By the time Thomas Sandgaard landed in the U.S., he’d already helped develop the world’s first in-ear hearing aid, negotiated internationally for Philips, and led global sales teams at ITT. But none of that prepared him for starting over in the U.S., broke, renting a room, and commuting in a $1,000 Ford Probe—betting everything on a medical device startup with no safety net.
Zynex Inc. began with nothing but Sandgaard’s conviction and his refusal to quit. What started as a solo effort—traveling cross-country to pitch clinics and distributors himself—has grown into a publicly traded company with nearly 1,200 employees. Its FDA-cleared electrotherapy and monitoring devices help patients manage pain, recover from strokes, and track vital signs, often as alternatives to addictive opioids.
Sandgaard’s resilience wasn’t forged in Silicon Valley—it came from decades of reinvention. He was a teen inventor, a track star, a guitarist, a recording engineer, and later a rising executive across Europe’s tech and telecom giants. But it was his decision to uproot and bootstrap a business in the U.S. that pushed him to the brink—and ultimately, toward a breakthrough. For more than 20 years, he stayed personally bankrupt, often a step away from missing payroll. “I had to learn to become an entrepreneur,” he said. “I’d never even flown coach before.”
In Zynex’s early years, he did it all—pitching clinics, setting up distributors, and navigating every rejection himself. When a partner backed out, he began designing Zynex’s devices in-house. When he finally hired a sales team, he made sure their incentives aligned with long-term success, not short-term deals. Today, nearly all of Zynex’s products are internally developed and FDA-cleared, and the company has scaled profitably.
Now in its 29th year, Zynex reflects Sandgaard’s conviction, strategy, and sense of purpose. And despite everything he’s built—nearly three decades of growth, a Nasdaq listing, and a philanthropic foundation—he still says, “I’m just getting started.”
That forward drive fuels his other ventures, too. At the Sandgaard Foundation, he’s helped distribute over a million doses of Narcan and naloxone and funded recovery efforts across the country. The Foundation also produced Junction, a feature film aimed at raising awareness about the opioid crisis. Through Sandgaard Capital, his family office, he invests in alternative assets and emerging businesses. And when he’s not working, he’s still playing lead guitar—sharing a stage with Robert Mason of Warrant and Rich Ross of the Freddy Jones Band.
Legacy, he says, isn’t on his mind. “For some people in my position, legacy is a big thing. But I’ll think about it tomorrow.”
