athenista Spotlight: Meet Natalie Bard
This month’s athenista Spotlight is Natalie Bard. Natalie has been with athenahealth since December 2004 and is currently a Senior Manager Operations in the Professional Services Department.
athenaPulse: Hi Natalie, thank you very much for participating in this month’s athenista Spotlight! Can you please describe yourself a bit and describe your current role at athenahealth?
Natalie Bard: I moved from Philadelphia to Boston 4 years ago and started life at athena as a Project Manager in Professional Services. After advancing from Project Manager to Senior Project Manager and doing some time “on the road” with many implementations under my belt, I transitioned to my new position in Professional Services, Senior Manager Operations in March. In this role I’m managing our team of Project Associates and Training Associates as well as various internal projects including training, resourcing, process improvement, performance metrics and reporting initiatives. As athena continues to grow, it’s a very exciting time of change and I’m thrilled to be a part of the leadership team in Professional Services.
aP: Can you describe your experience being on the road implementing athenahealth’s new clients?
NB: You never know what’s going to happen out on the road which is part of the whole crazy experience – my first day was December 1st and four weeks later I was supporting a large client’s “Go Live” when my luggage was lost between a one-way flight from Boston to Dallas. Nothing like a night in the hotel and showing up at the practice the next day ready for work in the clothes I wore on the plane! Needless to say, I haven’t checked a bag since. As a Project Manager, I found implementing large clients challenging and rewarding. I liked establishing a relationship with the members of the client project team as we moved through the implementation meeting together to weekly phone calls and spending time together onsite.
aP: How have you been able to bring your past experience with implementing clients back to your current role?
NB: As a Senior Project Manager, I was pulled in many directions and the challenge was to keep things on course: managing milestones in a project, coordinating time and travel commitments, setting and (hopefully) meeting client and internal company expectations and goals. Some key drivers that helped me do this were staying organized, delivering consistent communication and trying to be an unrelenting problem solver. I think these traits along with my experience in relationship building will transfer seamlessly as I try to make an impact in my current position - the next frontier for me.
aP: What has been your most rewarding experience working at athenahealth?
NB: Professional Services has such an amazing culture unto itself – even though people in our department are routinely out of the office and are mostly meeting with clients by themselves, the underlying sense of teamwork is still very strong. Everyone is an email or quick phone call away, and there’s comfort knowing that people are out there also doing what you’re doing and will answer questions at all hours of the night (and I have to include my peers in ProdSys in this as well). You know you’re not alone!
aP: What keeps you working at athenahealth?
NB: What keeps me working at athenahealth is that my experience here has been challenging and I always feel like I contribute and help to make an impact. I enjoy connecting with clients to help meet their objectives during an implementation, for example, or internally working alongside smart, hardworking people within my own team and throughout all departments at athena.
aP: Sounds like you stay very busy with work; what do you like to do when you’re not working?
NB: Now that my role doesn’t require the travel commitments like it used to, I’m trying to get myself back into doing what I used to like to do. I enjoy working out: yoga, swimming and I’ve re-engaged my love of spinning. It’s the music and the coordination of the bike’s tension that really makes it a unique workout experience–the whole trip is hinged on the beat as it varies from song to song (hills to a flat road). I like to play golf (I’ve joined a 9 hole league for the summer) and I like to knit (most recently I finished a baby blanket for a friend’s baby shower in April–that took me since Thanksgiving, but I was proud of it!).
aP: Do you like to travel? Where is your favorite travel destination, or favorite vacation spot?
NB: I do like to travel–well, I enjoy traveling outside the constraints of business travel–as the two are totally different experiences! Traditionally, growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia I spent a lot of time at the Jersey shore in the summers–anywhere from Ocean City, NJ as a kid to Avalon, NJ with friends later on. I’m heading there again this August with my family, which should be fun this year as it will be the first time there with my two nephews (4 and 2 yrs old). I also studied abroad in Spain for a semester in college and would like to do something in Europe again soon–I have my eye on a bike trip in the South of France. We’ll see.
