes­sion­als shar­ing their tal­ents with the next gen­er­a­tion of founders by becom­ing angel investors or KOLs – even mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­als shar­ing best prac­tices from oth­er indus­tries in Min­neso­ta (like retail or CPG). The cul­ture here runs on good will and a desire to help each oth­er do our best work for patients. 

You are a pro at so many things includ­ing build­ing and nur­tur­ing rela­tion­ships and con­nect­ing peo­ple. Why is this so impor­tant in the medtech indus­try? 

In a word, trust. Any­one can use Chat­G­PT to build a list of com­pa­nies that pro­vide ser­vices like reg­u­la­to­ry guid­ance to ear­ly-stage medtech com­pa­nies, but when you’re a founder that’s got 12 plates spin­ning in the air, receiv­ing a warm intro­duc­tion to someone’s trust­ed part­ner is much more valu­able and effi­cient. Even more impor­tant­ly is being able to lever­age that trust­ed net­work when you run into a chal­lenge – whether that’s con­nect­ing to a fel­low founder or a sub­ject mat­ter expert. I’ve cul­ti­vat­ed a trust­ed net­work of pro­fes­sion­als who are pas­sion­ate about sup­port­ing ear­ly-stage inno­va­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly from out­side the U.S., in order to super­charge mar­ket access for Rochester inno­va­tors. 

In your work with inter­na­tion­al groups, what’s your favorite coun­try or region you’ve trav­eled to on behalf of DMC and why? 

The Nether­lands, not just because it’s a beau­ti­ful coun­try and there are out­stand­ing tech­nolo­gies com­ing from their uni­ver­si­ties and founders, but because their entire ecosys­tem is focused on sup­port­ing inno­va­tion. Heck, I once had an issue with my pass­port and my col­leagues at the Dutch Con­sulate helped me solve it so I could meet with their com­pa­nies and ecosys­tem in per­son at the HLTH Europe con­fer­ence. The Dutch are seri­ous about dri­ving inno­va­tion and build­ing part­ner­ships to last! 

Is there any­thing else you’d like to add that we haven’t asked about? 

Come vis­it us!  If you haven’t been to Rochester recent­ly, you’ll like­ly be sur­prised at what we’re lit­er­al­ly build­ing here. We are always hap­py to show folks around Dis­cov­ery Square and talk about the excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties on the hori­zon at Mayo Clin­ic! 

——

Thank you so much, Kylle, for tak­ing the time to share your expe­ri­ence, insights and pas­sion for medtech – and for all you do to con­nect peo­ple and bring more inno­va­tors to Min­neso­ta! Stay tuned for our next install­ment in this series – a con­ver­sa­tion with Chris New­mark­er, edi­tor in chief, life sci­ences at WTWH Media. 

Check out our pre­vi­ous Q&As with Frank Jaskulke, vice pres­i­dent of sales and busi­ness devel­op­ment at Avio Medtech Con­sult­ing; Mark Gard­ner, founder and man­ag­ing part­ner of Gard­ner Law and Chrysalis Incu­ba­tor; and Aman­da Ped­er­sen, senior edi­tor of MD+DI.  

Do you have a life-chang­ing inno­va­tion and are look­ing for help to bring it mar­ket? We’d love to hear more! Con­tact us for a com­pli­men­ta­ry PR strat­e­gy ses­sion and brain­storm.