IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 14

Hey,Charlie cofounders Lindemer and Vinny Valant.

Lindemer and others in white coats during a medical school internship.

mind and to keep from engaging in behaviors that are typically hard to avoid."
Hey,Charlie was piloted in Massachusetts and New York before launching in
the Google Play store near the end of
2018. During that same time, the team
developed a data insights component so
it can look at communication patterns to
tell providers in the addiction medicine
space about their patients' struggles.
This will be the opportunity to monetize. "We don't want to charge people
in recovery for the app, so we can charge
treatment organizations for the data insights and are also experimenting with
a midtier charge to family and friends
where they get a tool to help them reach
out to their loved one in ways that are
helpful," explains Lindemer.

Gender Pacesetter
Though she still holds her full-time job
at IBM, Lindemer is the acting chief ex-

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IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE

ecutive officer of her company and the
only female on the team, a position she
calls "strange." "It's interesting to be
the only woman in the room when I'm
pitching investors, but it's just been
my experience through my career my
entire life," she says. "It works to my
advantage to be female because I think
women tend to be better at finding middle ground and talking about problems
as if there isn't just one solution. I go
into these meetings and talk to investors about strategies, and I'm the first
one to say, 'Tell me more about that,'
if someone suggests an idea different
from mine. I don't know if that's gendered, but it's how I've learned to keep
going professionally." While she says
she hasn't experienced blatant sexism
in the investor world, she still finds it
odd to be the only woman in the room.
After one particular investor meeting,
she was given the feedback that she needs

JUNE 2019	

to "sell herself more." Specifically, she was
advised to talk about her own big picture,
her many accomplishments and skills, and
the ideas she believes she can achieve even
if she isn't sure they're attainable. "You
hear all the time that men get out there
and sell it really hard, but it's just not in
my nature," says Lindemer. "Part of it is
the fact that I'm a scientist. I was trained
to say, 'This is what the data shows, period'-not, "This is what the data shows,
and therefore, I can predict ...'"
Though she wishes gender wasn't such
a focus when it comes to entrepreneurship, Lindemer is proud to do her part to
support women in their endeavors. She
was the executive cochair of Graduate
Women at MIT while in graduate school
and was an instructor for Girls Who Code.
Looking ahead, she says, "Now that I'm a
female founder, I'm thinking about how
I can do more to empower female founders, especially in STEM."
As for her career path, continuing
with the multiple projects she's working
on is her preferred way. "I've never been
good at picking a linear path and sticking
to it. I do really well when I have more
than one thing going on," she says. "Having Hey,Charlie as a passion project that
has the potential to turn into something
more motivates me so much, especially
because it's an area I care about. If I don't
feel like I'm making an impact, I can't
stay involved. I'm looking to take my career in a direction that makes a human
impact even bigger and better."
Of course, she continues to look back
fondly on the pivots she made along the
way that led her to this current point, and
advises others to consider a similar mentality. "It sounds pessimistic but it's not. I
had blinders on about only going to medical school, and I was in no way equipped
to be a female entrepreneur. But I decided
to see what happened, and things worked
out." At the end of the day, she adds, "failure is just that you learn something new."
-Leslie Prives is a freelance writer
living in New York City.
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019

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