Evan Vitale Consulting: Nordic Consulting CEO Mark Bakken steps down

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Nordic Consulting CEO Mark Bakken steps down – Madison.com

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Mark Bakken, co-founder of Nordic Consulting, one of Madison’s fastest-growing tech companies, said Wednesday that he will step down from his post as chief executive to start a venture fund aimed at helping other health IT companies get a start in Madison.

Nordic is one of the largest consulting firms dealing with clients of Epic Systems Corp., the Verona electronic medical records company that says its systems serve more than half of the health care patients in the country.

Nordic, 740 Regent St., was founded in 2010 and has 475 employees, 75 of them in Madison. The company ranked No. 46 in the 2014 Inc. 5,000 list of the nation’s fastest-growing companies, with revenues of $81.4 million last year.

Nordic also has received more than $38 million from investors.

“Nordic has achieved every possible dream I ever had when I started it,” Bakken said.

In a transition expected to be completed by the end of the year, Bakken, 50, will stay on Nordic’s board of directors as chairman emeritus. A team of four current executives, including president Drew Madden, will lead the company, he said.

As for the new venture fund, called Madison HealthX Ventures, Bakken said he plans to raise about $10 million. Nordic and Bakken will be among the investors, along with physicians, health care providers, and larger venture capital funds around the U.S., he said.

“Customers say they need new ideas, innovation. I’m, literally, getting approached every week” by people with ideas for plugging health information technology gaps, Bakken said.

He said he hopes to give early funding to young health IT companies and to help create new businesses by matching entrepreneurs with former Epic employees and computer science experts at UW-Madison.

“There’s a lot of advice I can give for free that, hopefully, will increase their odds of being successful,” he said.

Bakken said Madison HealthX Ventures will kick off in early 2015 and could eventually help as many as 20 new businesses.

He said it “absolutely” could become part of the Badger Fund of Funds, a new fund with $25 million in state money allocated that could grow to as much as $50 million with outside investment.

The Fund of Funds will put money into about eight private funds that will invest in young companies.

Bakken, a serial entrepreneur, said he also will do some angel investing, and he will join the advisory board of Health Enterprise Partners, a New York growth-equity firm that was one of the investors in Nordic.

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