entrepreneur and ceo
Born and raised in Bangalore, India, Tanveer Patel met her husband, Maqbool, 10 days before their arranged wedding. Shortly after, the couple moved to Philadelphia, USA, and have since created a fantastic life together. With over two decades of successful business ventures, partnering information technology and healthcare, Mrs. Patel is recognized as one of the nation’s Top 100 Influential Thinkers and was selected as one of the ‘Women who Shape the State’ in 2017.
Working around her role as wife and mother to two sons – Adil and Ozair – Mrs. Patel began her illustrious career by spending a few years working in a corporate environment before she got the entrepreneurial bug and launched CircleSource, a software company based in Birmingham. In just seven short years, Mrs. Patel grew that company from seven employees to over 100 without outside capital investment. Her experience when running CircleSource made her cautious about spending money and her negotiation skills developed exponentially. She sold the company in 2010 to Nashville-based emids Technologies, to concentrate her time and attention on advising and helping start-up businesses, as well as investing in other people’s ventures.
Two years later, Mrs. Patel co-founded ConcertCare along with James Childs and David Marshall – both also based in Birmingham. Their aim was to connect patients with their healthcare providers, and efficiently improve the clinical and operational outcomes. Today, following a merger in 2021 with International Development Connection, the company provides custom software development services, much like CircleSource, but with Telehealth services available for large healthcare systems as well.
In business, Mrs. Patel works from her strengths. When looking for ways they could grow ConcertCare, she looked at India. It made total sense to grow the company in a country that she grew up in, because she understood the culture. Having teams across the globe in the US, India and the UK has hugely expanded the company’s customer base and portfolio.
Mrs. Patel is a well-respected global leader in her community and industry, with many accomplishments. She credits her success to her community members and ecosystem of mentors. She believes the secret is to balance growing a business, dedicating time for learning, recharging and giving back. She is passionate about her impact and how she can make a difference, which is why for 10 days a year, she volunteers, serving as a mentor and facilitator with the Society of International Business Fellows’ leadership academies around the globe.
Mrs. Patel also founded Patel Public Schools in India and the Red Crescent Clinic of Alabama, an all-volunteer medical group that provides care services to patients regardless of their ability to pay, or their religion, race, gender or ethnicity. Her passion for giving back is at the heart of ConcertCare’s culture too. Employees are able to have a direct role, whether it is hosting blood drives and free health clinics, serving at low-income schools in India, or planting trees at an orphanage, for Mrs. Patel, it is important that ‘giving back’ isn’t just a value listed on their company website.
After watching her father from a young age, running successful businesses in India, being the CEO of her own business was always the dream for Mrs. Patel. At the age of 10, she would go and sit with her father in his meetings, and remembers being told about the importance of relationships, networking, and strategic thinking. Applying everything she learned as a child, her strategy in business was simple. It is all about starting a new venture, growing it until it’s profitable and healthy and then knowing when to move to the next challenge. As ConcertCare has been designed and built to sell, that is her plan for one day in the future. After the sale, she wants to travel the world for six months with her husband.