SpreadLove In Organizations - Healthcare Leadership (Naji Gehchan)

So many times we hear about selfless leaders... Until you hear and meet Daphne, you obviously didn't really see what selfless leadership is. Her mission in leadership is "fighting for the underdog". Daphne is an impressive humble leader we can all learn from.

"It can never be about oneself, but the opposite."

MEET OUR GUEST Dr. Daphne Haas-Kogan, Professor and Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston Children's Hospital, and Harvard Medical School.

Daphne is a Radiation Oncologist and thought leader at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Boston Children’s Hospital. She is a Professor at Harvard Medical School. After her Biochemistry and Molecular Biology degree from Harvard University, Daphne received her M.D. from the University of California, San Francisco. While at UCSF she served as Vice-Chair for Research and Educational Program Director. Daphne has been elected in 2019 to the National Academy of Medicine, considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine. She has been selected as one of the top physicians in the United States by several publications including Best Doctors in America.

A physician saving every single day lives through the mobile Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation program he created, a heart, lung machine. Jason built the most competitive network without competition… Because "sometimes you just have to change the game"! Since Jason led this change with his strong passion, creativity, and courage, he believes his teams are continuously "re-writing what they know" and reshaping what once was the best of care. Listen to sobering and inspirational stories from Dr. Gluck and how he leads his teams through change and moments of uncertainty.

"The power is in the word yes."

MEET OUR GUEST Dr. Jason Gluck Director of the Mechanical Circulatory Support (mechanical heart/lung) Program at Hartford Healthcare Hospital.

Jason is a physician, founder of the Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation program, and creator of the first and only mobile ECMO program in Connecticut, bringing this life-saving technology to patients in need throughout New England. He invented, ‘VLAD’, a medical simulator family for training patients, families, pre-hospital emergency medical care, and hospital-based providers about patients supported by mechanical pumps. Dr. Gluck publishes and speaks internationally on mechanical support and acute cardiogenic shock. He has a passion for jazz and enjoys hiking, biking, and skiing!

In this episode, you'll be getting a booster shot by hearing from an amazing leader who believes that leadership is a privilege. Harout will give you his recipes of success in building highly engaged and performing teams. You'll be positively surprised to hear the first ingredient!

"Even if we are standing, the world is turning and changing."

MEET OUR GUEST Harout Semerjian, President and CEO of GlycoMimetics, a seasoned global pharmaceutical leader with a passion and focus in Oncology. Harout was elected top 10 emerging pharma executives in 2018, a strong believer in leading with care to deliver results for the patients we serve.

Harout is a seasoned biopharmaceutical leader with more than 25 years of expertise in commercializing specialty medicines across the United States, Europe, and emerging markets. He has built a reputation for building high-performance teams, leading transformations, and delivering exceptional results. He has deep expertise in oncology, hematology and rare diseases having launched more than 20 specialty products or major indications over the years. Harout spent 17 years in Novartis where his last role was Senior Vice President and global head of Ribociclib, the CDK4/6 inhibitor. Then he moved to Ipsen to be the Chief Commercial Officer and recently for a short period was the Chief Executive Officer of Immunomedics before its sale to Gilead. Currently, Harout works as a consultant and investor within healthcare.

Harout is passionate about healthcare disparities and coaching talent to achieve their full potential. In his spare time, he spends his time traveling with his family despite having a heavy travel schedule, as it provides an opportunity for his daughters to connect and expand their horizons.

#Botox_Your_Brain #Make_It_Happen #Agility_Is_An_Attitude, Geraldine lives by those hashtags! A business transformer, digital enthusiast, artist, executive, leader, a citizen of the world so many powerful words can help us draw an image of who she is. Through her diverse, impressive life and career in different types of organizations including healthcare, one common thread defined her learning: "it's all about the Human".

"Doubt. Think. Believe in yourself. Dare to try. Re-do it again and again."

MEET OUR GUEST Geraldine Maouchi is an expert in Business Transformation. For the last 6 years, Geraldine has been leading Digital Transformations as a C-Level, member of Executive Committees in Retail, Luxury, and Healthcare. She was one of the first CDO to have joined the Chief Digital Officer Club in 2013. 

Since 2000, Geraldine Maouchi developed twofold expertise - both online and offline based on her vision of a Hybrid model blending the traditional and digital. She worked across Europe, the US, the Middle East, and Brazil, for all kinds of organizations (start-ups, SMC, groups, family businesses, entrepreneur, NGO), and in various industries (high-tech, telecom, hospitality, luxury, healthcare, retail, eBusiness...).  

Geraldine is, as well, a Guest lecturer for the HEC Master and MBA "Shaping Strategies in a Digital World" elective course and a Board Member of the EMlyon “Specialized Master in Digital Transformation, Marketing & Strategy”.

Geraldine wrote several articles that were published in various media in Europe, USA, Middle-East, these include: - Transformation in post-covid new normal (hybrid organization and holistic management): Will the new normal see the advent of novel leadership and hybrid organizations, The Economist Intelligence Unit, July 2020 - Building hybrid organizations (where online and offline merge) for both traditional companies and pure players: "The 4 steps towards a Hybrid organization" co-written with Affiliate Professor at Master of Strategy HEC Business School, Hélène Musikas, Forbes France, Q4 2019.  - Digital Bulletin UK "Keeping Up with Digital Transformation" 

His passion is his purpose and goes beyond the duty. Patrick is a leader in Humanitarian, risking his life and leading his teams in the most challenging but most in-need communities in the world. He shares his experiences from Irak to African countries, leading with his heart and striving daily to make health a simple right accessible for everyone.

"Purpose is not how much you deliver, but how you deliver and lead."

MEET OUR GUEST Patrick Youssef Director and leader for Africa in the International Committee of the Red Cross. In January 2016, he was recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader. He sits in the International Council of Advisors of Global Dignity.

Patrick Youssef joined the ICRC in 2005 and completed different missions in Sudan, Chad, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay. Between 2010 & 2013, he was the deputy head of operations for the Near and Middle East covering Yemen, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Gulf Cooperation Council. Mr. Youssef was the Head of the delegation in Iraq for more than 2 years, before taking the role of Deputy Regional Director for Africa, where he managed ICRC operations in the Maghreb, the Sahel region, the Lake Chad Basin, and West Africa.

In addition to his field experience, Mr. Youssef worked on specific topics related to the respect of International Humanitarian Law such as the treatment and judicial guarantees of persons deprived of freedom, the recruitment of children in the armed forces, and Transitional Justice.

Prior to joining the ICRC, Patrick worked in the private sector in Lebanon & the Levant.

Born in 1978, Patrick Youssef has a bachelor’s degree in public law, a Master’s degree in Diplomacy and Strategic Negotiations from Paris Sud XI, an LLM in International Law in armed conflicts from Geneva University, a certificate of completion of an Executive Education on Global Leadership and Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School as well as a training certificate from the Oxford Said Business School on ‘’Transformational Leadership’’

In this episode, you will hear from an international leader, walking us through her personal journey, starting with her upbringing in Australia in a very cosmopolitan environment, talking about all the diversity and richness you get from growing and thriving in such an atmosphere to her experience in healthcare leading marketing teams in pharma across the world to bring science into something that resonates, touches and impacts people. 

"Align on a common purpose that will drive your behavior... Look for the universal human truth."

MEET OUR GUEST Gabi Mittas, Chief Marketing Officer Australia, New Zealand, and North Asia Pacific Region at Eli Lilly.

Gabi is one of the most purpose-driven, human-centric leaders you'll meet. She has an extensive experience in sales, marketing, and commercial organizations across the globe. She led marketing teams in Australia, the UK, the US, and Globally. She was Senior Director in Global Marketing Oncology before taking the lead of the marketing organization as Chief Marketing Officer for Australia, New Zealand, and the North Asia Pacific Region. Gabi is passionate about people’s development and how to positively impact patients’ journeys.

This episode is like no other. You will be hearing from Brie Doyle on how to take care of yourself as a leader - a key subject, yet rarely seriously considered by many of us. Great advice, tips, daily practices, and habits to build that will determine who you are!

That is the first episode of a series in our Spread Love in Organizations Podcast that will focus on helping us as leaders take care of ourselves to serve better our people and patients.

"Shut down the world around you to focus on your inner world."

MEET OUR GUEST Brie Doyle hosts transformational wellness retreats throughout the US and across the globe and is the founder of She Glows Retreats, LLC.

Brie specializes in curating mental and emotional wellness curricula for groups, conscious companies, schools, and individuals.  A yoga and meditation teacher for over twenty years, Brie is a leader in the health and wellness space who helps people heal their past and reclaim their power.  Her first book, YOU SHOULD LEAVE NOW: Going on Retreat to Find Your Way Back to Yourself, comes out today.  She lives in Boulder, Colorado, with her husband and three kids.

 An athlete and champion who took a pain point for cyclists, along with his co-founder Dr. Allen Lim, created a company now employing more than 100 employees. From accountability and grit to being real, empathetic, and radically candid, hear from a successful entrepreneur solving sports nutrition problems.

"Say what you mean with the other person's best interest in mind."

MEET OUR GUEST Ian MacGregor founder and Chief Executive Officer of Skratch Labs..

Ian Co-founded more than a decade ago Skratch Labs, a sports nutrition company based in Boulder Colorado that was recognized by Inc. 500 as the 3rd fastest-growing food and beverage company in the US. He is now the CEO. In 2007 he co-founded The Just Go Harder Foundation to provide mentorship opportunities for aspiring cyclists and ski racers. Ian is a former professional cyclist and two-time US National Espoir Road Cycling Champion. He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from The Colorado School of Mines and currently resides with his family in the small mountain town of Nederland, Colorado.

In this episode, you will hear from Rob Brown, CEO of a biotech, talking about the core element of any business: The TEAM. He takes us down memory lane, from his different positions as an executive in marketing, sales, and HR, from pharma to biotech... A common thread on this journey seems to be relevant to any sector or business: Following a strategy is one thing but owning it first is quite another. To get to this point you need strong leadership, which he defined as: "put the cause and the team First".

"Lead with brutal honesty and realistic optimism - Honest and transparent along the way, but also realistic and authentic."

MEET OUR GUEST Rob Brown Chief Executive Officer at Brickell Biotech after having spent over 30 years at Eli Lilly and Company, where he most recently served as chief marketing officer (CMO) and senior vice president of marketing from 2009 through 2018.

Prior to his role as CEO and CMO, Rob held the position of vice president and chief marketing officer for Lilly USA from 2007 - 2009, where he partnered with the business units to ensure the company continued to develop industry-leading marketing capabilities, streamline and improve marketing processes, and transform marketing by building a consumer marketing center of excellence.

From 2003-2007, Rob was the executive director of marketing for the Intercontinental region, including responsibility for Europe. In addition, he held a variety of other leadership roles of increasing responsibility within sales, marketing and product management departments, including serving as general manager for China, where he helped the company establish its presence. During his tenure as GM, he managed a joint venture in Suzhou, oversaw the construction of Lilly’s first manufacturing facility and expanded the affiliate’s reach from 12 to 45 cities.

Rob joined the pharmaceutical industry after receiving a bachelor’s degree in economics from DePauw University and a master’s in business administration from Indiana University. Rob currently serves on the board of trustees of Franklin College.

Episode 17 is here, and we are joined by Sebastian Sorsaburu, Vice President, Global Medical Affairs, Specialty Care Head at AbbVie. Sebastian has an interesting take on leadership, team building, and self-awareness. This episode is all about how to stay true to yourself and lead by example to get to a point where the "total of your work is bigger than the sum of the parts". It is also a wake-up call to all leaders to nurture self-leadership, and practice self-awareness, and self-knowledge.

"We are the sum of our focused moments - Focus is the true multiplier."

MEET OUR GUEST Dr. Sebastian Sorsaburu Vice President, Global Medical Affairs, Specialty Care Head at AbbVie. Sebastian's passion is to help bridge the gap between Scientific Innovation and Clinical Practice to help optimize Health Population Outcomes.

Dr. Sorsaburu is a Physician executive with 20 years of portfolio management and leadership experience across Research & Development functions, in multiple geographies and therapeutic areas.

Sebastian is passionate about understanding and prioritizing effectively in 3 major areas.

1. Building high-performing teams by attracting, nurturing, and developing talent, by fostering a culture of diversity, belonging, and innovation, and giving special attention to communication frequency and style. 2. Driving Performance to deliver results that matter to patients, the organization and the broader enterprise. 3. Shaping the future through horizon scan (science, clinical practice, policy, capabilities), dynamic organizational design and digital culture transformation to accelerate learning and performance operating under 3 principles to evolve the ways we work: autonomy, collaboration and speed.

Sebastian is the author of over 40 scientific documents including 20 peer-reviewed publications, regulatory safety and clinical trial dossiers, NDA and IND submissions.

From her experience as a journalist at CNBC in Korea to her move to the USA and now co-founding a biotech startup transforming research... Rhie-young Lim shares her story, and learnings inspired by her Asian culture, talking about grit and execution but most importantly about universal language, building a startup, and performing teams working for a shared vision and purpose. 

"Every different perspective makes us richer."

MEET OUR GUEST Rhie-young Lim Chief Operations Officer at LifeCanvas Technologies. Rhie cofounded Lifecanvas, an MIT biotech startup that is transforming biological tissue processing and phenotyping to radically improve human health.

Since the startup's incorporation 3 years ago, Rhie has successfully led fundraising and exclusive licensing efforts and has grown the company into a profitable venture. She now oversees day-to-day operations spanning marketing, sales, distribution, as well as talent management, and long-term strategy and planning. Previously, Rhie brought the very first overseas MIT entrepreneurship Bootcamp to Seoul, South Korea, and was a financial correspondent for CNBC Asia for 6 years!

Get ready to have your mind challenged with what social impact really means! In this episode, we will dive into Angel Perez's passion which became his company's purpose to build a better world. The "promised land is not about the output but the impact"! With the U.N. climate change report this week, this episode couldn't be more timely. We are in a "code red for humanity" leaving us all accountable for the future of the generations to come. 

"Only companies that include impact at the core of their business will be successful in the coming years."

MEET OUR GUEST Angel Perez Angejo founder and Managing Partner at Transcendent, a Business Impact consulting firm. He has an extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry, leading commercial organizations as a general manager and marketing leader.

Angel is the founder and managing partner of Transcendent,  a consulting firm specializing in business impact, ESG active management, sustainability, and definition/ activation of business purpose. Transcendent is a certified BCorp.

Over the last 4 years Transcendent has worked with multinationals, family businesses, public listed companies, and SMEs in multiple sectors, as well as with fund managers.

Prior to Transcendent, Ángel worked for 20 years at Eli Lilly where, among other positions, he was Managing Director of Denmark and  Senior Director for Marketing, Operations and Transformation for Europe, Australia and Canada.

He is also a visiting professor at the University of Navarra and a mentor of social entrepreneurs.

What are the reasons and the differentiator that makes your organization a place you want to spend 8-10 hours a day working for? How to become an employer of choice? What is at the heart of your organization? Theresa Hummel-Krallinger an Emmy Award-winning comedian, senior training professional and performance consultant will tell us more about how to approach everything in the workplace from a place of love!

"When we come to work we have to bring our whole self...we cannot check our humanity at the door."

MEET OUR GUEST Theresa Hummel-Krallinger Corporate Prophet and Laughologist.

Theresa Hummel-Krallinger an Emmy Award-winning comedian, well-respected senior training professional and performance consultant, founder of High Five performance, BUT it is her work as a humorist and motivational speaker that sets her apart.  Known for her lively and interactive presentation style, she is a frequently requested speaker on topics of leadership, career management, organizational culture and workplace communications. 

Theresa is the past president of the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of Association for Talent Development (ATD), and is the past president for a local Toastmasters club.  She has been a featured speaker at numerous regional and international conferences.   She facilitates “Meet the Author at the Pyramid Club,” which has been named one of the top 10 best networking associations by the Philadelphia Business Journal.  She won an Emmy in 2019 for her work on the PBS talk show, “Counter Culture.”

When asked about leadership, you certainly don't expect to hear about basements and balconies... Our guest Lien Le is definitely not an architect but a dedicated physician with inspiring vulnerabilities, and powerful stories. Lien has a very interesting perspective on leadership and building performing teams: It's all about leading from the basement! All the stories that came out of the pandemic confirmed her firm belief in the true role of leaders: "Find your own checkpoints and get other people back to the path you initially set". Hope you will enjoy this heart-to-heart conversation as much as we did.

"Spreading love starts by building human connections one at a time…maybe over a cookie."

MEET OUR GUEST Dr. Lien Le, Medical Director of Inpatient Medicine at Newton Wellesley Hospital, Massachusetts.

Dr. Le focuses on operations, strategic and business planning for the Hospitalist Division through partnerships with clinical services at Newton Wellesley Hospital and hospitals within the Mass General Brigham Health System. Most recently, Lien led COVID-19 physician redeployment efforts for the Division of Hospital Medicine as well as other key COVID-19 inpatient surge operations. She oversees strategy, budget, operations, recruitment, staffing, as well as professional development for the medical staff of the unit.

In addition, Dr. Le is the co-founder of the Surgical Preparation and Negaviation Clinic, a perioperative clinic designed to risk stratify and optimize patients undergoing elective surgeries. Dr. Le continues her clinical practice as a hospitalist physician while also being an Assistant Clinical Professor at Tufts Medical School. Dr. Le received her internal medicine residency training at Boston Medical Center. She attended Dartmouth and Brown Medical Schools. She is currently a student at MIT Sloan Executive MBA program. Lien was born in Vietnam and immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 13.

What can we take from being an art performer to becoming an exceptional leader? A silver line connects both: you have to shift your perspective and be genuinely interested in your audience, your people, allowing them to better connect with you. We all have a story, and we all have far more in common than what differentiates us. Understanding the core of humanity, our cultural background, and experiences make us unique, appreciate each point of view... From his hard beginning in the art to his unique experience in Nepal, to becoming a renowned performer and now an executive coach and leader, you'll hear in this episode Rob's stories and great advice for us to become better leaders, expanding our boundaries, bringing the quality of tolerance, appreciation of difference to a whole new level.

"Cultivate Positivity... Only if we have a positive view on the world, we are able to bring our best selves forward, and allow everybody else bring theirs as well."

MEET OUR GUEST Rob Salafia an Author, Speaker, Executive Coach and CEO of Protagonist Consulting Group.

Rob combines two decades of experience as a top leadership development executive with a well-established career in the performing arts. He has a passion for coaching leaders to develop their presence, tell compelling stories and establish authentic connections.

Rob is the author of – Leading From Your Best Self - an amazing book I strongly recommend.

What is unique about Rob is that for the first half of his career he was a performing artist where he traveled the globe delivering his unique, one-person variety show. Rob is a lecturer in MIT Sloan School of Management and an MIT Leadership Center Master Executive Coach. Over the past 20 years, Rob has worked with numerous Fortune 500 companies.

"Be brave, and show your voice to the world."

"All children are born artists" but how to remain artists as we grow up? 

Do not put a ceiling on what you think, just like kids, do not be frightened to be wrong. Pause and focus on your inner WHY, What aspires you? What kind of footprint do you want to leave behind...

Let's take 5min out of our busy schedules to pause and enjoy a mindful moment.

Thank you Andrea for always reminding us what really matters!  

In today's episode, we get to sit with Julie Rachline, CEO at LallianSe. We will deep dive into Julie's experience as an entrepreneur living by a very genuine motto: Be an opportunity for others! Taking us through her personal journey, and learnings on choosing people over projects, simply because good people lead to great projects and generate outstanding impact. 

"Be an opportunity for others."

MEET OUR GUEST Julie Rachline Founder and Chief Executive Officer at LallianSe since 2015.

PhD in Neuropharmacology and ESCP Business School Alumni, Julie Rachline is a serial entrepreneur and former VC driven by passion for innovation and science. With more than a decade of experience as an early- stage and growth capital investor in France and Europe combined with two years as a head-hunter, she founded LallianSe in 2015 and is the Integrator’s CEO since.

LallianSe integrator builds the foundations for better health by relying on the LallianSe community of Experts, which offers outsourced management of key responsibilities to steer operations towards success as well as hospital immersion, with coworking spaces combined with dedicated events for innovation in healthcare.

Julie is also co-founder and CEO of Braintale, leader of Invest Health, the commercial affiliate of EIT Health , evaluator for the European Commission with EIC programs and independent board member of DTA Medical, Virdis and TechToMed.

From growing up in South Africa, in the apartheid era, to his early years in medical school, before moving to Canada and then the US, Barry Stein’s story and vision of the world is so humbling. Aware of the privilege he had in South Africa, Barry understood early on that you must develop a capacity of change management to change paradigm fixed in the mindset not only of a community but sometimes globally. In this episode we covered the aspects of innovation and entrepreneurship, being the catalyst and frameworks to solve problems in healthcare and accelerate new ideas for sustainable positive impact. When asked about change, Barry’s advice was to forget about interpersonal issues, surround yourself with people with talents, forget about the persona sitting around the table and focus on the mission and the vision that excites the group…. this is where the magic happens.

"You feel loved when you feel heard"

MEET OUR GUEST Dr Barry Stein, Chief Clinical Innovation Officer and Chief Medical Informatics Officer for Hartford HealthCare (HHC).

Barry Stein, MD MBA FSIR FACR RPVI, is the Chief Clinical Innovation Officer and Chief Medical Informatics Officer for Hartford HealthCare (HHC) where he also practices as a Vascular and Interventional Radiologist and is an Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He has held numerous leadership positions including Chief Imaging Informatics Officer at HHC, Vice Chair of Radiology, Chief of Cardiovascular MRI & CT, and Director of the Advanced Imaging and Quantitative Analysis Core Laboratory at Hartford Hospital.

Barry graduated with his executive MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management. He received his post graduate medical training at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, where he did his Radiology residency, served as Chief Resident, and completed fellowships in MRI and Vascular & Interventional Radiology. He received his medical degree from the University of Stellenbosch, Cape Town, South Africa. Barry is board certified by the American Board of Radiology in Diagnostic Radiology and Vascular and Interventional Radiology and is a fellow of both the Society of Interventional Radiology and American College of Radiology. He is a recognized expert in cardiovascular MRI and CT and was one of the pioneers in Magnetic Resonance Angiography. Barry continues to remain engaged at MIT serving on the Sloan Alumni Board, participating as an invited lecturer in courses on Innovation as well as Quantitative and Qualitative approaches to leadership, is a mentor for LinQ programs in the MIT Institute for Medical Engineering & Science, a host to students from the MIT Initiative for Health Systems Innovation, as well as a co-principal investigator conducting clinical and operational heath systems analytics research in collaboration with Sloan faculty at HHC.

Barry is currently focused on leveraging technology, and building a differentiated healthcare Innovation ecosystem at HHC, to accelerate clinical transformation.

In this special episode, you'll hear from a serial entrepreneur who successfully sold one of his companies to Apple and is now dedicating his life to helping people achieve their own goals of imagination by "removing the dragons to human subjective progress". He is now co-founder and "dreamer" of Love & Magic Company working with leaders and organizations on "magic" to turn potential into reality, putting structure in their imagination, making electricity, and bringing potential to life.

"Every uniqueness is a part of the human tapestry."

MEET OUR GUEST Chinedu Echeruo a serial entrepreneur who has dared to invent the future.

Chinedu believes that individuals, empowered by imagination and inspiration, can solve virtually any problem. He dared to invent the future starting in 2005, when he founded HopStop, the pioneering travel app that helped millions of users navigate public transportation in major metropolitan areas around the world that Apple acquired in 2013. Chinedu also founded Tripology, a lead-generation and referral business for the travel industry. Tripology was acquired by Rand McNally and now owned by USA Today.

Chinedu cofounded "Love & Magic Company" to co-build beloved organizations with innovative partners.

Prior to completing his MBA, Chinedu spent several years at J.P Morgan Chase where he was involved in a broad range of M&A, financing, and private equity transactions. Chinedu has been featured in multiple media, including and is committed to making the world a better, more cohesive place through the free flow of information.

Chatting with a leader whose passion and purpose is to develop innovative principled leaders has a special taste! This is what Johanna Hising DiFabio, Assistant Dean Sloan Fellows MBA and Executive MBA at MIT thrive for! Johanna's inspiring personal story moving from her home country Sweden, to growing up in different European countries, then coming to the US to pursue her education, her personal experience with healthcare, and her passion for people, bring a different cultural lens of how communities come together to learn, both from their similarities and differences. Johanna is an incredibly inspiring leader fostering this lens of diversity and her leadership beliefs through the programs she leads at MIT, impacting hundreds of leaders joining those programs every year striving to invent the future.

"Have the courage to speak your opinion and truth."

MEET OUR GUEST Johanna Hising DiFabio Assistant Dean, Sloan Fellows MBA & Executive MBA at MIT Sloan.

Johanna leads all aspects of the Sloan Fellows MBA & Executive MBA programs at MIT Sloan by collaborating with faculty on the development of innovative curricula; co-working with global organizations on action learning labs to help them meet pressing strategic issues; and, with us, students to create a learning environment that is second-to-none in terms of the personal development and career enhancement.

Johanna is passionate about leadership and leadership development and that is why she joined MIT a decade ago. There is no better place for that and it is reflected in MIT Sloan’s mission: “to develop principled, innovative leaders who improve the world and to generate ideas that advance management practice.”

“Integrity is the highest value that I have” Panos Alexakos summarizes in these words the purest version of leadership. You are not meant to be perfect, do not be afraid to talk about where you come from, your journey…and always make sure to check on the fire within you. Panos experience and reflections on his journey are so powerful and humbling. Fear keeps us human, and it is ok to show our vulnerability… Building a speak-up culture is more than ever what we need for us to navigate through all the crossroads that we come across in life.

"Never let your hands shame your face."

MEET OUR GUEST Panos Alexakos, Head of Integrity & Compliance Novartis Pharmaceuticals European Region.

Panos Alexakos was appointed Head of Integrity and Compliance, Region Europe, Pharmaceuticals, in July 2018. He was previously Head of Central and Eastern Europe. Panos has been with Novartis for over 20 years and has worked in senior leadership roles in Greece, Germany, the UK and in Switzerland. Panos brings with him experience from Oncology, Specialty and Primary Care and also the Consumer Health Division. In his role, Panos partners with the rest of the business to build the leading ethical pharmaceutical company in the world. Panos holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Mass Media Communications and a Masters of Business Administration. Between receiving his MBA and joining Novartis, he served as an Officer in the Hellenic Military Air Force, and held Sales and Marketing positions with Johnson & Johnson Greece.

Panos was born in Athens, Greece and currently resides in Basel, Switzerland. When not working and not spending time with his family Panos enjoys participating in endurance events.

It is our responsibility as leaders to build fearless organizations. Organizations with low interpersonal fear for our people to be willing to speak-up their ideas, their beliefs, their thoughts, their experiments, their doubts, and team-up with one another for the greater good: it is not about me but about us. I had the immense pleasure to chat with Prof Amy Edmondson who pioneered work on psychological safety in organizations and its importance in leading successful teams. Enjoy the practical advice and words of wisdom in this special episode.

"Love is an invisible force that keeps us going."

MEET OUR GUEST Amy Edmondson, Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School.

Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School. She teaches, writes, and "ruminates" (as she says) on organizational learning, psychological safety, leadership, and teaming. Edmondson is one of the most renowned thought leaders who won multiple awards and published the best book we've read. Her most recent book, "Fearless Organizations: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth" is a must - not only to read - but a must to learn and do in our organizations.

Her prior books – Teaming: How organizations learn, innovate and compete in the knowledge economy, Teaming to Innovate, and Extreme Teaming – explore teamwork in dynamic organizational environments. In Building the future: Big teaming for audacious innovation, she examines the challenges and opportunities of teaming across industries to build smart cities.

We will let you enjoy listening to this episode, and promise you to experience Edmondson's impact on many of us leaders trying to make the world we all inhabit a better place.

Reflecting on a personal unfortunate experience, led her to understand the missing piece of the puzzle she was always trying to figure out. Jill Donahue understood early on that articulating the “Why” will only connect you more to the difference you want to make in the world and eventually impact patient outcomes. Jill is an avid reader and will always refer to studies and research to support what she preaches. In this episode, she referred to Daniel Pink, Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose framework, being the key to exceptional performance.

Today, we have a greater set of expectations of our leaders that goes beyond delivering bottom-line performance and increasing shareholders' value, because the ripple effect of spreading love and being purpose-driven is key to thriving in any organization.

"When you connect with your purpose, things will change for you."

MEET OUR GUEST Jill Donahue Author, Speaker, Co-founder Aurora Project, Associate Editor at HS&M Magazine, and Cofounder of Excellerate.

Jill Donahue is on a mission to lift pharma! As a global thought leader in pharma, she won multiple awards for her work, author of 2 books (including the award-winning EngageRx: The 3 Keys to Patient-focused Growth), delivering talks at global conferences, publishing in industry journals, and serving pharma teams.

When Jill was 35 her father died of an avoidable prescribing error. As a pharma person reflecting on her family’s loss, she pictured the closed door. She, since then, strives to lift Pharma by inspiring our people to be more purpose-driven and enabling them to be more engaged and engaging. She believes in a world where pharma professionals contribute to better patient outcomes and better business outcomes simultaneously. Where they feel proud and can make a difference for themselves, their companies, and most importantly to patients. 

Jill is the co-founder and managing director of Excellerate, She also co-founded The Aurora Project; a global volunteer group of thought leaders trying to illuminate commercial pharma’s path to patient centricity.

Here's a list of Jill's recommended readings with a summary of her take about each of them. Enjoy!

1. The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek
2. The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle
3. Meaningful Work by Shawn Askinosie
4. Everybody Matters by Bob Chapman and Raj Sisodia
5. Intrinsic Motivation at Work by Kenneth Thomas
6. Selling with a Noble Purpose by Lisa Earle McLeod
7. Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek
8. Give and Take by Adam Grant
9. Taking People with You by David Novak
10. The Purpose Economy by Aaron Hurst
11. The Purpose Effect by Dan Pontefract
12. Turn this Ship Around by David Marquet
13. Grow by Jim Stengel

In every possible way, we are all made up of stories that we accept and acknowledge. These stories shape how we see and define ourselves. Growing up in an immigrant family of 8 adopted children, Gayle Grader was perceived as an outsider. This experience was foundational to who she is today and what she wants to achieve in life; “You can be the outsider and look in” Gayle says. By being the outsider girl, she learned the skill of observation and developed a curiosity in people and society. 

In this episode, we discussed the common trait of leaders throughout history; answered complex questions, are we born or made leaders? Talked about optionality and how to mute the noise to find the signal and focus on the legacy we want to leave behind.

How we arrange the plot points of our story into a narrative, can shape who we are; and to know Gayle’s story is to know her philosophy and life's ultimate purpose: Bringing impact and scale by helping talents unleash their authentic themselves to lead the organization.

"Be fully engaged with who you are...accept the peak and valley of your journey."

MEET OUR GUEST Gayle Grader Executive Coach and Director of Executive Career Development at MIT Sloan.

Gayle Grader is an Executive Career Coach and the Director of Executive Career Development for MIT Sloan. She oversees the Executive Career Development Team and is responsible for setting the programming strategy, delivering career education workshops, and providing one-on-one executive coaching.

Before joining Sloan in 2018, she spent 13 years as a strategy consultant and business coach working with wide-ranging companies from Fortune 500 to start-ups. In her early career, before she took a hiatus to start a family, Gayle worked in consulting, investment banking, asset management, and executive search.

Gayle has a passion for understanding leadership and how great leaders become the people they are; she can be frequently found reading historical and contemporary biographies building up her perspective on what causes some to become those great leaders who go down in history books.

From impact as a front-line emergency physician to Chief Impact Officer, Dr. Adam Brown could not stay siloed in a single service line. He always believed in visionary leadership, powered by the trust component to be seen as the trusted voice. Dr. Brown takes us back to the early days of the pandemic talking about the number of deaths that could have been prevented, only if there were more trusted voices out there! We all assume there is health literacy and health illiteracy, whereas there are different types of literacy.

When asked about equity, Adam thinks that the concept is still misunderstood; equity is not about equality, because access doesn’t give you usage. To improve health, we need first to acknowledge the problem and identify the drivers of inequities, then start addressing all social determinants. Diversity alone is not the full answer to equality, neither is inclusion nor equity.; we need to have the 3 pieces of those parts to get to a sustainable solution. And this is only the beginning of a long journey! Thank you, Adam, for sharing your vision and genuine belief in the reality of humanity's kindness and altruism. 

"Equity is not about equality [...] access does not mean usage."

MEET OUR GUEST Dr. Adam Brown Chief Impact Officer at Envision Healthcare.

Adam began as a front-line emergency physician with progressive clinical and administrative roles throughout the mid-Atlantic and Midwest, becoming the President of the nation's largest Emergency Medicine practice at Envision Healthcare. During the first waves of the COVID pandemic, he continued to serve as President of Emergency Medicine and was named Chair of the COVID Task Force for all specialties at Envision. That year, the CEO also appointed him to the role as an Executive Sponsor of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). In 2021, he assumed the role of a newly created position at Envision as the Chief Impact Officer and has continued in his roles in the pandemic response and DEI.

As an emergency physician and healthcare executive, Adam has a driving passion to improve the lives of patients. Using the skills and influence he's gained as a healthcare business leader and physician, he is expanding his reach to improve the health of millions of lives. His abilities as an outstanding communicator, visionary leader, and strategist position him as a recognized thought leader in the industry and beyond. 

Daena Giardella's background is quite unique, she has enjoyed dual careers in business organizational development and in the performing arts for over twenty-five years. She makes an analogy between art and leadership...Because both careers are all about making connections with people and telling the stories that need to be told. Daena gives us her perspective on fostering a safe culture while still being in the hybrid environment missing the human live connections. Today we are at an inflection point, with a strong generational awareness about the psychological dimension of life-work balance and most importantly what to expect from work. Daena's word of wisdom to all leaders out there is to stop and reflect so they can repair and inspire and keep building exceptional things around them. Hope you will enjoy this heartfelt discussion, happy listening!

"Find a way to reflect so you can repair and inspire."

MEET OUR GUEST Daena Giardella Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a Faculty Affiliate of the MIT Leadership Center.

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Daena has been an organizational leadership, teams consultant, and executive coach as well as a media, communication, and presentation consultant for over twenty-five years.

Before being a senior lecturer at MIT and teaching numerous amazing courses, Daena has enjoyed dual careers in business organizational development and in the performing arts. She combines these backgrounds to design innovative educational programs for numerous world-class companies, organizations, and academic institutions in the USA and abroad.

A fact I learned recently, Daena is also a talented actor who received kudos in the USA and internationally, the Boston Globe has called her an "impressive talent" and she definitely is an impressive talent, an impressive leader, coach, and an amazing person.

For our 34th episode, we talked to Enrique Conterno about his remarkable journey. Enrique talks about the importance of taking chances and risks in careers. There is no formula when it comes to building a sustainable business with strong performing teams. It's all about centering and focusing on the common purpose and the key values. Enrique explains the importance of implementing a culture of empowerment in an organization, leading to more accountability, thus teams will genuinely contribute to the success of their organization. Enrique shares with us his vision on leading in moments of crisis - "It is critical to remain true to your value, stick to your north star, otherwise one can get lost". Crisis challenges us on many levels, but it's an opportunity itself if it is framed the right way. It's all a matter of refocusing the priority and staying grounded. When asked about work-life balance, Enrique stresses the importance of time and space to replenish and refresh. 

"It's not about tough love, but rather true love."

MEET OUR GUEST Enrique Conterno Chief Executive Officer at Fibrogen.

A native of Peru, Enrique is a mechanical engineer with an MBA from Duke. He joined Eli Lilly in 1992 and spent the next two decades working in the U.S. and internationally across sales, marketing, finance, business development, and general management roles. Enrique became the President of Lilly Diabetes in 2009. In addition to those responsibilities, he took on the role of President of Lilly USA in January 2017 before retiring at the end of 2019 after 27 years of service with the company. Enrique is now the CEO of Fibrogen.

Some great articles Enrique wrote in "Fortune" can be seen here.

High capability with low ego is the crucial combination for leaders of the future. It enables putting customers, businesses, purpose, and most importantly the people and the next generation of leaders before oneself. Hear from Prof Elsbeth Johnson on leadership, transformation, and more about the powerful framework she has developed after years of research on how to lead strategic change, and published recently in her great book: Step up and Step Back: How to Really Deliver Strategic Change in Your Organization.

"Great good ahead of benefit."

MEET OUR GUEST Elsbeth Johnson Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan and expert in leadership, strategy, and change.

Dr. Elsbeth Johnson is Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management and an expert on leadership, strategy, and change. The main focus of her research is on what leaders need to do to help their organizations execute strategy, or deliver long-term, strategic change, without the need for the leader’s ongoing, personal involvement. Prior to joining MIT, Elsbeth was taught leadership at London Business School and London School of Economics.

Prior to academia, Dr. Johnson worked as an investment banker, a sell-side equity analyst, and a corporate strategist. She also spent three years as a special adviser to the first Blair Government in the UK.

As a consultant and executive educator, Elsbeth has worked with a range of companies, helping them develop their strategy and the capabilities and culture that will deliver it.

36 episodes later, we are closing the year and our first season with a unique episode. Going from the principle that everyone has a story worth telling, Jill Donahue hijacked the mic and turned the table... and the host became the guest.

"Everyone has a story to tell."

MEET OUR GUEST Naji Gehchan or your host for the past 35 episodes.

In 1972, an army doctor created the terminology “soft and hard” skills as he saw success resided not only in having people with strong machine operation skills but also in having individuals who could manage and supervise teams, along with other skills. Half a century later the world transformed enough for us as leaders to change the terms! In this episode, Prof Loredana Padurean shares her philosophy on the skills of the 21st century: SMART and SHARP! From "treating people like people", to "love with massive humility", Loredana, the Unapologetically Unconventional Professor, shares her incredible journey, great research stories, and her leadership beliefs, all with a very fresh perspective on the world of today.

"The job is easy, the people are not."

MEET OUR GUEST Pr. Loredana Padurean Associate Dean at the all-new Asia School of Business.

Prof Loredana Padurean Associate Dean at the all-new Asia School of Business, a collaboration between the Central Bank of Malaysia, MIT Sloan, and an International Faculty Fellow at MIT Sloan.

Loredana is the Faculty Director for Action Learning and Innovation and Entrepreneurship at ASB. She has been an energizing force behind the establishment of the school. Under her leadership, the Action Learning program at ASB was recognized repeatedly as one of the most innovative programs in the world.  She is an international keynote and TedX speaker. She has taught in various MIT Sloan executive programs, at IMD, as well as in major companies. Prof. Loredana has an MA in Communication and Economics and a PhD in Management from USI Switzerland.

Find more about Smart x Sharp and the white paper here.

From Brazil to MIT Professor of Accounting awarded multiple times by his students with teaching awards, Rodrigo is more than an accounting expert and teacher, he is an incredible human leader who cares for his people and students. Listen to the best lessons of life learned in kindergarten, and many other inspiring reflections in this episode!

"Legacy in life has to be the people... Those you touched."

MEET OUR GUEST Rodrigo Verdi Professor of Accounting at MIT Sloan.

Prof Rodrigo Verdi joined MIT in 2006 after receiving a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. He has taught financial accounting to undergraduate, MBA, EMBA, and PhD students over the last 15 years, and has received five teaching awards at MIT and Sloan.

Rodrigo is Senior Editor at the Journal of Accounting Research, and has previously been Editor at The Accounting Review and Associate Editor at Management Science. His research has been published in the premier accounting and finance journals and has also received the Distinguished Contributions and Best Paper Award recognitions by the American Accounting Association.

Outside MIT, Rodrigo has served as head of the Governance Committee on the board of the Cambridge Ellis School over the last three years and as Advisor to the Provost at Unisinos University, a Jesuit university in southern Brazil with more than 30 thousand students.

A "global citizen" as he defines himself, a leader and multicultural manager, we had the pleasure to host Theodore Leondaridis in this inspiring episode! He shared about how he built a culture of feedback, a culture of trust, where people feel safe to say what they think and thrive towards the shared purpose of the company. Theodore defines leadership as being useful for people; what a great example of loving leadership!

"Get on the boat and change!"

MEET OUR GUEST Theodore Leondaridis General Manager at Pierre Fabre Spain.

Theodore Leondaridis is General Manager at Pierre Fabre in Spain. He always wanted to be a veterinarian but then decided otherwise! Moving to Basic Science then ESCP business school in 2013, he then joined Pierre Fabre as a trainee in Corporate Business Development. Theodore then had different experiences as Financial Analyst, Global Oncology Launch Manager, Oncology Business Unit Director in Portugal, along with different leadership responsibilities. Theodore is now heading Pierre Fabre Medical Care in Spain as the General Manager where he is leading a team of more than 250 people.

Theodore is a global healthcare leader, a husband, and a father of 2 amazing young kids.

A transformational episode with a social transformer and thinker, Otto Scharmer. Hear in this episode from the creator of Theory U and the Presencing institute. The pandemic was a mirror of what is broken in our society. We all have a responsibility as leaders and change-makers to fix that, to improve the world, the planetary wellbeing. We can achieve that by sensing, feeling the emerging future possibilities, and embodying them now. Learning from the past is not good enough, we should learn from the emerging future... All we need to do is ask ourselves: What is mine to do? Find that one piece we are polishing as a leader and put it into the path of the future.

"Lead by activating the intelligence of the heart."

MEET OUR GUEST Otto Scharmer, a social transformer, an MIT professor and incredible leader.

Otto is a Senior Lecturer at MIT and co-founder of the Presencing Institute. He chairs the MIT IDEAS program for cross-sector innovation and introduced the concept of “presencing”—learning from the emerging future—in his bestselling books Theory U and Presence. He is co-author of Leading from the Emerging Future, which outlines eight acupuncture points for transforming capitalism. His most recent book, The Essentials of Theory U summarizes the core principles and applications of awareness-based systems change.

In 2015 Otto co-founded the MITx u.lab and in 2020 the GAIA journey, which have activated a vibrant worldwide ecosystem of transformational change involving more than 200,000 users from 185 countries. Otto is a member of the UN Learning Advisory Council for the 2030 Agenda, the World Future Council, and the Club of Rome’s High-Level 21st Century Transformational Economics Commission.

Otto has won several prizes and received in 2021 the Elevating Humanity Award from the Organizational Development Network.

Looking back into your past, do you regret not taking the time to pause and cherish precious moments with your loved ones? Or not being there when they needed you the most? It is unlikely to listen to Christi Shaw and not pause and reflect on your personal story.

What strikes us is the strong sense of care, love, family and the desire to make an impact she conveys when sharing genuinely her story with us with all its highs and lows. Christi shares her lifelong learning and leadership philosophy “Never let success go to your head; never let failure go to your heart”. Because when you are at your best, you help people be at their best. For her, leadership is all about enabling others to move forward by leveraging what everybody brings to the table. It is about leading without labels, without hierarchy, and barriers to collaboration.

Listening to Christi, beyond respect, you can't but admire her strength from miles away and the genuine soul behind the incredible leader she is… As she says, life is too short, and "we spend too many hours at work just to be respected and not loved”.

"My biggest learning:  being compassionate and spreading love and caring at work is a good thing."

MEET OUR GUEST Christi Shaw Chief Executive Officer of Kite.

Christi Shaw serves as Chief Executive Officer of Kite, a Gilead Company. Kite is the only company with global scale dedicated exclusively to the research, commercialization and manufacturing of cell therapy to treat cancer.

Christi is driven by values, integrity and a deep connection to people living with cancer and their loved ones after losing both her mother and sister to cancer. Under Christi’s leadership, Kite has received four FDA approvals for its CAR T-cell therapies in just four years for certain types of blood cancer and is working to bring CAR T to more patients. Kite recently released 5-year patient survival data, a significant milestone showing durable long-term survival and suggestive of a potential cure for these patients.

Christi currently serves on the board of directors of Avantor and the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) and is on the executive committee and the board of directors of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO).

Christi holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from Iowa State University and an MBA from the University of Wisconsin. She resides with her husband and son in Santa Monica, California.

Have you heard the latest word defining great Leadership? Humbitous. For Amer Kaissi, award winning Professor, exceptional leadership is all about humility and ambition combined.

While ambition might sound familiar, humility comes in 3 layers. First, relationship with ourselves: it’s about self-awareness, being aware of our strengths and areas of improvements, and looking at our capabilities as accurately as can. Second, relationship with others: it’s about generosity and giving time and effort to grow others. Finding appreciation to the intelligence of the group and having a growth mindset to go into every conversation with curiosity and assumption to learn something new. Lastly, relationship with the world: Taking the time to ponder in the grand scheme of things and acknowledge how small and insignificant we are. This layer comes as an "ego dissolver".

When thinking of ambition in leadership, it is not narcissism. Unfortunately, narcissists tend to be chosen more for leadership position, however in the long run, they are ineffective leaders because they are self-centered, and not good team players: short term turn around but no long-lasting impact.

I will leave us as healthcare leaders with this last statement from Amer ”In Healthcare, humility is amplified by 100 because we are in the business of compassion and empathy.”

"Humility is looking at your capabilities as accurately as can."

MEET OUR GUEST Amer Kaissi an award-winning professor of health-care administration at Trinity University, a Top-15 program.

Dr. Amer Kaissi is a professional speaker and a certified executive coach. His most recent book is “Humbitious: the power of low-ego, high-drive leadership.” He is an award-winning professor of health-care administration at Trinity University, a Top-15 program. His previous book, Intangibles: The Unexpected Traits of High-Performing Healthcare Leaders, won the 2019 ACHE Book of the Year Award.

He is a national speaker and a faculty member with ACHE, the University of Colorado Denver, and Boston College. Amer is the director of the Executive Program at Trinity University, where he teaches courses in leadership, professional development, and public speaking. Amer works with MEDI — a division of Navvis — and with the Leadership Development Group as an executive coach, and consults with hospitals and other organizations in their strategic planning efforts. Amer is also a certified executive and physician coach. He lives in San Antonio, Texas, with his wife and their two teenagers.

We don’t get to sit every day with someone like Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi. His journey was inspired by incredible leaders he was fortunate to meet along the way. Noble prize laureates, or powerful figures in their community, who triggered questions around how to live a meaningful life. For Venerable Tenzin, in the history of humanity, the challenge of leadership is today more crucial than ever. Despite so many leadership programs thought in the best schools around the world, we suffer from a lack of ethical leadership... When we look around us, we are living in a society increasingly marked by a sense of polarization. More fear and hate than love and compassion. The world has quite often chosen to operate from a place of despair rather than from a place of hopefulness. “Hope is a game-changer”. 

No matter how small we think we are, individuals must recognize that they do have a voice, and need to exercise it; quoting Dalai Lama “if you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.” In a world where nothing is constant, maintain a healthy sense of curiosity and hopefulness, talk more with people who don't believe in what you do …This is a powerful tool to value perspective in the complex society we live in.

This episode couldn’t have been timelier and resonate with the tense environment we are living in today.

"Aspiration + Reality = Hope."

MEET OUR GUEST Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi president and CEO of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Venerable Tenzin is an innovative thinker, a philosopher, an educator, and a polymath monk. He is Founding Director of The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a center dedicated to inquiry, dialogue, and education on the ethical and human dimensions of life. The Center at MIT has 6 Nobel Peace Laureates as its founding members and its programs run in 8 countries and expanding.

Venerable Tenzin’s unusual background encompasses entering a Buddhist monastery at the age of 10 to receiving graduate education at Harvard with degrees ranging from Philosophy to Physics to International Relations.

Venerable Tenzin serves on the Board of several academic, humanitarian, and religious organizations.  He is a recipient of several recognitions and awards, including a 2013 Distinguished Alumni Award from Harvard for his visionary contributions to humanity. 

Driven by curiosity, trying, failing, trying again while exploring the world, is what shaped Yacine Hadjiat's incredible leadership journey. This curiosity led him to reinvent himself constantly, putting himself in vulnerable positions that taught him lessons we all should learn from: listen, ask, observe, understand, be open, stay humble and most importantly be benevolent as a leader. Start with the "who", the people, the team to deliver exceptional innovations. Hear Yacine's thoughts on digital health and innovation crystallized beautifully with his words "what excites me is what I don't know yet, new vectors, new possibilities... digital will bring to health what internet brought to tech".

"Define your why, bring the who, and work on the what."

MEET OUR GUEST Dr Yacine Hadjiat Global Head of Biogen Digital Health Solutions

Dr Yacine Hadjiat holds medical degree with a specialization in Pain Management and supportive care (from both Paris Medical University and McGill University), as well as a MBA in Health Management. He has also completed several training courses and specializations in addiction, pediatric pain management, clinical research, health economics and Artificial Intelligence for Healthcare.

Throughout his career, he has covered several senior leadership positions in the pharmaceutical industry as well as clinical practice and academic medical research in Europe, US and Asia.

He started his journey in the pharmaceutical industry in France with Sanofi-Aventis in the Strategy and Public Affairs department before joining Grünenthal in Medical Affairs. He joined Mundipharma in 2011 in Paris where he served as Head of Medical Affairs for France, and then as Head of Medical Affairs for Europe based in Cambridge, UK, before moving to Singapore as Chief Medical Officer for Asia Pacific, Middle East and Latin America and Global Head of Medical for Consumer Healthcare. Currently, Yacine is the Global Head of Biogen Digital Health Solutions & Chief medical Officer. Based in paris, France.

Along with his career in the industry, Yacine had several years of clinical practice in pain and cancer care management including NGO work with Pain Without Borders especially in Africa and Asia and also fundamental and clinical research experience in the US at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Washington DC. He is also currently part of the French Health Institute (INSERM) in Public health research program.

Yacine also holds non-executive positions as advisor for governmental agencies in Singapore like the National Health Innovation Center (NHIC) and Entreprise Singapore, as well as MedTEch/healthTech incubators. He’s an author of several scientific publications from fundamental research science to clinical research projects, digital heath and health economics.

Yacine was recognised in 2018 as Top 50 Healthcare leaders at the SmartHealth conference in Dubai as a recognition for his work on equity in health and education. In 2019, he has also been awarded by the Association of Pharmaceutical Medicine Singapore (APMS) with the “Excellence in Medical Affairs Award” APMS is a chapter the International Federation of Associations of Pharmaceutical Physicians and Pharmaceutical Medicine (IFAPP).

Sustainability is all about: how are we on this planet and how are we with each other? We can't continue living on this planet looking at the world as a "pyramid", a lens of supremacy and extraction of natural resources and labor. Every year of delay means losses and communities we can not recover... Thinking of the world as an interconnected web is the most important action we can take as leaders in each of the decisions we make. Think of it in a staff meeting ensuring all voices are being heard, while building your next manufacturing site ensuring it includes all lives and flows, think of circular economies.... The most impactful projects are the small ones who started to fix a problem that resolved another and entered in a positive loop of change improving the broader environment and community. The key for leaders is to keep a role of learners as we tackle these issues and make disruption of inequities part of our priorities.

"Lead by thinking of the world as an interconnected web."

MEET OUR GUEST Elizabeth Sawin Founder and Director of the Multisolving Institute.

Elizabeth Sawin is the Founder and Director of the Multisolving Institute. Beth is an expert on solutions that address climate change while also improving health, well-being, equity, and economic vitality. She developed the idea of ‘multisolving’ to help people see and create the conditions for such win-win-win solutions. 

Beth writes and speaks about multisolving, climate change, and leadership in complex systems for both national and international audiences. Her work has been published widely, including in Non-Profit Quarterly, The Stanford Social Innovation Review, U. S. News, The Daily Climate, and System Dynamics Review.

She has trained and mentored global sustainability leaders in the Donella Meadows Fellows Program and provided systems thinking training to both Ashoka and Dalai Lama Fellows. Since 2014, Beth has participated in the Council on the Uncertain Human Future, a continuing dialogue on issues of climate change and sustainability among a select group of humanities scholars, writers, artists, and climate scientists. 

Beth is also a member of the advisory board to the Kresge Foundation’s Climate Change Health and Equity Program. A biologist with a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Beth co-founded Climate Interactive in 2010 and served as Climate Interactive’s Co-Director from 2010 until 2021. While at Climate Interactive, she led the scientific team that offered the first assessment of the sufficiency of country pledges to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2008. Beth also led Climate Interactive’s efforts to integrate measures of equity, health and well-being into decision support tools and computer simulations. 

Beth trained in system dynamics and sustainability with Donella Meadows and worked at Sustainability Institute, the research institute founded by Meadows, for 13 years. She has two adult daughters and lives in rural Vermont where she and her husband grow as much of their own food as they can manage.

What if we start as leaders by sharing our own challenges, our vulnerabilities, our stories with our people? This might be the first step to bringing back humanity into leadership and building empathy with our teams. From engineering and technical expertise to leadership, executive coaching and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion role model, Angelique Adams shared her story, experiences, and learning with us. Focus on people, on their entire well-being and results at the same time, and most importantly care for the whole person they are. Finally, don't forget to celebrate more your team, even the small wins!

"Help people have a seat at the table."

MEET OUR GUEST Dr Angelique Adams, Author, speaker, and executive coach.

Angelique Adams is an author, speaker, and executive coach focusing on leadership development for scientists and engineers. Angelique is an engineer with 25 years of experience in operations, strategy, and innovation. She was Director of R&D at aluminum giant Alcoa, and Chief Innovation Officer at multibillion dollar steelmaker, Aperam. After leading hundreds of scientists and engineers around the world, she discovered her true passion is developing people, not products. 

Following the successful publication of her first book for women in STEM in 2021, she launched Angelique Adams Media Solutions, a distribution platform for her books, online courses, and coaching programs. Her second book, for women executives in college athletics will be out this summer.

Angelique lives in Knoxville with her husband and 2 children. She serves on the board of several local nonprofits and volunteers her time to mentor entrepreneurs. She has a Ph.D. from Penn State and an MBA from MIT.

We hear a lot about transferable managerial skills from sports to corporate and entrepreneurial world, Ben Shields summarized those to two key components: common goal for teams and measurable performance. Along those comes a crucial leadership skill of creating and maintaining a winning culture, which is a collective set of actions and behaviors that defines it, and best teams are obsessive about ensuring the culture is sustainable daily. This starts by building a learning culture based on mutual understanding. On a more individual level, success for Ben is driven by passion, hard work and luck. What about data and decision making? "Data can help you be less wrong in your decisions."

"Great leaders make those around them better."

MEET OUR GUEST Ben Shields Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management.

Ben Shields is a Senior Lecturer in Managerial Communication at the MIT. He studies the multibillion-dollar sports industry to identify broadly transferable management lessons in areas such as leadership communication, data-driven decision making, and innovation. 

Ben authored three books, Social Media Management: Persuasion in Networked Culture (Oxford University Press, 2016), The Sports Strategist: Developing Leaders for a High Performance Industry (Oxford University Press, 2015), and The Elusive Fan: Reinventing Sports in a Crowded Marketplace (McGraw-Hill, 2006), teaches and directs a number of courses and programs.  

Prior to MIT, Ben served as the Director of Social Media and Marketing at ESPN. He oversaw social media strategy for the ESPN brand and collaborated across the enterprise to develop and implement company-wide social strategy. He also worked on marketing strategy for several ESPN brands and sub-brands, including the SportsCenter “DaDaDa” campaign and the Emmy Award-winning “It’s Not Crazy, It’s Sports” brand campaign. 

Ben holds a BS and MA in communication studies and a PhD in media, technology, and society, all from Northwestern University. 

When Bob heard the word love, he was really not sure... Hear his thoughts on the true meaning of spreading love in organizations from helping others realize their dreams to giving space for your people to thrive. Leadership is courage, entrepreneurship is loneliness, and if you go that route make sure the need is unmet, customers really think what you are providing is better, and ensure the sustainability of your venture.

"Help them connect the dots to the purpose, inspire them, and get out of the way!"

MEET OUR GUEST Bob Jones Entrepreneur, CEO, Speaker, Author of "The Start-Up Starter Kit".

Bob is CEO of Scientific Nutrition Products, Inc. The company addresses medical conditions by creating and selling nutrition-based products. Bob was previously a Principal at Scientia Advisors, a strategy consulting firm, where Bob led the Nutrition and Wellness practice. Prior to Scientia, Bob was President and CEO of Vitasoy USA, Inc., the nation’s largest marketer and manufacturer of tofu and the pioneer of soymilk in America. This was a management turn-around.

Before joining Vitasoy, Bob launched three start-ups in the medical nutrition field. Each company addressed chronic medical disorders such as diabetes via specifically targeted nutrition products (rather than drugs). All three start-ups were with staff and faculty at Harvard Medical School. Each company turned leading-edge science into consumer products that were sold through retail pharmacies.

Bob has held executive positions at several other companies, including Abbott Laboratories and Baxter International. He has two awarded patents in the field of nutrition. He is an active mentor with MIT’s Venture Mentoring Service and has served as a judge in MIT’s 100K Business Plan Competition. He has an A.B. in biology from Princeton University and an MSM from MIT Sloan.

After hours, Bob plays in a blues band in the Boston area and is a springboard diver, and an enthusiastic motorcyclist.

From the island of Crete in Greece to the US, Georgia Perakis fulfilled her father's dream. We wouldn't have imagined that analytics could actually change the world and make a real difference. Georgia took it even further and talks about an analogy with data to understand the power of diversity and inclusion. Her pragmatic vision of using data is invaluable and makes us see things through a different lens. Start by filtering out the noise around big data and asking the big question: what is the problem I am trying to solve? Before big data, let's start talking about "little data" and missing data to put things in order and see the big picture. Georgia definitely won her students' hearts but also the analogy of the year by comparing MIT to a great candy store to choose from! Thank you for being who you are and for your exceptional leadership!

"The Love Large Numbers: Look at the long term goal, focus on the end outcome rather than looking at the present failure, persist... it will work out eventually."

MEET OUR GUEST Georgia Perakis, Professor of Management, Operations Research, Statistics, and Operations Management.

Prof Georgia Perakis teaches at MIT Sloan courses and performs research in analytics, optimization, machine learning with applications in pricing, revenue management, supply chains, transportation, energy, and healthcare among others.

In her research, Georgia investigates the theory and practice of analytics and its role in operations problems. She has received numerous awards and has several prestigious publications.

Currently, Georgia serves as the co-director of the Operations Research Center, on the council for the College of Computing, and faculty director of the Executive MBA (EMBA) program at MIT Sloan. She is also the editor-in-chief of the M&SOM journal. Prior to that role, she had also served as America’s editor in chief of the Journal of Pricing and Revenue Management, as a department editor for the journal Service Science in the area of Analytics and as an associate editor for the flagship journals: Management Science, Operations Research, M&SOM, INFORMS Journal on Optimization, and as a senior editor for POM. She has served as the chair of the RMP Section of INFORMS and as the VP of Meetings of the MSOM Society of INFORMS.  

Georgia holds a BS in mathematics from the University of Athens as well as an MS in applied mathematics and a PhD in applied mathematics from Brown University.    

If you are looking for inspiration, straightforward and pragmatic advice, this episode is for you! Whether you are an entrepreneur looking to start and scale a business or a healthcare leader looking to have an impact, Monty's authentic perspective will help you see things clearer. His favorite sentence "What the heck do I know" shows his powerful humility as he mentors hundreds of startups. Monty shares insights and guidance on how to build teams as an entrepreneur and build the crucial capabilities of a leader. Hope you will enjoy this open and candid discussion.

"Leadership has a moral obligation to help the team grow."

MEET OUR GUEST Monty Sharma, serial entrepreneur, Managing Director of MassDiGI.

Monty Sharma is a serial entrepreneur, a mentor in several start-up programs, and currently Managing Director of MassDiGI. 

Prior to joining MassDiGI, Monty, a respected game industry and technology professional, was co-founder and general manager of Vivox, a voice chat service provider in the games industry with key relationships to EA, Sony, Ubisoft, Nexon, Bigpoint, and many others. Monty advises a number of game companies and is a veteran MassChallenge and MIT Sandbox mentor.

VC and Love? Can those two words coexist? For Richard Kivel, a renowned VC in healthcare, the most valuable VCs in the end, are those who are empathetic and direct at the same time. They are with you when there are problems, and point them out recognizing that things don't usually go as planned. For him, it is the love versus fear concept. When investing in companies, he looks for devoted CEO, truthful and focused, with a vision and passion for the company, a CEO who is loved rather than feared! "If people feel valued, they feel loved, if they feel loved they are going to be committed, If they are committed, the organization will have a higher probability of success." So, it really comes down to LOVE.

"Look for a CEO who is loved, not feared."

MEET OUR GUEST Richard Kivel Investor & Board Director in Technology and Healthcare.

Richard serves as the Managing Director of GrayBella Capital LLC, a Pan-European venture capital firm based in London, investing in growth-stage technology and healthcare companies.

Since 2021 he has served as a Board member of Lottery.com, a publicly-traded (Nasdaq: LTRY) leading technology company that is transforming how, where and when lottery is played. Since 2018, Richard has served as Chairman of the Board of BC Platforms, a Zurich, Switzerland-based bio-computing leader.

Before this, Richard was Executive Chairman of the Board of ViS Research Inc., leading to a successful acquisition by IMS Health. In addition, he was a Board Director and Chairman of the nominating committee of Rexahn Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE: RNN) from 2010 until 2013.

Richard's executive management experience also includes a Senior Management position at Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, and two Chief Executive Officer positions: TheraGenetics, Ltd. from 2006 until 2009, and MolecularWare, Inc. from 2001 until 2004. Both companies were successfully acquired.

He has served various roles at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, including as the Chairman and President of the MIT Enterprise Forum, a Board member of the MIT Alumni Association, and is a regular Lecturer at MIT and other schools. He is also a Trustee of Bankinter Innovation Foundation, a technology think-tank based in Madrid.

We've been hearing a lot lately about empathy and its importance in leadership (finally!), have you heard about compassionate leadership? Marissa Afton will take us through her work and research on what compassionate leaders do to build and engage high-performing teams and deliver success. You'll also hear about self-care and the importance of "kindness to self" with great practical tips for us to fit in our daily schedules, like performance breaks and self space.

"Do Hard Things in a Human Way"

MEET OUR GUEST Marissa Afton International Partner & Head of Global Accounts at Potential Project

Marissa is a Partner and Head of Global Accounts at Potential Project. She is a driving force behind leadership development and change initiatives at multinational companies, helping leaders and organizations unlock their potential to create cultural excellence and superior performance, resilience, and innovation. 

A mindfulness practitioner for over 25 years, Marissa is recognized for her breadth of knowledge and deep experience in transforming organizations by transforming the mind.

She is a sought-after speaker at leadership conferences about the impact of mind training on high-performing cultures, as well as the mental qualities of excellent leaders. She works with many Fortune 500 companies including Bloomberg, Cisco, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and White & Case, among others.

Here's the link to her latest book on compassionate leadership https://www.potentialproject.com/resources#01-books

In this episode, I had a great conversation with a leader in Mindset: Aden Eyob. Aden is a clinical neuroscientist and author of the Book on Mind Training: The Secret for Positive Living. She is the founder and CEO of Mind Medication, a fusion of neuroscience-psychology and spirituality-based mindset consulting and speaker service that helps uncover people’s “why”, unlock potential, and free limiting beliefs to achieve the impossible. Aden’s mission is a world free from limiting beliefs. Her formula is straightforward: Change your thought for it to be positive, it brings positive emotions and leads to the correct behavior. Hear about her great CALM framework: Clarity of the why, Accountability of goals, Love and self-care, and Motivators.

"Thought + Emotion = Behavior"

MEET OUR GUEST Aden Eyob, Founder & CEO at Mind Medication, Author, Speaker, and Clinical Neuroscientist.

Aden has over ten years of business experience working with Fortune 500 companies, including Gilead Sciences, Kite Pharma, Medpace, Kantar Health, Ogilvy Healthworld, and academic institutions such as UCLA and Charles R. Drew University. Currently, Aden is the founder and CEO of Mind Medication, a fusion of neuroscience-psychology and spirituality-based mindset consulting, coaching, and speaker service that helps organizations uncover their why, unlock potential; and free limiting beliefs to achieve the impossible.

Before beginning her business, Aden spent most of her career in Biotechnology, most notable, three years at Gilead Sciences / Kite Pharma. She worked as a Clinical Trial Management professional within the oncology therapy unit. She also led Gilead’s Leadership Organization of Black Employees (GLOBE) Community Outreach Pillar, which engages in philanthropic endeavors and investments that provide opportunities to give back to the UK communities in which Gilead operates.

Aden’s innovative thinking and mindfulness approach towards her career, health, and personal commitments were recognized by her peers and awarded the Women at Gilead Life Balance Award for 2018. Moreover, Aden is the recipient of Brainz CREA Global Awards 2021 in recognition of her innovative ideas, adaptability in business, and contribution to mental health projects.

Lowering your walls spreads love. People follow inspirational leaders because of love; they feel safe, they feel lifted up and not held down. Hear from Phil Johnson about his work and belief on emotional intelligence. There are two sources of motivation that will cause us to do the emotional labor and leave our comfort zone: One is pain, and the other is passion. For him, emotional intelligence is this experiential process. We must take the leap of faith to begin the journey so that we see its value in our life.

"Leadership is not a title or position; it is a choice that each of us needs to make."

MEET OUR GUEST Phil Johnson Founder & CEO of Master of Business Leadership program.

For the past 21 years, Phil Johnson has been an executive coach, teacher, and mentor dedicated to helping executives and organizations achieve remarkable results. His program touched leaders across the globe and in different industries. Phil was a corporate executive in the semiconductor industry for 20 years before founding MBL.

This episode is special and the first in a series of three. In partnership with ESCP Business School, I’ll be giving the mic to students, the leaders of tomorrow, to discuss with seasoned healthcare executives about their journeys and leadership beliefs. We welcomed in this first episode, Jean Jacques Bienaimé, CEO of BioMarin who shared his story, experience, and words of wisdom. "Love is an infinite resource that will have a tremendous impact on people", this summarizes beautifully JJ's leadership beliefs that helped him build high-performing teams delivering successful innovations to patients across the world.

"Employees are the oxygen of any company; its most important component."

MEET OUR GUEST Jean Jacques Bienaime (JJ), CEO and member of the BOD of BioMarin.

Jean-Jacques Bienaime joined BioMarin in 2005 as Chief Executive Officer and member of the board of directors, bringing with him over 25 years of experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Under his leadership, the market capitalization of BioMarin went from around $450 million in 2005 to approximately $14 billion in 2021. Before being the CEO of BioMarin, Jean-Jacques held several senior management positions in the biotech industry including CEO and chairman of Sangstat Medical Corporation and Genencor.

Mr. Bienaimé currently serves on the boards of Incyte Corporation, a biotechnology company, PhRMA, and The Biotech Industry Organization. He received an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a degree in economics from the École Supérieure de Commerce de Paris (ESCP Business School).

This episode is special and the second in a series of three. In partnership with ESCP Business School, I’ll be giving the mic to students, the leaders of tomorrow, to discuss with seasoned healthcare executives about their journeys and leadership beliefs. We welcomed in this second episode, Olivier Nataf, President of AstraZeneca France who shared his story, experience, and words of wisdom. Olivier characterizes leadership by 3 elements: well-rounded leader, learn & perform, and being set up for success. Nevertheless, the key leadership trait for him is vision. Vision has to be aspirational, then break down the problem, turn each and every stone, define a goal even if it sounds impossible at first, fail fast then go back on your horse and move forward. Not much is fundamentally impossible.

"What's right for the patient is right for the business"

MEET OUR GUEST Olivier Nataf, President of AstraZeneca France.

"Well rounded leader" is surely the best way to define our guest of the day, an inspiring leader: Olivier Nataf. Olivier values curiosity, agility, precision, result-orientation, bold collective ambitions. He believes in the simple power of purpose, clarity in what we are trying to achieve and why, as key drivers of teams’ motivation and success. He encourages people to develop through « learning and performing » (vs. box checking and title chasing).

Olivier first pursued scientific training in cellular and molecular biology and then a master's degree specializing in pharmacology and oncology. He completed his scientific training at the ESCP Business School: Specialised Master in Biopharmaceutical Management. 

He started his career at AstraZeneca as a trainee in 2001 and then successfully moved up the ranks both in France and in the USA. He has held many different positions: he began as a product manager and then changed his position on average every 2 years. He is now General Manager, Country President of France.

This episode is special and the last in a series of three. In partnership with ESCP Business School, I’ll be giving the mic to students, the leaders of tomorrow, to discuss with seasoned healthcare executives about their journeys and leadership beliefs. We welcomed in this third episode, Dries Hens, physician, entrepreneur, and co-founder of LynxCare. For Dries, Purpose should be your way of living and it encompasses being "Healthy, Active, and Happy". It is that simple yet complex to achieve. Dries believes in tech as a means to achieve great outcomes for patients., and that the real capital and value of his company is his people.

"Technology is a mean to achieve a goal but should never be a goal itself"

MEET OUR GUEST Dr. Dries Hens Cofounder of LynxCare

Dries Hens is a medical doctor and a successful entrepreneur. Dries knew he did not want to go towards clinical practice but still wanted to remain in the field. He wanted to do more in healthcare, by making the most of all the unexploited data. In parallel to his studies, he began to set up his company: LynxCare Clinical informatics. Dries is currently Co-Founder, Chief Business & Medical officer. Lynxcare transforms medical data into insights for hospitals, physicians, and patients.

Nimble Organizations, Agile, X-Teams, Leadership... You will learn about all those in this incredible chat with Prof. Deborah Ancona! Vision, mission, and objectives are key but constitute only half of the story for a high-performing team. What differentiates high-performing teams is their ability to reach out and understand the larger organization, the wider ecosystem, new trends, new technologies… This is X-Teams. A nimble organization is usually referred to as an organization able to adapt fast, it is also a culture that embraces freedom and people’s ability to be full fledge members of this community. The underlying success factor is respect with a learning mindset: tough on ideas, respect for people. Enjoy learning about years of research and those concepts and tools to make our organizations and teams high-performing to deliver on our companies’ purposes.

"Open up your mind to receive and update your view of the world."

MEET OUR GUEST Deborah Ancona Professor of Management and founder of the MIT Leadership Center.

Deborah Ancona is the Seley Distinguished Professor of Management, a Professor of Organization Studies, and the Founder of the MIT Leadership Center at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Deborah’s research and work led to the creation of multiple powerful models, tools, practices and concepts, including X-Teams as a vehicle for driving innovation within large organizations, and also the concept of distributed leadership that enable organizations to foster creative leadership at every level.

She has also served as a consultant on leadership and innovation to several companies including healthcare. 

Deborah is the author of the book, X-Teams: How to Build Teams That Lead, Innovate, and Succeed along with several other publications and articles in prestigious reviews. One of my favorites is “Family Ghosts in the Executive Suite”.

Below are some incredible tools and concept resources shared by Prof. Ancona in this episode:

Readings (Don't hesitate to reach out for more information) - The 4-CAPS+ model:  In Praise of the Incomplete Leader, HBR. - Sensemaking:  Framing and Acting in the Unknown, chapter.  - Challenge-Driven Leadership  - The X-Factor:  Six Steps to Building High-Performing X-teams, Organizational Dynamics.  x-teams: How to Build Teams that Lead, Innovate and Succeed, Harvard Business School Press. 

Nimble Organizations:    https://hbr.org/2019/07/nimble-leadership https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/five-rules-for-leading-in-a-digital-world https://hbr.org/ideacast/2019/07/the-3-types-of-leaders-of-innovative-companies https://hbr.org/2019/07/how-to-give-your-team-the-right-amount-of-autonomy

Tools: Tools to help move organizations from bureaucracies to more nimble forms.  These can be found at xLEAD.co.  

Tools include:  x360—a 360-degree leadership development tool based on the 4-CAPS+ model xCHANGE—is a simulation aimed at helping individuals and teams to learn how to use xTEAMS for effective change and innovation.   xCARDS—this is an exercise that can be used to assess how well your organization practices nimble leadership. There is also a card exercise to help individuals, teams, and organizations understand their leadership signatures, team identities, or organizational cultures. 

Courses (available in-person and live online) https://exec.mit.edu/s/

Leadership for John Sterman means distributed responsibility. Each of us has influence and some ability to change the system. In this timely episode, while we see some places melting because of climate change, and some populations risking their existence, we should take our responsibility as leaders, humans, and global citizens, we should stand up, and take action through visioning, networking, truth-telling, learning, AND loving. John remains hopeful and believes that climate change is tough but solvable. We can solve for many sustainable problems by leading from a basis of love; love is more than empathy, more than care, it is the belief that we have the capacity for good, we have the capacity to sacrifice for the common good, and that we can nurture that! And if people believe this is naive, so be it. In this episode hear about the beer game, climate change, leadership, system dynamics, healthcare, and a call for us as leaders to GET BUSY!

"As a leader, design a system so that ordinary people can do extraordinary things."

MEET OUR GUEST John Sterman Professor of Management at MIT Sloan in the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society; Director of the MIT System Dynamics Group and the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative.

John is a Professor of Management at MIT Sloan in the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society. He is also the Director of the MIT System Dynamics Group and the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative. John’s research centers on improving decision-making in complex systems, including corporate strategy and operations, energy policy, public health, environmental sustainability, and climate change. His work ranges from the dynamics of organizational change and the implementation of sustainable improvement programs to climate change and the implementation of policies to promote a sustainable world. Sterman pioneered the development of “management flight simulators” for corporate and economic systems which are now used by corporations, universities, and governments around the world.

He is the author of many articles on the challenges and opportunities facing organizations today, including the book, Modeling for Organizational Learning, and the award-winning textbook, Business Dynamics.

John has received multiple awards and recognitions around the globe and has been featured in several media for his innovative use of interactive simulations in management education and policymaking, particularly in climate change and energy policy.

I had the privilege to be John’s student, and I see the world now differently…. Definitely through a system dynamic lens but also through a lens of responsibility we all have as leaders to make the world a more sustainable and healthier place.

Learn more about climate solutions through En-ROADS an online simulator where John Sterman is Senior Advisor and Dr. Elizabeth Sawin is co-founder and Senior Advisor.

AI is simply the future, more explicitly Dimitris Bertsimas likes to talk about analytics which is for him the science of using data to build models that lead to decisions that impact the world positively. Personalized medicine is the aspiring future that we will get to soon. As leaders, we will have to drive those changes. This needs courage and openness to what data tells us. Hear from a leader who changed medical practices through data, models and decisions and impacted positively thousands of lives. "The beauty of computers is they don't get tired", but they can't replace humans, hear more about it in this episode.

"Love is the most significant aspect of human happiness"

MEET OUR GUEST Dimitris Bartsimas Associate Dean of Business Analytics, Boeing Professor of Operations Research, and faculty director of the Master of Business Analytics at MIT.

Dimitris is Global Operations Professor of Management, a Professor of Operations Research, and the Associate Dean for the Master of Business Analytics at MIT.

A faculty member since 1988, his research interests include optimization, stochastic systems, machine learning, and their application. In recent years, he has worked in robust optimization, statistics, healthcare, transportation, and finance. Dimitris is also a serial entrepreneur and was a co-founder of Dynamic Ideas, sold to American Express. He is also the founder of Dynamic Ideas Press, a publisher of scientific books, the cofounder of Benefits Science, a company that designs health care plans for companies, Dynamic Ideas Financial, a company that provides financial advice to customers, of Alpha Dynamics, an asset management company, P2 Analytics, an analytics consulting company, and of MyA health, a personalized health care advice company. 

Dimitris has coauthored more than 200 scientific papers and several books. He is the former department editor of Optimization for Management Science and of Operations Research in Financial Engineering. A member of the National Academy of Engineering and an INFORMS fellow, he has received numerous research awards, including the Harold Larnder Prize (2016), the Philip Morse Lectureship prize (2013), the William Pierskalla best paper award in health care (2013), best paper award in Trapsoration (2013), the Farkas Prize (2008), the Erlang Prize (1996), the SIAM Prize in Optimization (1996), the Bodossaki Prize (1998), and the Presidential Young Investigator Award (1991–1996). He has also received recognition for his educational contributions: The Jamieson prize (2013) and the Samuel M. Seegal prize (1999). 

Dimitris holds a BS in electrical engineering and computer science from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, as well as an MS in operations research and a PhD in applied mathematics and operations research from MIT.

You rarely chat with a leader with such extensive successful experience, from building companies to being on boards of large institutions, whose purpose is to make people happy. Through his humility and focus on mutual respect, transparency, and honesty, Jim Dougherty believes that one of the most important keys to success is the culture you create in a company. For him, culture should be created strategically in every company including startups, and not only be words on a wall or a slide. You'll hear incredible advice on how to lead turnarounds while engaging teams to thrive and be at their best. In the end, people will remember how they felt with you, and this is the legacy that will remain...

"People want to work with you because they want to learn how to behave like you."

MEET OUR GUEST Jim Dougherty Executive Chairman and Co-Founder at Madaket Health.

Jim is an entrepreneur, senior executive, and also Senior Lecturer in Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Strategic Management at MIT. He has extensive experience working directly with investors to execute highly successful turnarounds of troubled companies. He has stabilized and recapitalized such companies as Gartner, IntraLinks, Prodigy, and Small Business ISP. At Lotus Development Corporation, Jim was the founder of eApps (Internet Division), and he created the NOTES: NEWSSTAND business publishing service which was later sold successfully. He is also an Adjunct Senior Fellow for Business and Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He sits on the board of different institutions too.

Jim is on the Board of Trustees for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he Chairs the Research Oversight Committee, Bright Spirit Children's Foundation, and the Foreign Policy Association in New York City.

Jim holds a BA in government from Framingham State University, an MA in international economics from Columbia University, and a Graduate Certificate of Special Studies in finance and administration from Harvard University.

Here are the great articles from Jim Dougherty we mentioned in the episode published in Harvard Business Review - HBR.

Zen Chu built and invested in several successful medical and healthcare companies, his key to success: People first. When reflecting on the investor side, this doesn't change either, it starts with people. For Zen, the best leaders and investors are those focused on impact, and when love is in their life, it allows them to be laser-focused on the impact they bring. In this episode, hear Zen's incredible personal story and journey, his insightful advice, and lessons learned from leading turnarounds to building extremely successful ventures!

"Love in your life allows you to focus purely on impact."

MEET OUR GUEST Zen Chu, Health Tech Serial Entrepreneur, and Investor.

Faculty Director for the Healthcare Ventures graduate courses and Hacking Medicine student teams at MIT, Harvard Medical School and UCLA.

As founder of four medical companies and Hacking Medicine Venture Capital fund, Zen has 25 years of experience building early-stage medical technology and healthcare service companies, usually serving among the first investors in companies like PillPack.com, Abridge.com, FeelMore Labs, Nurx.com, Aptible, Luminopia, Molecule.to, MycoMedica, DirectDerm and a few others still in stealth mode.

Zen cofounded and served as CEO for 3D-Matrix Medical Inc. a venture-backed MIT regenerative medicine company with a successful IPO in 2011. 3D-Matrix has wound-healing and drug-delivery products on the market outside of the US and multiple human clinical trials in process.

I met Zen through the MIT Healthcare Ventures, a course that teaches entrepreneurship, business models, and venture creation around technology that can transform healthcare. Zen actively consults companies in pharma, health tech, and healthcare systems struggling to adapt to global digital healthcare transformation and emerging markets.

It starts with the right people to solve the 75 steps! Jonathan Fleming is clear on what it takes to build successful biotech companies. He has built, cofounded, and funded several companies serving and changing the lives of millions of patients worldwide. Great leaders are humble and mindful enough to understand the blessing they were given for them to give back. They lead with care and love, especially in healthcare. Leadership is also about knowing when to go. In this provocative episode, you will hear incredible insights and straightforward words of wisdom. A great summary for us leading healthcare organizations: we should never forget our moral, ethical, and legal responsibility for patients, employees, and shareholders.

"Leading with love and care is something you should do to the core of your being in healthcare."

MEET OUR GUEST Jonathan Fleming Executive Chairman of QurAlis and Enclear Therapies. Former President and CEO of Q-State Biosciences, and former Managing Partner of Oxford Bioscience Partners, an international venture capital firm specialized in life science investments.

Jonathan has been founding, financing, and operating breakthrough life science companies for over 30 years in the USA, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. During his career, he has raised more than $1 billion for early-stage investment funds that made more than 200 investments resulting in over 20 IPOs and 40 M&A events.

Jonathan has been the CEO of a neuroscience company, been the chairman of the board of numerous organizations, and been a director of many public and private companies. He has participated in the creation of numerous startups and has worked with seven different Nobel laureates to create and build companies based upon their work.

Jonathan has been a senior lecturer at the Sloan School since 2002 where I met him in an incredible class on strategic decisions in Life Science. 

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and don't forget Belonging. Belonging is one of the most crucial aspects we talk less about but greatly impacts us. We also talked about Health Equity, what it means, and what we can do as healthcare leaders - it starts by raising the problem for us to start solving it! Hear why quality is about love and other incredible insights in this conversation with a Top Voice in healthcare, Dr. Umbereen Nehal.

"You have to raise a problem for it to be problem-solved."

MEET OUR GUEST Umbereen S. Nehal, MD, MPH is a Dean’s Fellow and Sloan Fellow at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Her work is at the intersection of technology, policy, and healthcare delivery to diverse populations.

Umbereen is a recognized thought leader on human-centered health information technology (HIT) design, ethical artificial intelligence (AI), payment reform, quality, and reducing disparities. Educated at Aga Khan University Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, Dr. Nehal trained at Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine followed by the Harvard Pediatric Health Services Research Fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital. Four times Dr. Nehal has been named “LinkedIn Top Voice” for “Healthcare” and as a “Top Female Voice” on International Women’s Day. As Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Medical Affairs of Community Healthcare Network, Dr. Nehal led a 14-site multi-specialty certified Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) serving 85,000 New Yorkers including behavioral health integration and telehealth. She had oversight of over 700 staff and a $100 million operating budget.

Dr. Nehal served as Associate Medical Director of MassHealth -- a Medicaid program serving 1.6 million members and accounting for 40% of the state budget -- providing leadership on program development and evaluation, cost effectiveness evaluation, population health initiatives, and state-wide information “HIway” for intraoperability. Dr. Nehal served as clinical lead for the 5-year restructuring to create new Accountable Care Organization (ACO) models, co-leading a successful bid for $1.8b in new investment from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Dr. Nehal has expertise in leading multi-disciplinary teams for change management. She designed novel HIT for Medicare Advantage plans to track and rank new forms of data used for payment by CMS and contributed to a Series C fund raise for a client that offers an integrated cloud-based medial data and extraction platform enhanced by AI and natural language processing (NLP). As an MIT Sloan Fellow Dr. Nehal led an AI-focused hackathon, drawing hundreds of innovators from around the world, for human-centered design solution in the age of COVID-19 and was an invited senior author on a chapter on business models, payment metrics, and business ethics for medical AI.

Dr. Nehal served as co-chair of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Healthcare Delivery and Disparities Research advisory panel, she informed national funding priorities for a portfolio of over $300 million clinical effectiveness evaluations. She co-authored national curriculum on the Patient-Centered Medical Home, now disseminated to over 8,000 residents. She is published on use of the Electronic Health Record (EHR) to promote transition planning for children with disabilities. She provided expert review to the Connecticut Department of Public Health’s medical home curriculum. Elected by her peers, she served as district representative and on the board for the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. A frequent invited stakeholder to the White House, CMS, HHS, and NIH, she was asked to moderate a panel for U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Regina Benjamin. Dr. Nehal served as the Principal Investigator of a community health grant to partner with community-based organizations and faith groups in low-resourced communities to promote improved heart health aligned with the Culture of Health. Dr. Nehal’s national leadership on community engagement won recognition from President Obama.

Success is not how high you climb but how you make a positive difference in the world and even more specifically how you make a positive difference in people’s lives and anyone who came across your path. This says a lot about my discussion with Myriam Hakim, an accomplished leader in the pharma industry. From growing up with incredible women as her role models to now being an example herself to many in the Middle East and beyond, Myriam shares her personal story, her key learnings building teams and affiliates from scratch, while always being passionate about people, patients, and business.

"Every day is an opportunity to learn something new if you listen to others."

MEET OUR GUEST Myriam Hakim Cluster General Manager at Kyowa Kirin Gulf Countries.

Myriam Hakim is an experienced pharma executive with 20 years of successful career in various key roles in the pharmaceutical industry in Europe and the Middle East. Her main focus has always been to create and add value to patients and medical communities in various therapeutic areas and particularly in rare diseases and Oncology. With her entrepreneurial spirit and results-orientation, Myriam has built, established, and grown teams to deliver profitable business covering the entire GCC and the middle east region.

Myriam is a fervent supporter to drive diversity and inclusion mainly around women in the workplace and in leadership positions within the pharma industry. She is a strong believer in leading with courage, passion, and love.

"What makes you tick?" Alon Shklarek took this question to a deep reflection that led him to be free. Free to create impact through businesses, live his purpose to improve the world, and fix meaningful problems. His deep belief is that every company should have a social impact focus, and deeply think about how with their capabilities they can make the world a better place. Hear his thoughts on leadership being a team sport, his views on entrepreneurship, him not being George Clooney, and his words of wisdom on impact.

"When I see a problem I care about, I start a business."

MEET OUR GUEST Alon Shklarek, serial impact entrepreneur, investor, and enabler.

Alon has founded, co-founded, and invested in over 25 businesses across 16 countries to date. Whether it is his ventures in the digital health space that are improving health outcomes for thousands of patients every day or his sustainability-focused ventures such as his leading plastics recycling company that gives over 100.000 tons of plastic waste a second life every year, all his companies are focused around leading with purpose and impact. As an active Impact Investor Alon directly supports and mentors selected social entrepreneurs and is an ASN member of Ashoka, the world’s leading social entrepreneurship organization. Besides, Alon teaches Leadership and Entrepreneurship as Guest Lecturer at MIT.

More from Alon: Blog: https://www.alonshklarek.com/blog/category/blogpost/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/alonshklarek

There are too many issues in the world that we need to solve! This is what drives Rosemarie Day and connects her to her purpose. Her strongest belief is that healthcare is a human right. Through her sense of purpose, collaboration, a healthy dose of patience balanced with impatience and a sense of urgency, Rosemarie led large healthcare reforms that made life better for millions of people. Listen to her story, her journey, her insights, and why she believes that women can lead the fight for universal healthcare and be the voice of change.

"Take the longer view and stick with it."

MEET OUR GUEST Rosemarie Day, Founder & CEO of Day Health Strategies; Author & Speaker.

Rosemarie Day served as the founding Deputy Director & Chief Operating Officer of the Health Connector in Massachusetts. At the Health Connector in 2006, she helped lead the launch of health reform in Massachusetts, which became the model for the Affordable Care Act. Prior to this role, she was the Chief Operating Officer of the Massachusetts Medicaid program, among other state leadership positions. She has been working on health reform ever since, and is passionate about universal healthcare and women's health issues. She is the founder and CEO of Day Health Strategies, a successful mission-driven, woman-owned consulting firm that celebrated its 12th anniversary in July. 

As a healthcare reform expert and CEO, Rosemarie Day, who is also a breast cancer survivor, has written a book to galvanize women to take action to make health care a right in the US. Its title is “Marching Toward Coverage: How Women Can Lead the Fight for Universal Healthcare” (Beacon Press, 2020). With 28 million Americans uninsured, and millions more who can’t afford their coverage, Rosemarie asks the fundamental question: Can we, as a nation, do better? Rosemarie believes we can and will—once women begin to engage collectively around this topic.

Rosemarie brings a feminist lens to the universal health care debate and seeks to empower more women to engage in that debate. She simplifies complex policy ideas about making change in the health care coverage system into an approachable and engaging framework. She combines a personal perspective on health policy with a professional perspective – she’s at once a health policy expert, strategist, and implementer, as well as a mother, daughter and friend who has faced some challenging health issues. She offers no easy panacea, but instead delivers a pragmatic path forward, one that recognizes health care as a fundamental human right, factors in the role of social determinants, and ensures coverage for all.

More about Rosemarie’s work here: https://rosemarieday.com/

Links to her book: Barnes and Noble, Indiebound, Amazon, Beacon, Penguin Random House, and Porter Square Books.

We have read a lot about leading in crisis. Andrew Bunton has definitely done so, leading his teams during the Covid pandemic and reinventing patient experience in one of the largest retail pharmacies in the US. Hear his thoughts and takeaways also on leading transformations including omnichannel and how focusing on purpose, empowering diverse talents, and helping them grow will lead to exploring the art of possible!

"It's not just the output, it is about your people's journey"

MEET OUR GUEST Andrew Bunton Vice President of Pharmacy Omnichannel Customer Experience at CVS Health

Andrew Bunton is the Vice President of Omnichannel Customer Experience at CVS Health, where he leads the efforts to create a differentiated frictionless pharmacy experience leveraging CVS’ digital and physical assets. Andrew has worked at CVS Health for 10 years, including leading the retail pharmacy’s development and management of clinical services to improve patient adherence, Enterprise Workforce Management where he led all aspects of resource planning, labor budgeting, and scheduling for CVS Health’s retail business, Omnicare, MinuteClinic, and Coram, and Retail Health Services Strategy and New Product Development, where he led all aspects of strategic planning as well as the discovery, design, incubation, and scaling of new business lines.

Prior to CVS, Andrew was a Case Team Leader and Consultant at Bain & Company in Boston and a Vice President in the Corporate & Investment Banking Group at Bank of America. Andrew holds a BA from Bates College and earned an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

When we think of inspiring leaders, we remember those we learned from by watching how they did what they do. It is those we want to follow and be like. It is those who made us feel valued and heard, those who made us grow after each interaction even when it is an unpleasant conversation. Because people remember how they felt when you left the room, lead from a place of genuine care and love. Hear more from Susan Silbermann, her journey, and more of those incredible insights and learning she's sharing with us.

"Ask the questions because you want to move the ball forward."

MEET OUR GUEST Susan Silbermann, an accomplished, global senior business executive, with broad experience in healthcare across multiple geographies.

Curious by nature, Susan is an authentic and communicative leader who is adept at leading remote, diverse teams and who excels at working cross-functionally. This reputation extends to interactions in the policy, government affairs, and public health arenas.

She is a Board Director at HilleVax Inc (Comp Chair) and LianBio (NomGov Chair) and was recently appointed to the Board of Directors of IAVI, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. She is also a member of the board of Meet the Writers, a non-profit organization bringing together authors and students in low-income NYC public schools. Previously Susan served on numerous not-for-profit and NGO boards, including Gavi, the Vaccines Alliance (member of Governance Committee); Catalyst Inc; and the Council of the Americas. In March 2021, she stepped down as Vice-Chair of the President’s Council for Doing Business in Africa.

Before retiring from Pfizer last year, Susan led a then $8B revenue, 10,000 colleagues Emerging Markets division, and Pfizer’s internal Global COVID-19 Task Force, ensuring the safety and well-being of 75,000 employees, facilities, and medicine and vaccine supply chain. In her prior role, Susan was the Global President of Pfizer Vaccines, leading operations, commercial, and business development.

Susan is looking forward to whatever lies ahead — and looking backward doesn’t really lead you anywhere new, does it?

Leading through pandemics, crises, innovation breakthroughs, and transformations is Dr. Doug Bruce's specialty. From HIV pandemic management in most hit countries to leading large transformations in the US healthcare system, Doug will share his key learning from overcoming silos to reaching the "truth" in moments of crisis and change. His leadership lessons are insightful for all of us whether in public health, private sector, or NGO: be creative, be a listener, and be humble. Doug spreads love by treating people with dignity, ensuring they know and perceive their value, and this spreads to patients...

"We build trust through transparency, humility, and honesty."

MEET OUR GUEST Dr. Doug Bruce associate Chief of Clinical Affairs at Boston University School of Medicine.

Dr. Robert Doug Bruce is Associate Chief of Clinical Affairs at Boston University School of Medicine and Director of Primary Care at Boston Medical Center (BMC). Prior to those roles, Doug transformed healthcare in the New Haven community focusing on the largest health center in new haven on quality and value-based care which resulted in significant savings for CT Medicaid and the community. Doug was also Chief of Medicine at Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center and Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at Yale University.

Doug is a global expert in substance use disorders in people with HIV and hepatitis C. He has published widely on the topic of substance use disorders and HIV. He has provided technical assistance to CDC, NIH, and the United Nations.

In September 2020, Doug moved to Boston to join BU and BMC to continue practice transformation, innovation, and quality improvement within a safety net organization’s large academic medical practice.

We all strive to have an impact on this world, to make life better for people, one at a time... Bridget Akinc exemplifies what leading with impact means through her daily work with nonprofit organizations. In this episode, Bridget shares her story, and sobering lessons we can all learn from as leaders leading in moments of crisis serving communities who experienced a much greater degree of loss; loss of lives, jobs, housing, freedom, financials... For her, we can't understand "belonging" if we don't understand being "othered". Belonging is the crucial next step of DEIB and a key component to focus on as leaders.

"Take a moment to think and facilitate discussions that bring back humanity in all of us"

MEET OUR GUEST Bridget Scott Akinc Chief Executive Officer at Building Impact.

Passionate about innovation and finding new ways to work toward solving complex social challenges, Bridget leads Building Impact, a nonprofit organization that engages leading companies and brands in local communities through volunteering and capacity-building.

Prior to this role, Bridget led dynamic teams focused on accelerating growth and innovation enabled by technology across multiple sectors including finance, retail, automotive, high-technology, and education. She led strategic consulting and marketing teams for high-growth Silicon Valley-based software companies like BEA Systems and Oracle, as well as leading non-profit organizations like The New Teacher Project.

Bridget also serves on the faculty of MIT Sloan, teaching the "Leading With Impact" course I had the privilege to be part of. Bridget is a marathon runner, youth soccer coach, and an avid visitor to national parks with her family.

Have you ever thought about your networks? The different people who support you in different ways for you to be who you are and achieve your purpose? Glenna Crooks, innovator, author and healthcare expert has defined eight networks in our lives and showed that managing successfully those helps us succeed in improving our health, personal relationships, family life, income, and careers. Glenna also shares her view on leadership in healthcare. When asked to react on the word Healthcare she said: "We need more of both... Health and Care."

"Understand the complexity of your people and customers to better serve them"

MEET OUR GUEST Glenna Crooks, Innovator, Entrepreneur, and Author. Healthcare, Policy, and Public Health Expert.

Glenna Crooks, Ph.D., is a strategist, innovator, and trusted counsel to government and business leaders. In her latest venture, a story told in The NetworkSage: Realize Your Network Superpower, she describes a new way to help people lessen the overwhelm of modern life, address work-life balance, performance, productivity, and family caregiving by better understanding and managing the eight networks that support working adults.

 She was the Founder and CEO of Strategic Health Policy International, Inc. solving solved tough health care problems and is known as a “one-woman think tank” with a talent for “organizing chaos” and solving complex problems. She was an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, responsible for a $70 billion portfolio of health programs. As global vice-president of Merck’s Vaccine Business, she expanded US operations to create a global business, tripling vaccine sales to more than $1 billion in under three years.  

A graduate of Indiana University, she is a Fellow of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Neuroscience and Society and a Fellow of the Drexel University Center for Population Health and Community Involvement.

Glenna has been a member of corporate and non-profit Boards, including American Biogenetic Sciences, Inc., the David A. Winston Health Policy Fellowship, founding Vice-Chair of the Partnership for Prevention, Chairman of the National Commission on Rare Diseases, and a member of the National Council of the Institute for Child Health and Human Development, the Board of Scientific Counselors of the Pediatric Dengue Vaccine Initiative and the Institute of Medicine Committee to advise the Department of Defense on bioterrorism/biowarfare countermeasures.

Her many accomplishments earned her recognition as a Disruptive Woman in Health Care and a 2017 Disruptive Woman to Watch. She received the Congressional Exemplary Service Award for Orphan Products Development and is the first civilian to receive the highest award in public health, the Surgeon General’s Medallion from C. Everett Koop.

She lives in Philadelphia, is a mu shin Zen artist, donating her works to support children’s special needs, and is the author of six books.  

Love driven leadership won't have to deal with retention! People will thrive through the sense of belonging created. Leadership is truly about creating this environment and culture. Authentic impact is another responsibility for leaders. It should be deliberate and measured. It can't be focused only on profits, it should seek to move communities forward. When asked about equity, Geoffrey Roche talked about creating a structure and system that meets people's needs where they are. Several other words of wisdom to discover in this episode!

"If you really want to move the needle, do it with authenticity."

MEET OUR GUEST Geoffrey Roche Senior Vice President, National Health Care Practice & Workforce Partnerships at Core Education PBC.

Geoffrey M. Roche, MPA, is an accomplished leader with steadfast commitment and passion for healthcare innovation, future-focused strategy, transformation, cultural change, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and workforce impact. His professional career has included over nine years in hospital administration where he served as a strategic advisor to the President and CEO and department director of various departments, including Business Development and Planning, Government Affairs, Community Health, and Public Relations, for Lehigh Valley Hospital-Pocono. Geoffrey also has served in senior leadership roles at two academic institutions where he led strategic partnerships, organizational strategy, and business development for both Lebanon Valley College and Harrisburg University of Science and Technology. Roche also has served as Senior Vice President, Business & Workforce Development at Dignity Health Global Education, where he led national conversations and initiatives to develop innovative diversity, equity, and inclusion solutions for the healthcare workforce.

He has extensive experience creating high-impact partnerships. He is also an Adjunct Instructor of Health Administration in the MBA/MHA Program at Moravian University, serves on the United Way of Lebanon County and United Way of Pennsylvania Board of Directors, IU 13 Board of Directors, Leadership Council for Moravian College, Patient Safety Committee for WellSpan Good Samaritan Hospital, and as an elected School Director of Annville-Cleona School District. Roche earned his Master of Science degree in Management and Leadership: Public Administration at East Stroudsburg University and his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science at Moravian University. Given his robust focus on continued education and leadership development, he has also earned a Mini-MBA in Healthcare from the University of Arizona, Eller College of Management, Certificate in Innovation in Healthcare Management from Arizona State University, Thunderbird School of Global Management, Certificate in Healthcare Leadership from Duke Corporate Education, and a Certificate in Heroic Leadership from Santa Clara University.

"What really matters is impact". Marcello Damiani started with this statement, and we all know now the impact he and his teams at Moderna had on humanity over the past years. He has led teams through those times, delivered on an incredible challenge that became a hope, then a reality: Covid vaccines. Hear him share those stories, his learning, the role of leadership, digital, innovation... From the focus on purpose to the culture and mindset to deliver on it, Marcello gives us great words of wisdom as we continue to navigate times of uncertainty and change. Let's "not be shy to take risks to impact the world"!

"A leader alone doesn't serve any purpose"

MEET OUR GUEST Marcello Damiani, Chief Digital and Operational Excellence Officer at Moderna.

Marcello Damiani is the Chief Digital and Operational Excellence Officer at Moderna, where he builds the technology, processes, and digitization landscape required to advance a new class of medicines based on mRNA science. Marcello has a wealth of experience from both Tech and Life Science companies, with a true passion for making digital a reality. He has 20years experience working in the IT field, with the last 10years being spent in leadership roles for multinational companies in Europe and the USA. Prior to joining Moderna, he worked at diagnostics firm bioMérieux and before that at Motorola.

Marcello has a Master of Science degree in Information and Communication Systems Architecture from the University of Toulouse in France, and an Executive MBA through TRIUM.

A single question Maheen Junaid thinks of daily as she leads her teams in her executive role: "What can we do for patients?" Having this as the true north for a healthcare company and living it is crucial as it ultimately simplifies decision-making. In this episode, Maheen shares her immigrant story, her leadership beliefs, and her learnings building a company from 4 to 1400 employees. Empathy and DEIB are her core leadership elements. And her words of wisdom are so powerful: Become comfortable being uncomfortable.

"Home is an environment of inclusivity, acceptance, love, and opportunity for growth"

MEET OUR GUEST Maheen Junaid, General Counsel, Chief Human Resources Officer, and Chief Compliance Officer for KabaFusion.

Maheen Junaid is General Counsel, Chief Human Resources Officer, and Chief Compliance Officer for KabaFusion, a home infusion pharmacy provider. Maheen holds a JD/LLB from the University of British Columbia and an MBA from MIT. In her executive role at KabaFusion, she is committed to fostering a positive work environment that celebrates diversity and inclusion. She also loves working for an organization that promotes a culture of prioritizing quality and compassionate patient care while being innovative and entrepreneurial.

Maheen has also worked in the non-profit sector, providing training and legal assistance for minority communities within the greater Boston area. She is passionate about empowering and enabling marginalized people through advocacy, and support.

Maheen was born in Pakistan and was raised in England and Canada. She currently resides in Massachusetts with her family.

We might not have similar stories though we certainly share a common passion and leadership belief: Leading from a place of love. In this new era and for our teams with newly articulated needs, we need to adapt and build the necessary leadership skills to deliver on our company's purpose and results. For Hope Zoeller, those skills are summarized by listening, being objective, having a versatile attitude, and constantly demonstrating empathy. Hope also shares great tips to lead in our hybrid world and ways to ensure our people feel valued, respected, and engaged for them to thrive.

"Lead with LOVE: Listening Ear, Objective Mind, Versatile Attitude, Empathetic Heart."

MEET OUR GUEST Hope Zoeller Founder and President of HOPE LLC.

Dr. Hope Zoeller is the Founder and President of HOPE (Helping Other People Excel), LLC, a firm that specializes in facilitating leader success at every level of an organization.

For over 15 years of her professional career, Hope worked at UPS in various roles including Customer Service, Training and Development, and Employee Relations. For the past 17 years, she has been consulting organizations on leadership development.

Hope is also a Professor at Spalding University instructing in the Master of Business Communication program. She has a Doctorate in Leadership Education from Spalding University, a Master of Education in Training and Development from the University of Louisville, and a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and Psychology from Bellarmine University.

Hope co-authored with Dr. Joe DeSensi HOPE for Leaders Unabridged Volume 1 and HOPE Leaders in the 2020s…New Issues to Face, New Problems to Solve, New Hope for the Future Volume 2.

My mantra has always been "Love and Discipline", and here I am talking to an incredible physician, leader, and healthcare executive who believes in Love and thinks of success as being disciplined with a process in order to create the right habits. For Dr. Amre Nouh, leadership is about creating a common vision for the team and executing it, it is nurtured by influence and maturation of frameworks. One of the biggest mistakes in leadership for Amre (that, unfortunately, happens way more frequently than we realize) is to search for "who" is right instead of "what" is right... So many great bits of wisdom, practical examples, and great advice in this chat with Amre.

"Mental maturity is a shift of frameworks nurtured by experience. Leadership is a maturation of frameworks nurtured by influence."

MEET OUR GUEST Dr. Amre Nouh Physician leader, healthcare executive, clinical researcher, and innovator.

Dr. Amre Nouh is a physician leader, healthcare executive, clinical researcher, and innovator with a proven track record of developing and executing strategy, leading multidisciplinary teams, and implementing system practices to improve patient outcomes. Dr.Nouh joins Cleveland Clinic Florida as the Regional Chairman of Neurology, leading neurology care for the clinic’s neuroscience institute in the state of Florida and beyond.

Amre is a board-certified neurologist and vascular neurologist. Over the past decade, Nouh has led stroke care in CT in various roles at Hartford HealthCare, most recently as System Director of Stroke and Cerebrovascular disease. During his tenure, he also served as core faculty at the University of Connecticut, Associate professor of neurology, vascular neurology fellowship director, and currently is Chair of the Northeast Cerebrovascular consortium, an AHA-sponsored consortium for stroke care encompassing 8 states. Dr.Nouh has authored and co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications, abstracts, and book chapters. Dr.Nouh is a fellow of the American heart and Stroke Association and has led statewide legislative efforts to improve regional stroke care focused on patient advocacy and recognition of stroke center designation for optimal patient care. He has also led the scientific statement committee on in-hospital stroke for the AHA and published best practice recommendations on behalf of the AHA as a subject matter expert.

Amre earned his executive MBA from MIT Sloan school of management and has served as a key opinion leader and consultant in neuroscience and stroke for various innovative projects within the neurologic care space. His special interests include in-hospital stroke, stroke in the young, AI and machine learning for predictive modeling in neuroscience, and cultivating growth opportunities that marry technology with clinical care to improve patient outcomes and sustainable impact. He is a father, husband, son, and brother. In his spare time, he is a fisherman, musician, and avid reader.

From leading teams on the front lines to now building organizations with a focus on culture, leadership, clinical innovation, and value maximization, we discussed in this episode with Dr. Dominic Abrams his story and leadership learnings. Dominic defines leadership with 3 words: value, purpose, and belonging. As leaders, we have to create an environment where everyone can be at their best, be part of a community, and feels this deep sense of belonging to constantly deliver on our common purpose for the patients we serve.

"Being kind makes a difference on people's day, and life."

MEET OUR GUEST Dr. Dominic Abrams Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School. Cardiovascular genetics and cardiac electrophysiology.

Dr. Dominic Abrams is Associate Professor, at Harvard Medical School, Cardiovascular genetics and cardiac electrophysiology expert. Dominic specializes in cardiovascular genetics and cardiac electrophysiology at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and is active in both clinical medicine and scientific research.

With his team, Dominic provides personalized, multidisciplinary care to individuals and families, and drives novel research strategies in varying aspects of cardiovascular genetic disease.

He has developed clinical programs in both the UK and US, focusing on organizational culture, leadership, clinical innovation, and maximizing value to multiple stakeholders. Dominic has developed excellent collaborative relationships with individuals and organizations within the healthcare ecosystem.

Many talks about authenticity in leadership, being true to self, and vulnerability, Lisa Matar exemplifies this leadership style and added to those words "imperfect" leadership. From a childhood spent in bomb shelters to being the first woman serving on the Board of Directors of Innovative Medicine Canada, Lisa summarizes her success through hard work to bring some normalcy to life, and resilience. "Succeeding is easy when it is the only option you have, adversity shapes your identity thanks to resilience". Hear incredible stories, learnings, and how Lisa challenged a system that was not made for her to succeed while challenging her own limits to excel in all she does toward her purpose in healthcare.

"Leaders with grit run a successful business, Leaders paying it forward leave a better legacy."

MEET OUR GUEST Lisa Matar Global Life Science senior executive.

Lisa Matar is a Global Life Science senior executive with more than 25 years of experience leading organizations and driving significant growth, profitability, and launching excellence across the globe.

Lisa served as President and General Manager of Eli Lilly Canada from 2013 to February of 2020 and was a member of the North American executive committee at Eli Lilly. Lisa served on the Board of Directors of Innovative Medicine Canada from 2013 until early 2020 and chaired the Ethics and Compliance committee from 2018 to 2020.

Lisa currently serves on the boards of Directors of Delphi Diagnostics Inc and Starpax Biopharma Inc. and chairs the compensation and governance Committee of Delphi Diagnostics Inc. a breast cancer diagnostic company with an exclusive license to commercialize SETTM (Sensitivity to Endocrine Therapy) test to guide personalized Breast Cancer Treatment. Starpax Biopharma Inc. is a biopharma/MedTech company that has developed a revolutionary platform for 3D precision delivery of cancer drugs in solid tumors using Magnetodrones TM.

Lisa earned a Doctorate in pharmacy from the University of Saint Joseph in Lebanon.

Leadership starts with passion: passion for your purpose, passion for your people, passion to do things well. Adding to this, two philosophies Dr. Jennifer Kherani believes in: "Be a YES person (then figure it out)", and "no job is too small for a big enough person". These are some bits of the incredible chat we had about leading teams from the Emergency Room to biotech and entrepreneurship. Hear Jen's stories and lessons learned moving through her different experiences while always keeping her passion to help patients at the center.

"Tackle problems with humility."

MEET OUR GUEST Dr. Jennifer Kherani an Emergency Physician and former Head of Clinical Safety at Loxo Oncology.

Dr. Jennifer Kherani received her BA in Neuroscience in 2000 from Colgate University, completed her pre-medical post-baccalaureate studies at Columbia University in 2004, and her M.D. from Duke University in 2008.  She subsequently completed her residency training in emergency medicine in the combined Cornell/Columbia program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where she served as Chief Resident in her final year.

Until August 2022, she served as Head of Clinical Safety at Loxo Oncology, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eli Lilly and Company.  Jen is also a founder of Summus Global, a subscription-based healthcare advisory company aimed at restoring the human connection between patients and healthcare providers. 

Jen is currently serving on the Rye Country Day School (RCDS) Board of Directors (July 2021-current) and is a member of the Medical Committee, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee, the Education Committee, and the Marketing and Communications Committee. She also serves on the DukeNY Board of Directors (2018-present), serving as Co-Chair of the Nominating Committee as well a member of the DEI Committee, the Women's Impact Network (WIN) Leadership Counsel (2021-present), and as a mentor on the Reimagining Medicine (ReMed; 2019-present) course.

She lives in Rye, NY with her husband, Dr. Aftab Kherani, and their two sons Zayd (grade 5) and Rizq (grade 3).

In this episode, you'll hear from a serial biotech entrepreneur and incredible leader Pravin Chaturvedi. Many insightful words I kept with me from this episode as a leader in healthcare: Strive to Impact, not Impress. Life is short when you're happy, long when you're suffering. Never tolerate oppression of any form. Residual intellect. Powerpoint is useless :). Hear more about those leadership beliefs Pravin shared with us and also his experience in building biotech companies and teams. He left us with a powerful charge as healthcare leaders: "Never forget our huge responsibility: Patients rely on us to make their life better." If this is not why you wake up every morning and strive for, you're in the wrong industry.

"Hope is not a strategy to solve problems."

MEET OUR GUEST Pravin Chaturvedi Co-Founder & CEO at Oceanyx Pharmaceuticals.

Pravin Chaturvedi is a veteran drug developer, serial biotech entrepreneur, and seasoned CEO. CSO and/or Board member of many life science ventures. Over his 30+ years in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry, he has participated in and led the drug development teams for multiple drugs across the therapeutic areas of central nervous system (CNS), HIV, hepatitis C virus (HCV), cancer, and gastrointestinal disorders. He has participated in the successful drug approval and commercialization of seven drugs.

Pravin serves as the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) for Napo Pharmaceuticals and Jaguar Health. He is also the co-founder and CEO of IndUS Pharmaceuticals and Oceanyx Pharmaceuticals. He is also the Executive Chairman of Cellanyx and Chair of the Board for Enlivity. He currently serves on the boards of several organizations including IndUS, Oceanyx, Cellanyx, Enlivity, and Sindu Research Laboratories. He has previously served as the President, CEO, and Board of Director for Pivot Pharmaceuticals and Scion Pharmaceuticals and has also served on the boards of Pivot, Scion, Bach Pharma, PRADAN USA, FuelEd Schools, Sindu Pharmaceuticals, TiE Boston, and ResoluteBio. Over his career, he has also been a part of multiple national and international strategic partnerships with large pharmaceutical companies as well as governments and has served on several advisory boards.

Prior to his current leadership responsibilities as (President/CEO/CSO roles in various companies), he served as the Head of Lead Evaluation at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. He held scientific positions at Alkermes and Parke-Davis/Warner-Lambert (now Pfizer). He also contributes significant time to teaching and serves as an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown Medical School. He holds a doctoral degree from West Virginia University and an undergraduate degree in pharmacy from the University of Bombay.

Careers are a mix of decisions, serendipity, and chance. At least for Dr. Shahin Gharakhanian, this is his belief about his career reflecting his humility. Innovation is about "daring". Through this chat, you'll hear from a physician, a pharmaceutical expert, and a leader who lived through one of the most challenging outbreaks of HIV since its very beginnings and led teams who developed life-saving drugs. His deep belief is anchored in "doing well by doing good", this is a constant motivation that we should all have in biotech. For Shahin, as biopharma leaders, we should have 3 facets: being an inspirational leader, a strong administrator, and a great manager. Hear more about the mix of those three capabilities, incredible other stories, and powerful words of wisdom in this episode!

"Have the guts to come out of your comfort zone."

MEET OUR GUEST Dr. Shahin Gharakhanian physician and Pharmaceutical Executive.

Dr. Shahin Gharakhanian is a physician and Pharmaceutical Executive with expertise in Pharmaceutical Medicine, Leadership/Management, and operational experience both in the US & in Europe.

Shahin is specialized in HIV Medicine and Infectious Diseases and has practiced clinical medicine for over 20 years in AP-HP Hospitals in Paris France. Shahin joined the pharmaceutical industry in 1991, progressing to Vice-President of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, with roles in 3 main areas: Clinical Development, Medical Affairs, and Strategic Leadership including membership in the corporate Operating Council. Overall, within the industry, he has held positions ranging from General Manager of a Contract Research Organization to Program Executive leading product development, and regulatory approval/launch in multiple therapeutic areas across the world. Shahin has also founded, built, and organized full functional departments/units for biotechnology companies and hospitals and two LLCs as an entrepreneur.

He is a member of several international societies. His passion is Patient-focused programs for drug & vaccine development, approval, and launch.

"I am not as good as they think I am"; "I'll be uncovered at some point", "They certainly made a mistake having me here", etc, etc. You might think you're the only one having those thoughts but you're not. 70% of people and leaders have them. Hear in this episode what this means to you, your people, and your teams, and how to manage this for success. Professor Basima Tewfik shares with us here years of research on impostor thoughts and also request-declining at work. A great chat many of us need!

"Work is about relationships."

MEET OUR GUEST Basima Tewfik Career Development Professor and Assistant Professor of Work and Organization Studies at MIT Sloan.

Basima Tewfik is the Class of 1943 Career Development Professor and an Assistant Professor of Work and Organization Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Her main stream of research examines the psychology of the social self at work. In particular, she seeks to define new conversations around two underexplored phenomena in the organizational literature that implicate the social self: Workplace impostor thoughts (popularly known as impostor syndrome), defined as the belief that others overestimate one’s competence at work, and request-declining at work, defined as the active decision not to help others at work. In a secondary stream of work, she examines effective employee and workgroup functioning in the modern workplace, an increasingly important topic given the rising complexity of work. 

Her dissertation, entitled “Impostor thoughts as a double-edged sword: Theoretical conceptualization, construct measurement, and relationships with work-related outcomes” was named the winner of the 2018 INFORMS Dissertation Proposal Competition. Her work has additionally received recognition from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the International Association for Conflict Management, and the Academy of Management. She was named by Poets & Quants as a “40 Under 40” Best Business School Professor in 2021 and by Thinkers50 as one of 30 thinkers to watch in 2022.

Prior to her graduate studies, Basima worked as a management consultant at Booz & Company, engaging with national as well as global clients across a wide range of industries including financial services, healthcare, education, and aerospace and defense.

She received her PhD in management (Organizational Behavior) from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and her AB, summa cum laude, in psychology with a secondary degree in economics from Harvard University.

"Don't defer your life." This is a great word of wisdom to reflect on. We live one life but still manage to live it in a "deferred" way. "Someday we'll get there, someday we'll do what we really want..." With this advice, we force ourselves to think if we are living our life as we want, whether we are doing what we love, and working where we want to bring impact. It is easier said than done but worth a moment of reflection. In this episode with Stephanie Chen, we also talked about leadership, how she sees healthcare as a fundamental human right, and what she has done to get closer to serving that purpose with love, passion, and accountability.

"Love people enough to tell them the truth."

MEET OUR GUEST Stephanie Chen Chief Legal Officer and Culture Officer at ChenMed.

Stephanie Chen serves as ChenMed’s Chief Legal Officer and Culture Officer.  She has been with ChenMed since 2006, and served as General Counsel prior to being named Chief Legal Officer in 2016.  A graduate of New York Law School, which she attended on a Harlan Scholarship, Stephanie was admitted to the Florida Bar in 2008. She graduated cum laude from Boston College with a degree in economics.

Stephanie and her husband, Dr. Chris Chen, the CEO of ChenMed, have four children together and live in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

"Drive and determination to take care of patients" is what describes this week's inspiring guest Dr. Cheerag Upadhyaya. As a neurosurgeon and leader, Cheerag shares his lessons from the operating room leading teams in a high-stress environment to the administrative roles leading strategy and transformation in this episode. The essential ingredients for him to lead high-performing cross-functional teams are grounded in setting high expectations, articulating them well, ensuring a safe place for people's feedback, and being humble that it is teamwork. Several powerful insights, stories, and words of wisdom in this great chat we're sure you will enjoy!

"Do not ignore mistakes. Own them. Acknowledge them. And think how could I and we have done better."

MEET OUR GUEST Dr. Cheerag Upadhyaya Clinical Associate Professor of Neurosurgery, Chief Transformation & Business Strategy Officer.

Cheerag D Upadhyaya, MD, MBA, MSc is Clinical Associate Professor of Neurosurgery, Chief Transformation & Business Strategy Officer. He completed neurosurgical residency at the University of Michigan, complex and minimally invasive spine fellowship at the University of California San Francisco, and research fellowships at the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes / National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program resulting in a Masters in Science from the University of Michigan.

He recently completed his Masters of Business Administration from the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is a member of the Executive Committee for the AANS/CNS Spine and Peripheral Nerve Section as well as a member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, Congress of Neurological Surgeons, American Medical Association, American College of Surgeons, and Scoliosis Research Society.

He has been awarded the Scoliosis Research Society Edgar Dawson Traveling Fellowship and AANS/CNS Spine and Peripheral Nerve Outcomes Committee Award. Dr. Upadhyaya was elected to the Editorial Board of the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine in 2021.

In this podcast episode, Naji Gehchan interviews Vinit Nijhawan, a seasoned entrepreneur and investor, exploring his journey and insights into building successful startups and leading high-performing teams. Vinit shares his simple yet impactful journey from founding and scaling startups in tech to transitioning into a role where he mentors and invests in other entrepreneurs. He emphasizes the importance of a strong team, good technology, and timing in the success of startups. Vinit also highlights the qualities he looks for in a founding team, including coachability and a balance of determination and flexibility. The conversation delves into the nuances of building teams, navigating cultural differences, and fostering trust within organizations. Vinit stresses the significance of trust, generosity, and genuine care in leadership, advocating for an entrepreneurial mindset that constantly questions the status quo and seeks innovative solutions.

"Leadership is about genuine care and generosity; it's the ultimate empathy in action"

MEET OUR GUEST Vinit Nijhawan Investor, Entrepreneur, and Academic.

Vinit Nijhawan is a strategic visionary who has conceived and built several technology organizations that have been acquired by companies such as Boeing, Motorola and Qualcomm. He is an admired leader and mentor who has built or inherited and then effectively managed several high-performance teams. He has worked in many industries: computing, aerospace, logistics, supply chain, manufacturing, telecommunications, medical devices, biopharma, synthetic biology, advanced materials, etc. Vinit is an empathetic and collaborative team member and stays connected with all his past supervisors, mentors and many of his former employees and students.

In 2008, Vinit intentionally pivoted his career from technology entrepreneur and CEO, to helping other entrepreneurs with a special focus on academia. He began teaching Entrepreneurship at Boston University and subsequently led the Office of Technology Development from 2010-2016 (he published a peer reviewed paper on that experience: Maximize Collisions, Minimize Friction). In this role, Vinit participated in several BU committees and organizations, such as the BUildLab, Faculty Innovation Network, Conflict of Interest Committee, Coulter Translational Program, Fraunhofer Grants, CTSI and on the board of the National Academy of Inventors. Additionally, he has represented BU on several boards and business plan/grant review panels.

Subsequently, Vinit took the OTD experience and launched a national academic IP monetization program with 40 institutions engaged, including UC Berkeley and UCLA. He launched Waterloo Alumni Angels at his alma mater. Most recently, Vinit is the Managing Director of MassVentures.

Steeped in respect for diversity and with a deep passion for exploration and adventure, Vinit is strong in his commitment to family, friends and colleagues.

"How can I increase impact and prosperity for all" has been the guiding principle for Dina Sherif an impact-driven entrepreneur, Senior Lecturer, and Executive Director of MIT Legatum. Through this lens, we discussed impact, sustainability, social change, and the key ingredient to successfully building startups that will make the world a better place. A lot has to do with intentionality about the purpose and strong belief in human equality that "everyone is allowed"... One of the most powerful reactions to "Spread Love in Organizations" we heard here from Dina: "In a world filled with hate and unkindness, organizations need more love and real true kindness. When this culture is there, you’re lifting up the bar asking people to show up as the best versions of themselves."

"Today more than ever, we need love and real true kindness on how we show up for each other in the workplace."

MEET OUR GUEST Dina Sherif Entrepreneur, Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan, and Executive Director of the MIT Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship.

Dina Sherif is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management where she also acts as Executive Director of the MIT Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship. Dina is also a Founding Partner of Cairo based Ahead of the Curve, which is the Arab region’s leading firms on issues related to sustainable business growth and impact-driven entrepreneurship. Most recently, Dina joined Disruptech, Egypt’s first Fintech-focused venture capital fund as a Partner, pursuing her passion in building a fund that will support technology being used as a critical tool in creating financial inclusion for a largely unbanked population, most specifically women.

Formerly, Dina was a Senior Advisor to Ashoka, providing support to their Global Venture/Fellowship Support arm and helping them reimagine new ways to identify the world’s leading social innovators. She also held the endowed Willard Brown Chair for International Business at the American University in Cairo (AUC), where she was also the Founding Director of their Center for Entrepreneurship. During the time she held the Brown Chair, Dina also taught classes on social entrepreneurship and business ethics.  Prior to the above, Dina helped establish the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement at AUC.

Dina has been the lead author of several publications including the book From Charity to Social Change: Trends in Arab Philanthropy and key reports such as the 2015 UNDP Business Solutions Report and the first of its kind 7 country study on trends in responsible business practice in the Arab region, in addition to other key policy pieces and blogs on the importance of entrepreneurship and impact investing to building more sustainable and inclusive societies.

In acknowledgment of her dedication to creating a new way of doing business, Dina was given the Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Egypt by the American Chamber of Commerce in 2016; was recognized by the Embassy of India as a “Woman of Substance” in 2016; was chosen as one of 10 United Nations Global Compact Sustainable Development Goal Pioneers in 2016; and was named as one of the top 50 most influential women by the Amwal Al Ghad Magazine. During her time at the Harvard Kennedy School, Dina was also a recipient of the prestigious Lucius Littauer Fellows Award in recognition of academic excellence and service. Dina is also an Eisenhower Fellow and was also a fellow at the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School as well as a Research Fellow at the New America Foundation.

Dina is currently a member of the Special Presidential Advisory Council for Economic Development reporting to the President of Egypt; a Global Advisory Board Member in the Eisenhower Fellowships; a member of the Board of Qalaa Holding, a member of the Board of Smart Medical Services, and a member of the Board of EducateMe.

Dina holds a Masters of Public Administration and Management from the Harvard Kennedy School, an MA in Economic Development Studies from the American University in Cairo, and a BA in Political Science and International Relations from the American University in Cairo. She is also a graduate of the non-credit leadership program delivered by THNK School for Creative Leadership in Amsterdam.

Areas of Expertise: Entrepreneurship | Development of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems | Sustainable Economic Development | Impact Investing | Strategic Philanthropy | Responsible Business Practices | Gender Equality and Economic Inclusion of Women | Qualitative Research

In this episode, I sat with Cathy Nolan, an experienced international healthcare business executive and leader who shared with me her secret recipe for building high-performing diverse teams: it starts with the clarity of vision, giving people a voice, and having fun! And if you're not having enough fun, be courageous to make a change. For Cathy, trust is built when we help each other. Hear more stories, life-learning experiences, and powerful words of wisdom. She leaves us with great advice: trust your instinct, you are good enough.

"If you're not having fun, make a change."

MEET OUR GUEST Cathy Nolan an experienced international business executive, and founding member at Chief.

Cathy has spent over 23 years in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, with nearly 20 years at Eli Lilly and Company, and 3 years at Aimmune Therapeutics. She is an experienced international business leader, creating value by delivering highly successful launch and growth strategies in Big Pharma, niche, and non-conventional biotech. She has extensive experience across US, UK, and Europe including multiple launches in Neuroscience, Oncology, and Immunology. She has a decisive, forthright and authentic leadership style with a proven ability to build and develop talented, diverse, and thriving commercial teams at a global, regional and local level.

Cathy is from a large Irish family and grew up on a farm in the west of Ireland. She is married to Jon from England, and lives in Twickenham, South West London, with Jon, their two boys, Lorcan (10) and Cormac (8), and their Labradoodle dog Ozzie. Cathy likes to spend time with her family and friends, stay fit and active, read, and watch movies. 

A diplomat who became passionate about innovation-driven entrepreneurship and ecosystems shares what it takes for communities, cities, and countries to become innovation hubs. Phil Budden's work is centered on studying and creating those ecosystems grounded around 5 key stakeholders interconnected: Entrepreneurs, Government, Universities, Big Businesses, and Risk Capital. For him though, beyond all, it is about people and connecting those great minds together to create impact. His words of wisdom are powerful for all of us leaders: "be thoughtful about your leadership and its impact."

"Leadership takes innovative tech to impact."

MEET OUR GUEST Dr. Phil Budden, Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan focusing on 'innovation-driven entrepreneurship' (IDE) and innovation ecosystems.

Phil Budden Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan focusing on 'innovation-driven entrepreneurship' (IDE) and innovation ecosystems. Phil's approach combines academic, historical, and real-world perspectives on how different stakeholders can all contribute to building successful innovation ecosystems.

Prior to MIT, Phil had undertaken projects on innovation and entrepreneurship for the British Prime Minister's office and served as the British Consul General to New England where he had been responsible for transatlantic business issues, including trade and investment, corporate/government affairs, as well as science and innovation.

Phil has held several diplomatic posts with the British government:  British Cabinet Office; British Embassy, Washington DC; 1st Secretary and Adviser to the PM.

Phil holds a BA and MA in History from Lincoln College, the University of Oxford; an MA in History and Government from Cornell University; and a PhD in History and International Political Economy from the University of Oxford.

The key to innovation is being fearless, ensuring we are not afraid to try and fall. Leadership is serving, empowering, and humility. Imagine the world if we feel empowered we can change it for the greater good. This is how Navin Goyal feels - "empowered" - and wants to ensure he is transmitting this to leaders, entrepreneurs, and people around him. Through his journey as a physician, entrepreneur, and now a VC, he is focused on leveraging capital to grow impactful companies across the globe.

"The pressure we put on ourselves to not fall is silly. Just get up and keep going."

MEET OUR GUEST Navin Goyal, a physician and entrepreneur who serves as CEO of LOUD Capital, an early-stage venture capital and alternative investment firm leveraging capital, entrepreneurship, and education to grow impactful companies across the globe.

Navin Goyal, M.D. is a physician and entrepreneur who serves as CEO of LOUD Capital, an early-stage venture capital and alternative investment firm leveraging capital, entrepreneurship, and education to grow impactful companies across the globe. Bringing his physician training to do good for people, Navin strives to make venture capital more purpose-driven, inclusive, and accessible.  Before co-founding LOUD Capital, Navin practiced anesthesiology in a large hospital-based setting and was the Medical Director of a community hospital for several years.

The beginning of his entrepreneurial journey was co-founding OFFOR Health (formerly SmileMD), a venture-backed mobile healthcare company that expands access to care across the United States with a dedicated focus on lower-income and rural communities. Navin is a frequent speaker at medical schools, hospitals, and businesses worldwide, sharing his perspective on how physicians can bring their ethical code to influence and impact the world more fully.

His story, his experience, and what he sees as an opportunity for physicians to have a broader impact on themselves and society is the focus of his book, Physician Underdog. Navin received his M.D. from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and trained in anesthesiology at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

When we hear military leadership, we wrongly think of several concepts of management but not the true profound ones anchored in leading from the front while eating last. In this inspiring chat with Dave Noesges, a US veteran and pharmaceutical executive, we discussed leadership to its most profound meaning. For Dave, it is about 3 core pieces: Leading by example which translates into living the standards you want your people to have; Humility & Confidence; and Getting close to your people by caring deeply for them. We also talked about DEIB, high-performing teams, and several other learnings from Dave's extensive experience leading highly successful diverse teams. His final words of wisdom are so profound as for him now, after an inspiring successful career, people are the ONLY thing that mattered to him.

"Enjoy the journey, it is way more worth than the destination."

MEET OUR GUEST Dave Noesges a veteran and biopharma executive.

Dave Noesges is a retired pharmaceutical executive with Eli Lilly and Company, where he spent 31 years in sales, marketing, and general management roles in the US and abroad.  He spent much of his career leading sales forces in the Neuroscience and Diabetes therapeutic areas.  His last position was to lead the Lilly Diabetes sales force of nearly 2,000 people as Lilly re-established market leadership in diabetes over a 10-year period, and launched several best-in-class medicines.

Dave is a 1984 graduate of the United States Military Academy and served 5 years as a combat engineer in the US Army, most of that time in West Germany.  After the Army, he attended the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania where he graduated in 1991, joining Lilly immediately after that.

He has been married for 35 years and has two grown children, one an elementary school history teacher and the other a Physician Assistant working in urgent care.

He devotes his time now to caring for his 90-year-old father, spending as much time as possible with his wife and daughters, and engaging in many charitable endeavors through his church.  He and his wife also travel extensively working on a long bucket list of international destinations.

It is so rare to sit with a math genius leader who has won over the casinos and is now transforming venture capitalism through impact investment. Semyon Dukach, known for leading one of the MIT blackjack teams in the early 90s, featured in the movie Breaking Vegas, serial entrepreneur, and investor, shares with us his story and leadership beliefs. Semyon is focused on impact investing as a VC and more specifically backing exceptional immigrants. With his strong belief that "opportunity should be the same for everybody", he is extensively working to improve equity and global impact through his leadership and investment philosophy.

"Love makes the world go round."

MEET OUR GUEST Semyon Dukach Managing Partner, One Way Ventures, the venture capital fund backing exceptional immigrant tech founders who are building great companies like Brex, Momentus Space, and Chipper Cash.

Semyon Dukach, Managing Partner at One Way Ventures, the venture capital fund backing exceptional immigrant tech founders building great companies like Brex, Momentus Space, and Chipper Cash. Semyon is a refugee from the Soviet Union and was formerly the Managing Director of Techstars.

Prior to Techstars, he was a prolific angel investor and a friend of the startup community. Semyon has made over 100 angel investments, including early investments in Quanergy, SMTP.com, and Wanderu. Xconomy lists Semyon as a top angel investor in New England.

His philosophy has been to focus on helping his founders at all costs. Prior to becoming a full-time angel, Semyon co-founded several technology companies including Vert and Fast Engines. Fast Engines was sold to Adero in 2000. Beyond startups, Semyon is known for leading one of the MIT blackjack teams in the early 90s to beat the casinos.

Semyon earned his B.S. from Columbia University and M.S. from MIT, both in Computer Science.

Sharing our core values is essential; living by them is crucial. For Jason Dupuis, this is a key part of daily leadership. His values are Passion, Dedication, and Integrity. Passion is "love what you do"; Dedication is "Be there"; integrity is "Do the right thing", a simple framework that Jason lives by and transmits daily to his people in healthcare. His words of wisdom are powerful for us in healthcare: always put "human first" and show-up!

"Showing up is a choice that every great leader makes."

MEET OUR GUEST Jason Dupuis a passionate Human Experience Strategist, Thought Leader, influencer, and speaker.

Jason Dupuis is a thought leader, speaker, and organizational behavior enthusiast who believes in the power of Human Experience as a key driver of organizational performance and strategy. Over the last 20 years, Jason has served as the Chief Experience Officer for PM Pediatrics Care as well as the Administrative Director for Admitting and Emergency Services at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Most recently, he joined Fidelum Health as a Consultant and Principal Healthcare Advisor to bring the Human Brand concepts of Warmth and Competence into the Human Experience in Healthcare. As a Core Value advocate and fanatic, Jason has devoted his career to successfully demonstrating that being “human first” and leading with personal and organizational core values can create efficient and profitable operations while simultaneously delivering an exceptional experience for patients, families, and care teams. In addition to his professional roles, Jason is an Adjunct Professor in the Hellenic College School of Leadership & Management as well as recently joining Boston College as an Adjunct Professor in their Masters in Healthcare Administration program.

Jason holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Management & Policy from the University of New Hampshire and a Masters of Health Administration from Simmons College in Boston, MA.

Small affection, care, and love can do miracles in life... This is what Ashoka Madduri co-founder and CEO of Target Therapeutics experienced personally, and what he is taking with him paying forward to the teams and communities he serves. From a small village in India to now leading biotech, Ashoka shares his inspiring story of grit, resilience, hope, optimism, and patience. Trust, empowerment, and care are for him the critical ingredients to building successful teams that can develop and bring breakthrough innovation to patients.

"Care and love can do miracles."

MEET OUR GUEST Ashoka Madduri Co-founder and CEO of TargetSite Therapeutics.

Ashoka grew up in a small village in south India. After completing his undergrad and masters he obtained DAAD matching scholarship and moved to Germany. He completed his PhD in Organic Chemistry from University of Groningen, Netherlands, where he worked on anti-cancer complex natural products. He performed his post-doctoral research to understand pathways involved in multi-drug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis at Harvard Medical School. Over the years he has worked in multiple biotech companies and developed expertise in business development & corporate strategy.

He received his Executive MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management. Currently, he is a Blavatnik Entrepreneurial Fellow at Yale Ventures providing strategy & enabling multiple early-stage life science startups.

Ashoka is a Co-founder & CEO of TargetSite Therapeutics, a Yale spin-out, and Partner at Vestra Associates where he advises biotech companies on strategy and partnerships.

Be kind and honest to maximize your team's growth and potential, which ultimately means your organization's potential. Those are Allyson Jacobsen's beliefs around leadership, ensuring we build a culture of love, and care so that people support one another, feel safe to try things, and be at their best to deliver on our purpose in healthcare. Hear Allyson's story, and experiences across marketing and other functions always putting the patient at the center of what she does. We're on a mission in healthcare to solve patients' problems and we should never forget that noble cause.

"Never forget your purpose and passion"

MEET OUR GUEST Allyson Jacobsen Vice President of Marketing at TeraRecon.

Allyson Jacobsen is a Global Marketing Executive who has led award-winning teams across the U.S., Europe, and Asia that were the recipients of 5 Gold Quill IABC Awards for Applied Intelligence, Beyond Imaging, The Future of -Ray, and Make Time Mammo, in addition to a Ragan Video, Visual, & Virtual Award.

With over 20 years of expertise, her background in entrepreneurship and technology expands across industries, including Healthcare, bio-pharmaceutical, Financial Services, and Public Sector. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Christopher Newport University and a Master of Business Administration degree from Texas A&M University.

She has led large-scale marketing efforts and strategies on behalf of tech & medtech global corporations at several premiere industry events, including AWS re:Invent, GE's Global Data Science Symposium, SXSW, and the Azure Cloud Summit. She is a dedicated educator and thought leader on AI across Healthcare, Pharma, and Marketing topics.

Allyson is also a passionate mentor and presenter on topics around Women in Technology, AI, and Digital Marketing Transformation. She was in the Top 10 Most Listened To Podcasts of 2020 with Outcomes Rocket on How Data Can Improve Patient Outcomes. Allyson is dedicated and driven to change the dynamics for the future by using visibility, diagnostic tools, and technology to help save lives across the World.

From an engineer who "loves to make things" to a longtime life science and technology leader who only makes things that matter to people and make their life better, learn in this episode with Paul Hartung how to build successful biotechs, launch startups in life sciences and most importantly assemble teams that will address relevant unmet needs. Paul leaves us with a simple yet powerful reminder: as healthcare leaders, we are doing important work we should never stop until we solve and cure the diseases we are addressing.

"Develop a passion in your team for them to come every day and solve relevant unmet needs."

MEET OUR GUEST Paul Hartung, a longtime life sciences and technology executive.

Paul Hartung is a longtime life sciences and technology executive with a proven track record in launching successful startup businesses and leading Fortune 500 organizations. Paul currently serves on several Board of Directors including Leuko and Verisense, he mentors at MIT VMS, MassBio MassCONNECT, and The Capital Network, and serves as a judge for MassChallenge.

He served as President & CEO through successful Phase II of Cognoptix, which has developed an innovative eye scan for early detection of Alzheimer’s disease. Paul also founded Sonivance, and has held senior management roles at 3Com, Summit (LASIK), Trumpf, Laser Fare and GE.  

Paul graduated with honors from MIT with an MS Degree in Mechanical Engineering. He is an active speaker, author, and inventor on a number of patents.

This episode is special and the first in a series of four. In partnership with ESCP Business School, I’ll be giving the mic to students, the leaders of tomorrow, to discuss with seasoned healthcare executives about their journeys and leadership beliefs. We welcomed in this first episode, Marc De Garidel Chief Executive Officer at Abivax. Marc shared his personal story and leadership beliefs with the students and several of his insightful learnings. In his closing advice, he encouraged aspiring leaders to pursue their passions, learn from mistakes, and not be overly concerned about others’ opinions.

"You can't have impact if you don't take risks at some point"

MEET OUR GUEST Marc De Garidel Chief Executive Officer at Abivax.

Marc De Garidel, is CEO of Abivax after being the CEO of CinCor Pharma, a biopharmaceutical company that develops therapies for patients with cardiovascular diseases and recently acquired by AstraZeneca.

Marc is a graduate of École Spéciale des Travaux Publics (a leading French civil engineering school), and holds a Master’s degree from Thunderbird School of Global Management and an Executive MBA from Harvard Business School. 

Marc began his career with Eli Lilly, then in 2000, he was appointed General Manager of Amgen’s French affiliate and progressively oversaw an increasing number of countries before heading the Southern region of Amgen International,  the group’s most important region in terms of sales.  In 2010, Marc left Amgen to become the CEO of Ipsen where he helped transform the company by focusing on research and development and expanding Ipsen's international presence. Under his leadership, Ipsen's market value increased significantly. Prior to joining CinCor, Marc served as CEO of Corvidia Therapeutics, a private Boston-based biotechnology company that was acquired by Novo Nordisk in August 2020.

In addition to that, Marc has had extensive non-profit responsibility as VP of EPFIA (Europe Pharma Association) for three years as well as chairing the French pharma association G5 for six years. Marc is also a recipient of the French Legion of Honor. 

This episode is special and the fourth in a series of four. In partnership with ESCP Business School, I’ll be giving the mic to students, the leaders of tomorrow, to discuss with seasoned healthcare executives about their journeys and leadership beliefs. We welcome in this episode, Thierry Hulot, General Manager at Merck France, and President of LEEM. Thierry shared in this conversation his story and leadership beliefs. His 3 key leadership learning are insightful and straightforward for us leaders to implement: 1. Is the decision good for my company and the people we serve? 2. Get your hands dirty. 3. Take care of your people. Hear more words of wisdom from Thierry in this chat.

"Take time every day to think what will make this day successful."

MEET OUR GUEST Thierry Hulot, General Manager of Merck France and President of LEEM.

Thierry Hulot is a pharmacist by training with an MBA from Ashridge Business School in the UK. He started working at Merck in 1995 in R&D in Lyon. After different strategic and leadership positions, Thierry has taken on the role of General Manager of the Biopharma Division of Merck in France.

Since July 2022, Thierry has been elected to the presidency of LEEM, the professional organization of pharmaceutical companies operating in France, whose mission is to promote the industrial attractiveness of our country and to conduct a viable health policy based on patient needs. An organization that campaigns for better accessibility to technological and therapeutic innovations and that shares my commitment alongside patients.

This episode is in partnership with MIT Sloan Healthcare and BioInnovations Conference, an event that brings the healthcare ecosystem together. We sat with Dr. Assaad Sayah CEO of Cambridge Health Alliance and discussed his personal story, his leadership beliefs, and the “Value-Based Care”, topic of his panel at the conference. Value = Quality / Cost, this is the way to think about value-based care; it has to be of great quality with the best patient experience at a contained cost. Health equity in this context is key. We need first of all to be in the underserved communities and be thoughtful, and purposeful about addressing their needs to narrow equities gaps. For Assaad, leadership is about providing the space for people to do the work, it is about trust, clarity, transparency, and accountability. The ultimate success of a "care delivery system" is for it to disappear because we worked on education, prevention, and screening for the community to remain healthy.

"Provide the space for people to do the work"

MEET OUR GUEST Assaad Sayah Chief Executive Officer Cambridge Health Alliance.

Dr. Assaad Sayah, President and CEO of Cambridge Health Alliance. Assaad was named CHA's President and CEO in January 2020 after serving as the interim CEO since June 2019 and Chief Medical Officer since 2013.

Before that, Assaad served as the chief of emergency medicine and Senior Vice President of Primary Care. In the Emergency Department, he led tremendous advancements at all three CHA hospitals, resulting in enhanced efficiency, quality, volume, and patient satisfaction. He spearheaded primary care growth by more than 50 percent, expanding CHA's access in underserved communities and integrating primary care and behavioral health services and systems to address social determinants of health. Assaad also plays a key role in CHA's commitment to the communities it serves, including his tenure as the co-chair of the Cambridge City Manager's Opioid Working Group established in 2018 to develop recommendations for strengthening the city's response to the opioid epidemic.

Additionally, Assaad is Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. His research and publications focus on operational efficiency, improving the clinical environment, and patient experience of care.

This episode is in partnership with MIT Sloan Healthcare and BioInnovations Conference, an event that brings the healthcare ecosystem together. We sat with Jami Taylor, Vice President of Corporate Affairs at Protagonist Therapeutics and a global Justice Fellow at Yale University to talk about Accessibility in a Global Health Setting. It starts with courageous and tenacious leadership, leaders who believe we can do something about it, think of innovation for access, advocate, and think of affordability as they build new life-saving treatments for patients. Hear Jami's story, and her incredible experiences bringing accessibility to patients and striving for global justice. For Jami, Spreading Love in Organizations opens the floodgates to progress for a healthy equitable world.

"Spreading love opens the floodgates to progress"

MEET OUR GUEST Jami Taylor Vice President of Corporate Affairs at Protagonist Therapeutics.

Jami Taylor is Vice President of Corporate Affairs at Protagonist Therapeutics, and a Global Justice Fellow at Yale University, working to design new models to improve access to medicines in the world's poorest and most challenging settings.

Earlier in her career, Jami held global leadership roles at Johnson & Johnson across key divisions and was a founding member of Johnson & Johnson Global Public Health. Jami has served as a member of the National Academy of Medicine Forum on Microbial Threats; the Private Sector Delegation to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria; the Chairman’s Circle at the Center for Global Development; the Global Health Advisory Council at Harvard Medical School; and on many other committees and forums addressing priority issues in medicine and society.

In 2014, Jami was named a Cross-Sector Leadership Fellow at the Presidio Institute, a program created by the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation to advance the work of leaders addressing society’s most complex challenges.

From helping others learn how to use Adobe by literally writing manuals to leading globally thousands of engineers in a major tech company, Minette Norman's recipe for success to deliver transformation is collaboration and inclusion. Empathy and building inclusive psychologically safe environments have been Minette's guiding principles as she led teams and now through her entrepreneurial journey and books. "Inviting" is her reaction to leadership. Minette leaves us with a charge to be bravely self-aware as leaders since our people look at us and we have the power and responsibility to make the positive changes needed around us.

"You have so much more power to change the workplace than you think."

MEET OUR GUEST Minette Norman, a leader, entrepreneur, author, and thinker.

Minette Norman brings decades of leadership experience in the software industry to her consulting business, Minette Norman Consulting LLC, which is focused on developing transformational leaders who create inclusive working environments with a foundation of psychological safety. Minette has extensive experience leading globally distributed teams and believes that when groups leverage diversity in all its forms, breakthroughs happen. Her most recent position before starting her own consultancy was as Vice President of Engineering Practice at Autodesk, where she transformed how Autodesk developed software. Responsible for influencing more than 3,500 engineers around the globe, she focused on state-of-the-art engineering practices while nurturing a collaborative and inclusive culture.

Minette is a keynote speaker on topics of inclusive leadership, psychological safety in the workplace, and embracing empathy. Named in 2017 as one of the “Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business” by the San Francisco Business Times and as “Business Role Model of the Year” in the 2018 Women in IT/Silicon Valley Awards, Minette is a recognized leader with a unique perspective.

Minette has co-authored a book about psychological safety for leaders, The Psychological Safety Playbook: Lead More Powerfully by Being More Human, which will be published in February 2023. Her second book, The Boldly Inclusive Leader, will be published in August 2023.

Minette holds degrees in Drama and French from Tufts University and studied at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris.

More from Minette below: Her website: https://www.minettenorman.com/ The Psychological Safety Playbook website: https://thepsychologicalsafetyplaybook.com/

This episode is special and the third in a series of four. In partnership with ESCP Business School, I’ll be giving the mic to students, the leaders of tomorrow, to discuss with seasoned healthcare executives about their journeys and leadership beliefs. We welcome in this episode, Anette Steenberg, CEO of Medicon Valley Alliance, who discusses her background in international collaboration and her experience in the life sciences industry. Anette emphasizes the importance of leadership qualities such as being a strategic thinker, assembling diverse teams, and being a genuine leader. Anette also highlights the significance of talent attraction and retention and the role of innovation in shaping the future. Lastly, she reflects on Denmark's identity as a small but ambitious country that values collaboration.

"Grow the pie. Collaboration makes everyone stronger."

MEET OUR GUEST Anette Steenberg, Chief Executive Officer at Medicon Valley Alliance.

Anette Steenberg is the CEO of the Medicon Valley Alliance, a cross-border life science organization with 330+ public and private members in Denmark and Sweden. Anette is a leader in health innovation in Europe with over 20 years of experience in strategy, business development, and leadership.

Anette excels in creating, leading, and promoting public-private partnerships, navigating and cooperating between the public, academic, and private sectors, while maneuvering in political and business environments locally, nationally, and internationally. She has extensive knowledge and network in the life science, medtech, and healthtech sectors, as well as in the green transition and sustainability fields

Anette graduated in International Trade and Negotiations and worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. After several years in that institution, she joined the Danish pharmaceutical company, Leo Pharma where she had several leadership roles. Anette is now the CEO of the Medicon Valley Alliance, and professional chair and board member in various organizations, where she contributes to their growth, innovation, and impact.

In this episode, we chatted with Melanie Ivarsson, Chief Development Officer at Moderna, who led teams in times the world was anxiously waiting for them to deliver us a hope with Covid Vaccine... and they did. How did they achieve this? How do you lead in such unprecedented times? How do you ensure this sense of purpose continues to live today? Hear all about those stories and about Melanie's biggest leadership learning throughout this once-in-a-lifetime experience: Enable others to be the best they can be, and don't get in their way.

"Hang on to your true self."

MEET OUR GUEST Melanie Ivarsson Chief Development Officer at Moderna.

Melanie Ivarsson is Senior Vice President, Chief Development Officer at Moderna, where she leads the Clinical Development Operations department. In this role Dr Ivarsson and her team deliver all clinical programs within the Moderna portfolio.

Melanie has more than 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining Moderna, she was Head of Global Clinical Operations, at Takeda (following the acquisition of Shire) and spent 9 years at Pfizer in Clinical Development. She also held roles within the early clinical development group at Eli Lilly.

After receiving her PhD from the University of Bristol, she completed postdoctoral research at Lund University and New York University. Dr Ivarsson also holds an Executive MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management.

Leadership is the ability to make decisions that benefit the whole system, it is those who go beyond personal benefit, beyond their own team's benefit, and do the right thing for the community. In this chat with Amy Kimball, we discussed leadership in healthcare non-profits, and also in entrepreneurship. We talked about the key components of building a thriving culture of excellence, high performance, and people-centered service. Hear Amy's inspiring journey, and her authentic thoughts about being "lonely at the top", something we all experience as leaders at some point in our lives.

"It is about what you want for yourself."

MEET OUR GUEST Amy Kimball Executive & Leadership Coach and former biomedical research CEO.

Amy Kimball is an Executive & Leadership Coach and former biomedical research CEO. Prior to launching her coaching business in 2022, she had been coaching professionals on the side for 15 years, while she held leadership roles in academic biomedical research.

During her tenure as CEO of a midsized biomedical research institute, she led a turnaround to rebuild a culture of excellence, high performance, and people-centered service. Prior to that, she held research administrative leadership roles at large, Boston-based academic medical centers.

She holds an Executive MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management and has completed Georgetown University’s Leadership Coaching program. She coaches CEOs and other leadership positions that feel “lonely at the top;” mentors and advises start-ups; and serves in peer coaching roles within the helping professions community.

Learn more about Amy's work: www.amykimballcoaching.com

Bringing the human voice to inform decisions in healthcare, nothing can be more impactful. Going beyond the facts and the sad reality of inequities, health misinformation, and tragic health outcomes to really deeply understand the "WHY" question. Sema Sgaier, CEO and Co-Founder of Surgo Health, has made this her purpose and focus of her work in the non-profit and for-profit organizations she led. In this episode, we discussed data, conspiracy theories, the power of stories, and the importance of understanding what people really need on the ground and the "why" behind their behaviors. You'll also hear Sema's story, her leadership beliefs, and about the "professional love language".

"Be bold, step up, go after big ideas."

MEET OUR GUEST Sema Sgaier CEO and Co-Founder of Surgo Health.

Sema Sgaier is CEO and Co-Founder of Surgo Health, a healthcare technology company developing a revolutionary socio-behavioral analytics platform and generating novel, real-world data designed to inform and improve health equity and outcomes by enabling a greater understanding of the complex factors that influence how individuals engage in their healthcare.

Sema is a serial entrepreneur with close to 20 years of experience in healthcare. She co-founded and led Surgo Foundation and Surgo Ventures, where she led the development of analytic products that solve health problems with greater precision. She was Initiative Lead at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she brought innovations in data, consumer insights, and product introduction into large-scale health programs globally.

She has over 60 publications and is a frequent OpEd contributor to The New York Times and prestigious media outlets. She is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Washington.

She completed her fellowship in Genomics at Harvard University, Ph.D. in Neuroscience from New York University, and M.A. in Neuroscience from Brown University. Sema is a member of the Board of Directors of the United States of Care. She was selected as a rising talent by the Women's Forum for Economy and Society.

From communist Poland to building and living her American Dream, Dorota McKay's story is an inspiring story of resilience, grit, hard work, humility and never being afraid of taking risks but rather always asking for opportunities. Her words of wisdom for all of us healthcare leaders are crucial: If you're in doubt, always choose integrity and follow your moral compass. Your reputation is more important than any short-term gain. Listen to her story, learning, and powerful experiences around cultural transformations, in this inspiring episode.

"If you're in doubt, always choose integrity."

MEET OUR GUEST Dorota McKay Vice President, Controller, and Chief Accounting Officer for Vapotherm.

Dorota McKay is a creative problem solver with a passion for finance and personal development. She is currently a VP Controller and Chief Accounting Officer for Vapotherm, Inc., a publicly traded medtech company that develops innovative, comfortable, non-invasive technologies for respiratory support of patients with chronic or acute breathing disorders.

Dorota holds active CPA, CMA and CFE designations. Prior to joining Vapotherm she was a Controller for Decibel Therapeutics and a Finance Director at Oxford Immunotec. She is also corporate trainer and coach certified in Canfield Methodology and a Certified Culture Transformation Tools Practitioner with the Barrett Values Centre.

This episode is special and the second in a series of four. In partnership with ESCP Business School, I’ll be giving the mic to students, the leaders of tomorrow, to discuss with seasoned healthcare executives about their journeys and leadership beliefs. We welcome in this episode, Jean-François Brochard, General Manager at Roche France. Through this conversation, hear Jean-François' advice on careers in healthcare, why you shouldn't overthink opportunities and keep an open mind, and what true leadership means to him. It is all about being supportive and demanding, about thinking systems. For Jean-François, "Leadership makes miracles possible, it solves complex problems, it is less about myself and more about ourselves."

"Innovation without wisdom brings chaos"

MEET OUR GUEST Jean-François Brochard, General Manager Roche France.

Jean-François Brochard is the General manager of Roche France and director and chairman of  LEEM  (the French organization of pharmaceutical companies). With over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, Jean-Francois held various leadership positions in both developed and emerging markets in Europe, North America, and Asia.

Before joining Roche France in 2018, he was the President of GSK France. He is also a director and chairman of the Growth, Regulation, and Conventional Policy Commission at LEEM.