For nearly three decades, Sharada Singh, MBA ’89, worked nonstop to build a successful cutting -edge technology company from the ground up.
In 2020, she and her husband, Anurag Singh, MBA ’90, sold their business, Education Management Solutions, but she still maintains a presence at the company because, as she says, relaxing isn’t in her nature. But now, finally, she has more time for her kids and a puppy.
“I was still working full time through 2021 and then slowly switched to part time, reduced my hours, trying to wean myself out of the business. But you know, when you’ve been running a business for some 27 years, it’s very hard to extricate yourself,” said Singh, of being co-founder and chief operating officer, handling finance, human resources and operations.
The pioneering company specializes in providing healthcare simulation hardware and software to help future medical professionals learn their trades. The students act out how they would treat a patient — either an actor or a mannequin — and the instructors evaluate the performance of their skills and training.
“We’ve been working crazy hours from the time it started,” she said. “We always prided ourselves that we were in the forefront of the technology platform to launch the product and provide services to our clients.”
The couple met at UAlbany while pursuing their MBAs. After working for other companies, they responded to a request for proposals to automate a testing process for foreign medical students. They won the contract and their own business took off.
Today, Singh, who lives in Paoli, Pennsylvania, is caring for their puppy, Penny, renovating a beach house for extended family and will soon be mentoring women entrepreneurs.
Her advice to prospective entrepreneurs is to stick with it and be willing to take risks.
“You really have to be passionate. If you believe in whatever it is that you want to provide to your customers, you will continue working on it. And that’s that, you know, perseverance, you just have to keep doing it and you will be successful.”
