Meet The Team

We’re a group of college students, creatives, and future healthcare leaders who believe that great consulting doesn’t have to come with a huge price tag. With backgrounds in clinical care, business, public health, marketing, and technology, our team brings fresh ideas and real-world experience to every project.

We’ve worked in exam rooms, front desks, and behind the scenes—and now we’re using that knowledge to help clinics that deserve better. Whether we’re optimizing workflows, launching community outreach campaigns, or streamlining operations, we do it with heart, hustle, and a mission to serve.

Based across San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas, we’re united by one goal: making healthcare work better for the clinics that hold our communities together.

Founder & Managing Partner

Afren Rajendra

Afren Rajendra is a Human Biology major at UT Austin with a deep-rooted passion for primary care, health equity, and community-centered healthcare. With firsthand experience working in physician-owned and rural clinics across Texas, Afren has served in a variety of roles—including medical scribe, medical assistant, and practice improvement lead—where he saw up close the operational and access challenges small clinics face daily.

Motivated by these experiences, Afren founded Steadwell Healthcare Consulting to provide innovative, low-cost consulting to clinics that are often overlooked by traditional firms. His work blends clinical insight with operational strategy, focusing on patient flow, front-office redesign, marketing outreach, and practical process improvement.

Afren is especially passionate about supporting rural practices that are essential to their communities but lack the infrastructure or support to grow. At Steadwell, he leads with a strategic mindset and a commitment to service, helping clinics build sustainable systems that allow them to thrive—not just survive.

Cofounder & Director of Client Services

Pooja Kalikiri

Pooja Kalikiri is a Biomedical Engineering major at UT Dallas with a deep passion for clinical research, medical device innovation, and using engineering to solve real-world healthcare problems. She brings hands-on experience from both clinical and lab settings—working in an ophthalmology clinic and in biomedical research labs where she has contributed to projects focused on device design and biotechnological solutions.

Her academic and professional journey has been shaped by a desire to connect engineering with empathy. Pooja has developed a unique perspective on how healthcare systems can be thoughtfully improved from the ground up. She thrives at the intersection of science and service, where data meets compassion.

Pooja is passionate about using data, design, and evidence-based strategies to make healthcare smarter and more accessible. At Steadwell, she leads with empathy and detail, helping clinics translate operational and clinical challenges into sustainable, actionable improvements. She believes that even small, resource-limited clinics deserve well-designed systems—and works every day to make that a reality through creative, mission-driven consulting.

Meet The Team

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