Future Leader: Evan Rosenberg, Co-Founder and Lead Engineer, Kalogon
Evan Rosenberg, Co-Founder and Lead Engineer at Kalogon, has been named to the Future Leaders Class of 2026 by Mobility Management.
To become a Future Leader, an individual is nominated by their peers. The candidate must be a high-performing employee who is 40 years of age or younger, a passionate worker who knows how to put vision into action, and an advocate for older adults and the committed professionals who ensure their well-being.
Rosenberg sat down with Mobility Management to share what drew him to the complex rehab technology (CRT) industry, the biggest leadership lessons he has learned, his thoughts on the future of CRT, and much more. To learn more about the Future Leaders Awards program, visit https://futureleaders.wtwhmedia.com/.
MM: What drew you to the complex rehab tech (CRT) industry?
Rosenberg: I’m an engineer, so I’m always asking where I can have the most impact on a real, significant need. Coming from aerospace, you’re often responsible for one small part of a very large system — which is meaningful work, but the feedback loop between what you build and what it does for a person is long and abstract.
In CRT, that distance collapses. When I saw our first prototype work — when I understood that this could take someone who was essentially in permanent bedrest and give them back the ability to sit and to engage with their life — I was fully committed. I always wanted to work in space, and I did, but I realized I wanted to create change that I could see and feel. In CRT, the need is intense and the impact is profound. Hearing stories about how people’s lives have changed since they started using our products, that never gets old. It’s why I do this.
MM: How would you describe your leadership style, and how has it changed over time?
Rosenberg: Collaborative, above everything else. I have my own biases and experience, and I’ve learned that the worst decisions I’ve made were the ones where I trusted those instincts too early. So my default is to first really understand where my colleagues, customers, and teammates are coming from before I commit to a direction.
In CRT, especially, that’s not optional. Our products are customized to the unique needs of the individual end user, so empathy is what makes us unique. As I’ve scaled our engineering team from three people to 10, I’ve had to get better at modeling that for others. It means slowing down enough to think through every possible way something could go wrong before anyone picks up a tool. That discipline wasn’t natural for me at first. It became natural because the stakes made it necessary.
MM: What is the biggest leadership lesson you’ve learned while serving the CRT industry?
Rosenberg: I’ve learned you have to fully understand the problem before you start building the solution. In aerospace, you’re handed a set of requirements. In CRT, the requirements don’t arrive that cleanly; you have to understand the problem before you can design the solution, and that takes real empathy. You have to do the interviews, sit with the discomfort of hearing what people are living with, and figure out what information actually matters.
I’ve also learned to get the whole team thinking this way. Before we commit to developing anything, I want every person on the engineering side to have genuinely wrestled with every possible way the product could fail to serve the person using it. That’s not a natural engineering instinct. But in this space it’s the difference between a product that sells and a product that changes lives. We’re successful at Kalogon because we listen first.
MM: In one word, how would you describe the CRT industry and why?
Rosenberg: Reactive. The industry is quick to respond once something gets traction, but it takes years for the first breakthrough to happen in the first place. There’s a lot of risk aversion. For example, companies wait for Medicare coding to exist before they innovate, and they stick to what they already know rather than doing the hard work of solving new problems. Even when a solution exists, if the coding isn’t there, the market won’t move on it.
That’s actually why we’ve been able to become a market leader. We moved first. And once we did, we started to see others follow. The industry can innovate — it just needs someone willing to go first.
MM: What do you see as the biggest opportunities and challenges currently facing the CRT industry?
Rosenberg: Medicare coding is both the biggest opportunity and the biggest challenge. Nobody’s moving because nobody wants to take the risk that a product won’t sell or won’t get coded. But that creates enormous first-mover advantage for companies willing to do that work — we’ve seen it with Orbiter Med and Bondar.
On the opportunity side, the market is going to keep growing. AI isn’t going to disrupt CRT the way it’s disrupting other sectors. The needs are too individualized, too complex and too context-dependent. The aging population means more people will need these products, and as they do, the frustration with insurance barriers and product limitations is going to reach a tipping point. That’s where disruption happens.
What I keep coming back to is lead times and iteration speed. In this industry, getting the right product to the right person faster is literally a matter of quality of life. That’s both the pressure and the opportunity.
MM: If you had a crystal ball, what do you think will impact the CRT industry over the next 5-10 years?
Rosenberg: The aging population is the biggest force for change right now. As more people need CRT products, the pain points around insurance and equipment access are going to become impossible to ignore. I think we’ll see significant changes in how Medicare handles coding for more advanced technology, and that will open doors for startups that are ready.
I’m skeptical of the idea that AI is going to transform CRT the way people predict. There’s an important distinction between machine learning and AI, and what CRT requires is genuinely understanding the unique, individualized needs of a person. That’s why we send ATPs out in the field. You can’t replace that with an algorithm, and I don’t think we should try. We’re going to need more ATPs as the population ages, not fewer. The human element in this work isn’t a limitation to engineer around; it’s what makes the outcomes meaningful.
MM: In your opinion, what qualities must all Future Leaders possess?
Rosenberg: Empathy, first. Before you think about the product, you have to think about the person. In CRT, you can’t just take a list of requirements and start building. You need the emotional intelligence to hear what people are really struggling with, not just what they can articulate. And once you’ve built something, you have to stay open. The best products I’ve been part of got better because we kept listening after launch. Future Leaders in this space have to be willing to adjust and to genuinely want to.
