Leadership Spotlight: Zoltan Gombosi

Zoltan joined Certify in February 2024 as Sr. VP of Engineering. Zoltan brings a wealth of experience and passion to his role through a diverse background, including serving as a Water Polo Timing Official at Aragon High School in San Mateo, CA and coaching rowing from 2002 to 2003. Zoltan lives with his wife, 3 children, 2 cats, and dog in California. He recently participated as a panelist at HiPaaS 2024, showcasing his commitment to advancing the future of AI in healthcare.

Background and Career Journey

Tell us a little bit about your background.

I am the youngest of two children. My family immigrated to the US from Hungary when I was 8 years old. I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan where my father worked in the Space Sciences department at the University of Michigan. I graduated with a BS in Mathematics and Computer Science and an MS in Computer Science.

Can you share some highlights from your career journey and what led you to Certify?

I think it’s important to try different companies, roles, and experiences as much as possible to really know where you fit in. I learned something important in each role and without the full set of experience, even the hard ones, I wouldn’t be here at Certify today. I began my career at a couple of startups of various sizes working as a developer and really getting my legs under me in technology. During the dot com bust, I went through my first layoff. I thought it would be a good time to join a larger and more stable organization, which landed me at Oracle. That’s when I realized that smaller companies are much more my speed. I enjoy wearing many hats and contributing to an organization that is moving fast and making waves. I then joined Siperian, a company building a Master Data Management (MDM) platform. I learned a ton and was able to make a big impact on the product there. A few years later, Siperian was acquired by Informatica. Informatica is a pretty large company and I wasn’t sure I would enjoy the work. However, this time, working at a large company suited me better. I was able to learn different roles and was given the opportunity to contribute at a variety of levels. This is also the time when I tried my hand at Product Management, leading the function for the MDM platform, which gave me a finer appreciation for how the other half lives. After Informatica, I was keen to go back into the startup world and joined Reltio, a disruptor in the MDM space where I had the opportunity to lead Engineering to build the first cloud-native MDM platform. Ten years later, the product and company had really taken off. I knew I wanted to stay in the data space, but it was time for a new adventure and Anshul found me through a recruiter. I don’t have a meet-cute story with Anshul, but he was pretty far along in the process of finding a head of Engineering when we met for the first time. He rushed me through the interview process in just about a week, while I was on a business trip to India. I am thrilled with the experience, people, product, and opportunity we have in front of us at Certify.

What or who influenced you in your youth to go into engineering?

The biggest influence on me was my father. It’s a bit cliche, but he introduced me to the first computer I had access to. In 1984, when we moved to the US, my father brought home the original Macintosh computer. I played the mouse tutorial as a game for hours. Since then, I have been enthralled by computers. I used to copy code for computer games out of coding textbooks.

Leadership and Management

I see you coached the rowing team at Bair Island Aquatic Center in Silicon Valley. What did you learn from coaching rowing about being a team leader?

When you’re coaching a rowing team, it’s critical to look at each individual to identify their opportunities to improve and how they can make the rest of the team better and how they can come together to make the boat smoother and thus faster.

When you’re a manager, the same principle applies. You have to help the team by making sure each individual is performing at their best and that you help each person improve to achieve success for the whole team.

What is the most meaningful piece of advice you were ever given?

When I first became a manager, the GM of the Master Data Management (MDM) group at Informatica saw potential in me and gave me the opportunity. He personally mentored me even though I was about 3 levels below him on the totem pole. He gave me 3 things to always keep in mind as a leader and they stick with me to this day:

1. Be humble
2. Learn from everyone
3. Go the extra mile

I try to live by these words to this day.

How are you building a culture of engineering at Certify?

It all starts with a process of building trust. You do that by listening to the team, showing that you care about each individual, and that you hold everyone (especially yourself) to the same standards.

What do you believe are the cornerstones of a healthy culture and where in your past have you seen it work great?

I follow my leadership principles to build culture. They are:

• Transparency and honesty are paramount.
• Hire people smarter than you.
• Trust your team to do their jobs and believe that they have the right intentions
• Time spent together outside of the home office is key to connecting on a personal level with your team and creates the longest lasting and strongest relationships.
• Be open to great ideas no matter where they come from. The best ideas often don’t come from leadership.
• Be direct with your team and provide constant feedback. There should never be surprises during a review cycle.
• Always go to bat for your team. You have to earn trust, not just expect it.

Company-Specific Questions

How do you see Certify’s solutions evolving in the next five years?

Certify will become the source of truth for all Healthcare Provider (HCP) data in the US. Certify will be a one-stop shop to get the best HCP data available to all sources in the US. This will enable not only the fastest and most trusted results for credentialing, but also enable all other compliance and business processes for HCP data including, but not limited to, licensing, payer enrollment, rostering, EPDM, and more.

What about Certify’s long-term potential most excites you?

Data is the blood that flows through all software systems to make them valuable. Without data, software is useless. Certify has the potential to power the entire HCP data infrastructure of healthcare in the US. As we build the best platform on the market, everyone will want to have Certify in their ecosystem to power their applications around HCP data and to ensure they make the right decisions regarding HCPs every time. With Certify, you can make the right decisions, faster than with anyone else.

What do you see as the largest challenges facing Certify in the near and long term?

The pace of growth with the opportunity in front of us is staggering. As an example, we more than doubled the size of the Engineering team this year. When you’re growing that fast, a large percentage of your team will always be new and in the process of ramping up. This can create strain on the organization if you’re not prepared to onboard new employees effectively with proper training, tools, and documentation to ensure they can be successful and start quickly contributing effectively.

Are there other companies operating alongside or adjacent to our space that you find interesting, inspiring, or give you worry?

There are some companies that are doing interesting things adjacent to Certify that will partner well with us on this journey. Companies like CAQH have a great handle on the intake of provider data. Companies like this can be strong partners to increase the potential of both organizations.

There are also technology companies that can jump start the Certify platform with better data management capabilities. Companies working on AI-based entity resolution, for example. Entity resolution is a key component of provider data management for both attribution of licenses to providers and to ensure that when the same provider data comes from multiple sources, we can create a single source of truth to drive the best and fastest possible decisions for our clients.

What’s your favorite thing about working for Certify?

It’s the people. I’ve never been at a company where everyone is so open to input and trying new things. The environment at Certify lends itself to innovation and the teams are sponges ready to tackle whatever we throw at them. By embracing change and new ways of doing things, we enable ourselves to remain at the forefront of the industry and to ensure that we maintain our advantage by adopting the latest and greatest practices, technologies, and tools.

You can learn more about Zoli’s leadership journey in his bio. Zoli, thank you for sharing your experiences with us.

If you would like to join our Engineering team, see our Careers page to find open positions.