As Chief Operating Officer, Sam Soltani MSF ’10 is the sole member of BioSensics’ impressive management team who has actual business experience. Though the high-tech medical device company was co-founded by two highly motivated post-doctoral fellows and scientists, Soltani brings an important financial expertise to the business.

“The MSF program [at Brandeis International Business School (IBS)] provided me with extensive knowledge in corporate finance and valuation, and gave me a powerful framework for strategic decision-making,” he said.

Having a global mindset has always been important to Soltani, and is one of the reasons he chose Brandeis IBS to continue his education. “One of the more enjoyable experiences was the World Financial Centers course in Chile,” he said. “I learned a lot about Chile’s history, economy and society, and was also able to bond with my classmates.”

Soltani, who was born in Iran but moved to the United States as a teenager, was drawn to the part-time MSF program for both its distinguished faculty and extremely diverse student body. More importantly, he was able to directly apply his coursework to the banking job he held at the time.

“The past three years were very interesting times for the banking sector,” he said. “I gained direct experience during a very stressful period. I saw the effects of excessive leverage due to poor lending standards, which led to many bank failures and decline in investor confidence. I learned the importance of a healthy banking industry in the global economy.”

The MSF program’s emphasis on group collaboration has also been helpful to him throughout his career. “We were asked to submit a long-form credit memo, similar to credit memos at commercial banks,” he said. “As a team we had to think like credit officers and conduct extensive business and financial due diligence to decide whether to approve or reject the borrower.” As a member of a four-person management team, these lessons in teamwork still serve him to this day.

Soltani has big plans for the future of BioSensics, whose portable sensor technologies are used for long-term and accurate monitoring of physical activity, movements, and balance during every day life in physical therapy, elderly care, sports medicine, assisted living and rehabilitation. “Our goal is to grow the business and become the platform of choice for physicians, physical therapists and researchers,” he said. “I believe that the wireless health industry is the future of health care and could possibly serve as the new and more effective model to reduce costs.”

In addition to his goal of changing the future of health care, Soltani is an avid traveler with aspirations to visit 50 countries. The lessons he learns on the road are as important to him as the lessons he learns through his career, and he urged current MSF students to continue down the path of global thinking.

“Be open-minded, and think globally,” he advised. “Follow your passion, learn to adapt quickly and start building a professional network as soon as you can. Set some goals for yourself early and try your best to achieve them. And,” he added, “start playing golf.”