Kevin Kelly Steers Resonetics with a Vision for Growth and a Focus on People
At a Coldplay concert this summer, one CEO made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Another CEO in attendance, Kevin Kelly, president and CEO of Resonetics, found himself going viral too, but for an opposite reason.
When his daughter posted the video of her parents, Kelly and his wife, enjoying the show together, it quickly got more than 5 million views on TikTok.
Kelly brings the same sense of dedication he shows to his family into his work life. He has spent more than 30 years putting new medical technologies into the hands of clinicians who use them to improve lives.
Finding his Path into Life Sciences
Kelly, a New England native, says he was interested in engineering. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from Tufts. But he also wanted to work in a field that was growing, vibrant and innovative.
“I have two kids that are in college or just recently graduated, and I'm advocating and trying to coach them towards finding companies, finding industries that are growing,” Kelly says. “Because typically, if they're growing, then there's more investment. You have to have some affinity for what you're doing and why you're doing it, but that's what I tried to pursue my whole career.”
After leaving Tufts, he became more interested in manufacturing and health care. Medtech proved to be the right path forward.
His early roles were at startups like Accellent, which provided exposure to rapid growth, acquisitions and lessons from both successes and setbacks.
“I found I learned a lot at my earliest roles in a company called Med Source Technologies,” Kelly says. “It was actually a colleague of mine from business school who started the company, and we quickly grew that business in Minneapolis, and we acquired more than 14 businesses, went public, but by and large, the business was a failure.”
He worked at LeMaitre Vascular and SmartPill before joining CR Bard, where he rose from vice president of sales and marketing to president during his nearly eight years. He moved to Becton, Dickinson and Company when it acquired CR Bard and worked there for another five years.
“I always learned a lot in those roles, because you had a lot of different impacts and impressions on the business,” Kelly says. “I'm always curious about founder entrepreneurs, but I was never one myself. I was always on the team helping to make the dream happen.”
Kelly says the variety of opportunities in his background helped provide a path to advancement. He’s worked for small and large companies. He’s lived in New England, other U.S. states and overseas. He’s been part of companies that were sold four times, through two IPOs and held leadership roles at a variety of levels.
“One of the things I pride myself on is that I can go down to the shop floor and be extremely comfortable and just as equally as I can hang out in the boardroom,” Kelly said. “That variety, I think, is super important. It's something you need to work at to keep yourself grounded, make sure you have perspective to impact the entire organization.”
That journey led him to become president of Resonetics in 2023.
Bringing Health Care Innovations to the Marketplace
Resonetics “helps our customers design and manufacture and scale novel medical technology,” Kelly explains. “We probably have over 200 customers, all of the major medtech customers in the marketplace.”
Those customers include the world’s leading original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) like Medtronic and Johnson & Johnson.
Founded in Nashua in 1987, Resonetics now operates 18 locations across five countries with about 3,000 employees. New Hampshire remains its home base.
The company supports medtech manufacturing in categories such as neurosurgery, robotic-assisted surgery, glucose monitoring, structural heart (valve repair), electrophysiology (AFib treatment), and ophthalmic surgery
“Our products are used by clinicians, and then they're used to help patients,” Kelly says. “So it's really incredibly rewarding to know that what we're doing has a direct impact on patient lives, and that's globally, too, not just in the U.S.”
Enjoying a Life Sciences Career in New Hampshire
From the employees of Resonetics to the end-users of their products, Kelly tries to focus on the people.
“You make a lot of tough decisions, but at the end of the day, you see all the good that we're doing, and how important it is for our customers, for the patients and employees, too.
Access to a high quality of life helps the business attract and retain employees for high-quality jobs.
“We have two manufacturing sites in New Hampshire, but aside from the manufacturing, the corporate office is here, so the whole leadership team is here,” he says. “I've got most of the operations leadership team, the quality team, IT, finance, supply chain. As we develop, we will continue to evolve this site. We have ample capacity here to add more.”
Kelly recently got a condo in Salem’s Tuscan Village, a mixed-use development, close to a number of life sciences companies and along the Interstate-93 corridor.
“I'm a huge ambassador for people when they come visit me here in Nashua. I'll typically bring them over to the Tuscan area,” Kelly says. “I think they're pretty surprised at how fun it is and how vibrant and all that's going on.”
Resonetics’ growth reflects the strength of New Hampshire’s life sciences network, one that thrives on collaboration, innovation and purpose. As a proud member of NH Life Sciences, Resonetics joins a community of companies working together to strengthen the state’s role in global health care.
Kelly sees that momentum continuing: “There's a vibrant life sciences ecosystem here, not just in New Hampshire, but in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, so you can find those other services you need.”
To learn more about the companies and leaders shaping the future of health care here in the Granite State, connect with NH Life Sciences online at nhlifesciences.org.