By Peralte Paul
Dr. Chris Herrmann (left), founder and CEO of Clean Hands -Safe Hands, stands with Angela Gill Nelms, chief operating officer of Florence, following both companies being honored by the Atlanta Business Chronicle as one of the the best places to work in the metro region.
Six startups of the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), including five of the incubator’s graduates, were among the 100 Best Places to work in 2018, the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s annual ranking of top employers in the region.
The companies were honored in a ceremony held September 6.
In the “Small Business” category — companies with fewer than 50 employees — Clean Hands – Safe Hands, Florence, MessageGears, and Rigor, were ranked No. 7, 11, 30, and 34, respectively.
A 2018 ATDC graduate, Clean Hands – Safe Hands’ technology helps reduce hospital-acquired infections via a personal-best approach to hand hygiene.
“I’m incredibly honored and humbled that we were ranked No. 7 in the 2018 ‘Best Places to Work’ Awards for Small Companies,” said Dr. Chris Hermann, founder and CEO of Clean Hands – Safe Hands. “The ATDC has been a tremendous help in mentoring and guiding us as we’ve grown and built a supportive and positive culture.”
A program of the Georgia Institute of Technology, ATDC is the state of Georgia’s technology incubator. ATDC mission is to work with technology entrepreneurs to help them learn, launch, scale, and succeed in creating strong and viable companies in Georgia.
The team at Florence. (Photo: Courtesy of Florence)
Florence, another company in the HealthTech sector and current ATDC portfolio company, created a platform and software for managing document and data flow between research sites and sponsors of clinical trials.
“This honor is a testament to our team,” said Florence CEO Ryan Jones. “Over the last two years our team has exploded in size, however, we’ve still been able to maintain a strong culture that enables us to deliver innovative solutions that accelerate life-saving medical research.”
The Clean Hands – Safe Hands team. (Photo: Courtesy Clean Hands – Safe Hands)
That culture, the company said, is highlighted both by a strong passion for the industry the software serves and its dedication to employee growth. “What is unique about our team is the common goal of advancing medical cures,” said Florence Chief Operating Officer Angela Gill Nelms. “We all understand the work we are doing, and the products we are building, make a real impact on improving the speed new medical developments make to patients. We don’t stop at advancing medical cures but also place a strong focus on advancing employees’ career potential ensuring we take care of internal and external customers.”
MessageGears, an email service provider and marketing platform, graduated from the ATDC program in 2014. Rigor, a 2015 graduate, offers Web-performance monitoring software that helps its clients optimize their website and mobile applications from the end-user’s point of view.
In the “Large Business” category, which includes those companies with 100 to 499 employees, SalesLoft, a 2014 graduate, and Springbot, which graduated in 2015, were ranked No. 2 and 8, respectively.
A sales engagement, company, SalesLoft’s technology platform includes reporting and analytics, tracking, and software integration. Springbot’s e-commerce marketing technology platform and data exchange serves small to medium-sized retailers.
The Best Places to Work survey is conducted and published annually by the Atlanta Business Chronicle to recognize companies focused on creating a positive, effective work environment for their employees.
(Click here to read the original article on the ATDC website.)
