Caroline Moluf, MHA

Health Solutions Administrator, Medical University of South Carolina

How did getting your master’s degree allow you to advance your career?

The diverse coursework and understanding the operational infrastructure of a health system were a huge asset. Everything from insurance reimbursement and financial modeling to strategic leadership skills was useful as I built my career. The network of colleagues I developed will last a lifetime and was also a huge benefit of the program.

Why did you decide to pursue this specific master’s degree?

When I was in my undergraduate courses, I took a class called Economics of Healthcare. I was intrigued by the complexities and began to explore MHA programs. The rest is history.

What advice do you have for someone struggling to find their niche within healthcare? 

A fellowship or multiple internships in different departments will allow you to explore different areas. Keep searching because it could take a few years to find your niche. I have worked in operations and strategy, and now I run a department focused on innovative product development and commercialization for a health system. It is an absolute blast but took me five years to get here.

Katie Kirchoff

Developer and Data Integration Engineer, Medical University of South Carolina

How did getting your master’s degree allow you to advance your career?

These days, I see having a master’s degree as almost a necessity. The degree added a disciplinary focus to my general “data science” resume. Yes, I can work in data science in any field, but the advanced degree adds expertise in healthcare, which  makes my work product more valuable.

Why did you decide to pursue this specific master’s degree?

I decided in college that I was interested in data science. Once I started working in the field as a student research assistant at MUSC, I realized that I wanted to apply my analytical skills to the interdisciplinary aspects of the healthcare industry. The Master of Science in healthcare informatics program helped me focus my interest.

What advice do you have for someone struggling to find their niche within healthcare? 

First, you need to decide if you are interested in the patient care side of healthcare or the research side, and go from there. Talk to people with jobs on both sides and gain experience from any opportunity you can to find where your niche in healthcare is or is not.

The post A Master’s Degree in Healthcare Can Open New Doors for Women appeared first on Education and Career News.

She’s honored to play a strong woman in the media.

Role model

“Amelia Shepherd is a great role model for women because while she is brilliant and accomplished, she breaks the perception that a successful woman must put her femininity and her emotions and her vulnerabilities into a vault in order to succeed in a high-intensity position,” says Scorsone. “Amelia does not pretend she is a perfect person and she does not deny the aspects of herself that make her human.

“She is able to look at her vulnerabilities and name them, apologize for her mistakes without shame, and move forward with resilience.”

The actress is proud when she gets letters from young women who have just been accepted into or graduated from medical school.

“Many credit ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ for sparking their interest,” she says. “Many of them say the show modeled the possibility of a career in surgery in a vivid enough way that they could picture it for themselves.”

Visibility

The actress is encouraged that our culture is seeing more diversity, including women and people of color, on screen and off.

“Visibility in media is a huge part of how people come to conceive of themselves and one another and their relative roles in society,” she says, concluding, “Visibility is possibility.”

Disparity in healthcare leadership

There’s a gap of women in healthcare leadership, with only 30 percent of women having C-level roles and 13 percent of women holding CEO positions. While Scorsone says that gender disparity is also felt in other industries, she says it’s important to see examples of women succeeding in healthcare leadership.

“Successful women in healthcare can do so much to foster the next generation of woman leaders,” says Scorsone, explaining the first professionals her daughters met were female doctors.

She also encourages women in healthcare to start prioritizing women’s health issues beyond birth control. For example, she says more clinical trials can focus on the effects of disease and medication on women.

Supporting working mothers

The actress, 38, recently gave birth to her third child, a daughter. Scorsone is concerned about the lack of child care options and support for working mothers.

She feels lucky to have had a supportive work environment when she came back to work, including child care and nursing rooms.

“It allowed me the opportunity to work during my childbearing years and it gave my producers the opportunity to employ a highly skilled craftsperson with all of her accumulated experience and expertise while she was at the height of her creative power, in her thirties,” she says.

Scorsone says providing child care and parental support can empower women to pursue careers. She recalls seeing other women being supported when they had children while working in Shondaland, the TV production company behind “Private Practice” and “Grey’s Anatomy.”

She’s also an advocate for income equality: “Pay parity would help empower women to pursue leadership roles in all sectors, including healthcare.”

Assets

Scorsone says “the emotional presence that has been associated with femininity” is starting to be seen as an asset, instead of a liability.

She’s encouraged about the future.

“Instead of repressing our emotional reality, we are increasingly learning to name it and integrate it,” she says. “This kind of authenticity can lead to a far less toxic work environment and a more holistic approach to team building and communication in the work space.”

The post “Grey’s Anatomy” Star Caterina Scorsone Is Empowering Women in Healthcare appeared first on Education and Career News.

Healthcare fellowships

One promising area of preparation for early-career female healthcare managers is administrative fellowships. These one- or two-year intensive experiential learning-work experiences are meant for recent graduate school students to gain valuable exposure to senior executives, strategic problem solving and projects, and mentoring.

Although not specifically geared toward women, these highly valued opportunities can provide women and underrepresented minorities with important experiences and exposure within a hospital or health system. The National Council on Administrative Fellowships helps coordinate industry efforts to make these positions even more broadly available.

Networking opportunities

According to former fellow Dameka Miller, vice president of strategic sourcing and value analysis for Trinity Health, one of the largest nonprofit health systems in the United States, “My fellowship experience gave me the opportunity to interact with senior executives in my daily work as a young professional. This provided great mentoring opportunities and early insight into the responsibilities of executive leadership.”

Andrea Paciello, executive director of radiation oncology and the lead executive overseeing Massachusetts General Hospital’s (MGH) fellowship program explains, “The well-rounded nature of a fellowship experience, like MGH’s, helps prepare next generation of leaders for operational areas and an expanded leadership scope.”

Professional development

“Prior to the MGH fellowship program, I did not intend to pursue a career in finance,” says a former MGH fellow, Sally Mason Boemer. “The rotations provided a unique opportunity to interact with and be evaluated by preceptors in a variety of departments and settings. The fellowship provided me with the perfect mix of broad exposure and practical work experience that enhanced my understanding of hospital operations, and has given me more credibility in decision-making than a more traditionally trained CFO.” Boemer has gone on to become MGH’s chief financial officer and now serves as senior vice president of administration and finance.

Many current CEOs in healthcare served as administrative fellows early in their career. It is a path that has shown great promise for future leaders. As Miller says, “The access and exposure during my fellowship were key factors in building my career development plan for growth into advanced leadership roles.”

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Recent reports show that within healthcare, only 13 percent of CEOs and 30 percent of executive leaders are women.

Why is this important? Studies show that having more women in leadership improves an organization’s performance metrics – innovation, fiscal productivity, and employee satisfaction. Female CEOs have been noted for their emotional intelligence, team approach, and resilience. More women in leadership may also reduce the gender pay gap and improve workplace climate, an essential factor in preventing sexual harassment.

Achieving equity

Within medicine, this gender gap still persists despite near equivalent matriculation to medical school for the past 15 years. Yet the distribution of women in academia remains skewed toward the lower ranks – 60 percent at the instructor level are women versus 25 percent at full professor, and only 16 percent of medical school deans and 18 percent of department chairs are women. We no longer have a pipeline problem. We have a leadership problem.  

What can be done to achieve gender parity? Individual professional development is important, but institutional change is necessary to achieve equity at all levels. Examples include expanded parental leave policies, flexible promotion timelines, and alternative tenure tracks. Hiring procedures must be transparent, and raising awareness of unconscious bias is crucial, especially for members of search committees. An equitable number of qualified women should be on every list of individuals being considered for executive leadership positions. 

Resources

Increasing gender diverse leadership requires not just mentorship but, more importantly, sponsorship and formal leadership training. Organizations like TIME’S UP Healthcare, the American Medical Women’s Association, and the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association advocate for gender equity and provide support, networks, and resources to women in the health professions.   

Women are vital participants in this healthcare dialogue. Studies have shown that women physicians provide more patient-centered care, adhere more closely to preventive medicine guidelines, and have slightly better outcomes than their male counterparts.

Never has there been a better opportunity to bridge the gender gap in healthcare leadership. This is not just a women’s issue; it is a health imperative. Increasing women’s leadership will more effectively align all stakeholders, transforming our current healthcare system to provide better care for patients.

Eliza Lo Chin, MD, MPH

American Medical Women’s Association

Connie Newman, MD

American Medical Women’s Association

Roberta Gebhard, DO

American Medical Women’s Association

Nicole P. Sandhu, MD, Ph.D

American Medical Women’s Association

The post Fixing the Gender Gap in Healthcare Leadership appeared first on Education and Career News.

Though women represent 30 percent of healthcare leadership roles, progress is being made.

“It’s absolutely essential to have women in leadership roles,” says Janice E. Nevin, M.D., MPH, president and CEO of ChristianaCare, a private not-for-profit regional healthcare system based in Delaware. “By building a healthcare workforce with diversity at every level, we are better able to make a positive impact on the health of everyone in all of the communities we serve.”

A family medicine physician, Dr. Nevin has over 20 years in the industry. In the beginning of her career, she was one of a few women doctors in a male-dominated field. She remembers working hard to fit in. Now she’s the CEO and leading the way for other women to succeed in the field.

Being intentional

As CEO, a role she has held for the past five years, Dr. Nevin is focused on diversifying the workplace and being more inclusive. The top executive team of 10 is comprised of five men and five women. Over 74 percent of all ChristianaCare leaders are women, a 27 percent increase since five years ago. Nationally, 36 percent of first- or mid-level officials at S&P 500 companies are female and only 25 percent of executive- and senior-level officials and managers are female. And 44 percent of ChristianaCare’s physicians are female — an increase of nearly 40 percent since 2015. Nationally, 37 percent of all physicians are women.

“We have some exceptional women in some of the medical disciplines that are more traditionally occupied by men,” says Dr. Nevin, noting women are excelling in cardiology, as well as transplant, bariatric, and neurointerventional surgery.

Leaning in

“I think it’s an amazing time for leadership, particularly in healthcare,” says Dr. Kara Odom Walker, secretary of Delaware Health and Social Services. “We’re starting to see more women in medical school classes and more women taking on leadership roles.”

She remembers meeting Dr. Nevin nearly 20 years ago and admiring her personally and professionally. These days she’s grateful they work in partnership in Delaware.

“It’s made a huge difference to me to be able to look up to women like her and others who’ve taken on leadership roles in medicine,” says Dr. Odom Walker.

Dr. Nevin encourages women to say yes to opportunities for career growth, even when they’re a little outside their area of expertise.

“Be intentional about working to get on a team or be part of a project that’s outside of your department, outside your area,” she says. “Because it really is how we grow.”

Diversity and innovation

Dr. Nevin believes that the diversity of her organization and her leadership team is a competitive advantage, because the varied perspectives help to support an innovative approach to care.

“We are reimagining how we deliver care — to deliver health, not just care, to the people we serve,” she says. “How do we partner with people to help them achieve the health goals that are important to them and do it in a way that respects cost and creates affordability?”

Dr. Nevin says decisions made today will impact how the next generation experiences healthcare. She’s optimistic about the future.

“It’s really being able to look at health and wellness in a very different way — transforming the delivery system, investing in mental health, and really connecting deeply with community resources around social care that I think is essential if we’re going to create the system of the future.”

The post How Women Leaders in Healthcare Are Empowering Other Women appeared first on Education and Career News.

Elizabeth Nabel, M.D.

President, Brigham Health

Is there a woman within healthcare that you look up to who has inspired you to push boundaries?

I recently read Melinda Gates’ new book, “The Moment of Lift,” in which she poignantly describes the impact we can make when we alleviate the pressures that are holding women and girls down and enable the forces that will lift them. Like Gates, I believe that access to healthcare is a basic human right. Providing this fundamental right to everyone creates so much more than a healthier community – it creates opportunity. In her book, Gates writes about the challenges she faced as she took on topics that are often perceived as political or controversial, like family planning. She addressed them with conviction, and an understanding that her influence, resources, and dedication would make a difference in allowing women to choose if and when to start a family, which would in turn enable financial freedom and the ability to pursue education and better jobs, resulting in healthier moms and babies. Her courage, selflessness, and determination have inspired me.

What unique obstacles have you faced as a woman in healthcare? How were you able to overcome them?

Women in science and medicine – and most other industries – still face many of the challenges I encountered, particularly with the issue of balancing career and family. When I had my first child, I was a resident – a physician in training – and spent only 2 weeks with my son before returning to my training program. That was the expectation then and the system hasn’t changed much. In fact, it’s likely more difficult for women today than it was for me because technology has made us accessible 24/7.

I am fortunate to have a partner who understands that balancing the commitment to family is a responsibility to be shared equally. My career and the decisions I’ve made are just as important to my husband as they are to me.

Can you speak to the importance of diversity in leadership and how it has been proven to increase financial returns for companies?

There is credible data that demonstrates the correlation between diverse leadership and improved financial performance. More importantly, however, diversity in leadership – and across all levels of an organization – is crucial in healthcare. It is vital that we build a workforce that reflects the population we serve and considers gender, age, race, ethnicity, ability, and sexual orientation. We must actively value our differences and commit fully to the fact that a diverse and culturally competent workforce will lead to improved access, higher quality care for all populations, and better outcomes, particularly for those who have historically been underserved. In health and medicine, there is work to be done in the educational setting to improve access to science and technology, fostering an interest in our field and then supporting the pathway to careers in medicine and science.       

What professional achievement are you most proud of?

I’ve been lucky to have had the opportunity to collaborate and lead a number of initiatives and projects that have resulted in tremendous societal good. The one that stands out, however, is the Red Dress Heart Truth campaign. When I served at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, we launched a public education and advocacy initiative to raise awareness of heart disease risk among women. Although heart disease was the No. 1 killer of women, only 34 percent of women were aware of the risk. Additionally, symptoms that women experienced when suffering a heart attack were very often unrecognized and, thus, untreated.

Through unconventional partnerships with the fashion industry and Diet Coke, and with support from then first lady Laura Bush, we achieved tremendous results. The red dress has become an internationally recognized symbol for women’s heart health. Awareness of this critical issue grew by more than 20 percent and, more importantly, the cardiovascular disease death rate for women fell for five consecutive years. This campaign proved to me that bold, creative ideas paired with sound strategy that is evidence-based can truly change behavior.

What can health systems and medical companies do to empower their female employees?

We must empower all employees across our entire organization. The first step is identifying the root causes of the disparities we see at every level, including leadership. Research from my own institution shows that women who are training to be surgeons face extraordinary challenges in balancing pregnancy and motherhood with their work. We need to change the system to create equity. Physician well-being and the daunting rates of burnout, particularly among female physicians, must be addressed. Our employees are truly our greatest resource. We must listen to them, learn from their experiences, and commit to making improvements regardless of how challenging or unpopular they may be. Through the establishment of employee resource groups, we have empowered the voices of those that have historically been unheard while also enabling them to act as catalysts for change.

Additionally, we’ve implemented a number of programs that directly address the leadership disparity. Our Women’s Leadership Program has provided women faculty with learning opportunities and community building opportunities. We also hold an annual Women in Medicine & Science Symposium that brings our scientific community together to celebrate and amplify the achievements of our women faculty.

We’ve also conducted a culture assessment which has allowed us to name, specifically, the opportunities that we have for improvement. We’re now on a journey to close the gaps that we’ve identified by instilling our values and guiding principles across all our systems – from learning and development to talent acquisition, an area where we are actively addressing the structural inequities and biases that can exist in search processes. Improving our employees’ experience will lead to a better experience for our patients and their loved ones.  

Cynthia Verst

President, Design and Delivery Innovation, Research & Development Solutions, IQVIA

Is there a woman within healthcare that you look up to who has inspired you to push boundaries?

I have been blessed with an outstanding mentor in healthcare that has underpinned my career. When I joined the clinical research organization (CRO) industry, my boss and mentor, Candace Kendle, Pharm.D., inspired me to push beyond my academic and scientific pharmaceutical industry experience into the business realm. Dr. Kendle, co-founder, chairman, and CEO of, then, Kendle International Inc. (now Syneos Health), was one of the key visionaries and co-founders of the CRO marketplace. She challenged me to build upon my financial and business acumen. In fact, these were skills that I didn’t even realize I possessed.  

What unique obstacles have you faced as a woman in healthcare? How were you able to overcome them?

One obstacle that I faced within the pharmaceutical industry was sluggish role expansion and vertical movement. While the niche therapeutic area and clinical development research focus imparted tremendous experience and insights, I was eager to expand the aperture. This was the impetus for joining the clinical research organization industry to expand my experiences and leadership opportunities. It turns out that this leap of faith to run toward an opportunity versus running away from an obstacle would be a defining moment of my healthcare career.

Can you speak to the importance of diversity in leadership and how it has been proven to increase financial returns for companies?

Leadership diversity is vitally important to bring innovation, growth, and sustainability to companies. Different perspectives, experiences, and personas align synergistically to increase a company’s probability of success. Interestingly, a recent 2019 S&P Global Market Intelligence analysis revealed that firms with female CEOs and CFOs have yielded statistically superior stock price performance and increased profitability and stock returns. The analysis also highlighted that firms with high gender diversity on their board of directors were more profitable than firms with low gender diversity.

What professional achievement are you most proud of?

One of the most notable achievements of my career was being a part of the industry transformation and development of IQVIA, a merger of the world’s largest clinical research organization, Quintiles, and the world’s largest healthcare data and technology company, IMS. The lion’s share of my healthcare career has been focused on the generation, synthesis, and application of real-world evidence to fulfill the ecosystem stakeholder requirements to advance healthcare. It has been awe-inspiring to work with a very talented team and leverage IQVIA’s assets to transform clinical development research and to help our sponsors bring new treatment options to our patients faster. 

What can health systems and medical companies do to empower their female employees?

Setting the tone at the top to recognize the importance of cultural diversity is essential to empower all employees. In addition, it is important to set the tone within an organization, bottom-up and top-down, so that opportunities exist at all levels for all qualified individuals. 

Esther Choo, M.D., M.P.H.

Founding Member, TIME’S UP Healthcare

Is there a woman in healthcare you look up to who has inspired you to push boundaries?

Thea James, M.D., is the first person who comes to mind. She is the vice president of Mission and associate chief medical officer at Boston Medical Center. I first admired her as an outstanding physician with the most empathetic bedside manner and fierce technical skills. Then I saw how she thoughtfully lifted up learners at all levels – there are generations of physicians, including myself, who benefited from her mentorship at the undergraduate, medical school, and resident level. Finally, I admire how she has never played to people’s expectations, but forged a scholarship and leadership path that allowed her to fulfill her mission to help underserved populations in fundamental, groundbreaking ways.

What unique obstacles have you faced as a woman in healthcare? How were you able to overcome them?

Organizations expect women to be the helpers but rarely expect or encourage them to lead and shape strategic vision, and therefore rarely allow women to demonstrate their full value or work to the top of their potential. I’m not sure I have overcome this entirely, but I have been very open about what healthcare loses from this mindset.

Can you speak to the importance of diversity in leadership and how it has been proven to increase financial returns for companies?

Companies like McKinsey have demonstrated that across industries, having greater leadership diversity at the senior executive level is likely a competitive differentiator for companies in terms of financial performance. And in fact, in almost every metric that matters to companies, including bringing in the best talent, improving employee satisfaction, and strengthening decision making processes, diversity makes companies better. It takes effort, but there is a strong return on investment.

What professional achievement are you most proud of?

I’ve been an advocate for equity in healthcare for many years, but the explosion in interest – and action – to stamp out racism and sexism in healthcare in recent years has been so energizing and inspiring. Bringing people together to speak frankly about safety, equity, and justice across our field through TIME’S UP Healthcare has been a highlight of my professional career so far.

What can health systems and medical companies do to empower their female employees?

Critically examine how the system is set up to get what it has – to develop and boost generation after generation of the same people in power – to start with. Ensure that decision-making around paid leadership positions is as transparent and objective as possible, with mechanisms built in to protect against bias. Openly value and richly reward work to boost inclusion, belonging, and equity. Create the expectation – not just the possibility – that women and others typically left out of the leadership track will lead, and lead well.

The post Women Leaders in Healthcare Discuss Their Careers appeared first on Education and Career News.

Striving for change

The aim of the Carol Emmott Foundation is to ensure that women in healthcare are free to fully advance their careers and promote positive health outcomes. Our fellows have learned a few new techniques to move the needle:

1.) Believe you should have a seat at the table

Your contribution is essential to the health of patients and the quality of care they receive. Many gender disparities in care will only be overcome if women participate in the decision-making.

2.) Understand that your self-doubts don’t help

Nearly all our remarkably accomplished fellows exhibit the pervasive self-doubt called the “impostor phenomenon.” Their self-assessments are a fraction of how others evaluated them. Give yourself credit.

3.) Engage and make yourself heard

Know that you will have to work harder to be listened to. Be confident that your perspective is unique and can reflect a rarely heard perspective of patients and families. 

4.) Create a peer network of support and amplify the voices of other women

Find a group of friends and colleagues who have your back. Women find it more natural to stand together and support one another – and it is more fun. 

5.) Build a personal board of directors

We all need honest feedback and benefit from having a small group of men and women who are in our corner. Invite people you look up to, respect, and trust – people who care about you. The most essential members of your board are your sponsors, those who are willing to vouch for you. Ask for their help, use their time wisely, and listen.

6.) Recruit partners for support

Some of us have supportive spouses, parents, or neighbors who pitch in to make our lives at work and home possible, and some do not. All women deserve to get the help they need.

7.) When you move up, hold the door open for others

Any of us who have achieved success have done so with the help of many. Pay it forward by holding the door open for those who haven’t had the support, life circumstances, health, or luck that we have had. That is how we will shorten the two centuries to equity.

8.) Remember that when you help women, you lift society

The data is well-presented in Melinda Gates’ book, “The Moment of Lift,” and by the World Economic Forum. The largest untapped opportunity for GDP growth is the full participation of women. 

I can’t wait two centuries. I can’t even wait one. Please join me in accelerating your own career to create a healthier future for yourself and for all.

The post 8 Ways Women in Healthcare Can Promote Gender Equity appeared first on Education and Career News.

The groundswell of energy around gender parity — in healthcare and in the larger world — is palpable. As Melinda Gates noted recently when announcing her $1 billion donation to support gender equality, it feels as though a window of opportunity has opened.

Progress

The 2019 Women in the Workplace study from LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company reflects this energy. The study, now in its fifth year, shows that more companies than ever are embracing best practices, deepening commitments, and holding senior leaders accountable for progress. And the numbers are moving, with women’s C-suite representation rising from 17 percent in 2015 to 21 percent in 2019.  

But the numbers also reveal that the goal of parity is still far from certain — and that our work toward this goal requires continued diligence.

Areas for improvement

• The “broken rung” at the start of the corporate management ladder: The McKinsey report shows that just 72 women for every 100 men are hired and promoted to the first level of management. This threatens parity at each subsequent level, and must be fixed to create a strong female talent pipeline for the future. In healthcare specifically, we must also work on movement at the top, which continues to be a sticking point.
  
• Progress for all women: The fact is that progress has not been equally shared. For example, while 1 in 5 C-suite leaders is female, just 1 in 25 is a woman of color. We must delve deeper into how to effectively broaden inclusivity.
  
• Emerging concerns: Progress isn’t always linear. For example, Medical Marketing & Media magazine’s 2019 Career & Salary Survey showed that women in biopharmaceutical marketing earn 63 percent less on average than their male counterparts. This gap has more than tripled since 2017. We must keep our finger on the pulse of emerging issues, and address them head-on as they arise.

Maintaining the momentum

At the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association, we’ve found that there is no substitute for the power of joining forces. Together, companies can more quickly identify and understand emerging trends, share best practices for addressing issues, and hold each other accountable for real progress. Whether it’s developing parity-focused partnerships, supporting studies like Women in the Workplace, or joining consortiums like our Gender Parity Collaborative, we encourage companies to work together to capitalize on this window of opportunity — so we can finally achieve parity for all.

The post The State of Gender Parity in Healthcare appeared first on Education and Career News.

Jennifer Brearey

Executive Director, The Women’s Executive Network & Chief Financial Officer, AdvaMed

Medtech leaders must be as diverse as the patients they serve. This concept has been a central catalyst as the medtech industry works to drive cultural change that will attract and retain top diverse talent.

Supporting women in medtech

The journey began in 2015 when the industry launched the Women’s Executive Network to educate and elevate women industry leaders. Through meetups, conferences, seminars, and more, we’ve created a powerful, diverse network. But we’ve found that uniting women leaders will not, on its own, create the inclusive spaces necessary to support and promote those women leaders nor cultivate new ones.

To figure out what will support, promote, and expand diverse leadership, medtech industry advocates have collaborated to map out what “ideal” looks like in the context of inclusion and diversity. We’ve contemplated how organizations mature along the continuum of inclusion and diversity standards to become industry models.

The path to inclusion

We’ve found that before companies can successfully integrate inclusion and diversity into their business practices, they must first integrate inclusion and diversity into their leadership vision. Holistic change will happen from the top down.

• Leaders of any gender must understand their own biases, practice conscious inclusion in the face of those biases, and raise an authentic voice for sponsoring change.
• Leaders must make inclusion and diversity a priority, and they must be willing to have the often difficult conversations that will result in a viable strategic plan.
• Leaders must invest in the tools they need to help drive the changes that they’ve recognized need to happen.

Early progress

While we’re early on in our initiatives, our energies are already paying dividends. At the 2019 Medtech Conference, the industry honored its first woman Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. We talked about inclusion and diversity on our conference’s largest stage, and we made gender diversity a priority for our speaker selection criteria. As a result, 96 percent of our 128 panels included women. Overall, we estimate that 40 percent of the 3,300 executives in attendance were women — a 33 percent increase over last year. And our medtech leaders are already building upon that success for the future.

We all want a healthier, happier, and more productive future. That future starts with innovation, and innovation starts with inclusion and diversity. With that understanding, we can unlock the full power and potential of our industry to save and improve patients’ lives.

The post How Medtech Is Disrupting the Norm From the Top Down appeared first on Education and Career News.

During his tenure at global biopharmaceutical company Theravance Biopharma, CEO Rick Winningham has overseen a dramatic shift towards gender inclusion. “The tone from the top matters,” he insists. “Building a diverse workforce is what’s going to make us a great company, not in and of itself, but through better decision making, better problem solving, better understanding of situations.”

Shehnaaz Suliman, SVP of Corporate Development & Strategy

Growing up in South Africa, Shehnaaz Suliman spent much of her youth campaigning against apartheid, and she became one of the first non-white graduates from the University of Cape Town Medical School. Suliman was introduced to biotech after pursuing development studies and business school at the University of Oxford. She explains, “I was compelled by the idea of working in an industry in which innovative science could lead to transformative therapeutics, changing the lives of thousands of patients.”

At Gilead Sciences, Suliman helped enable access to HIV drugs for nearly 10 million patients in developing nations. Suliman rose through the ranks at Genentech and the Roche Global Partnering Group, but was drawn to Theravance’s “open culture,” joining the executive team last summer. “Women at Theravance are supported at all stages of their careers,” she shares, “due to an enhanced mindfulness about the importance of developing talent, recognizing cognitive diversity as a competitive advantage and avoiding unconscious bias.”

Melanie Kleinschek, VP, Biology

Melanie Kleinschek grew up in Germany dreaming of becoming a veterinarian. But as she completed her degree, she recalls, “I noticed I was reading different books — not so much about treating disease symptoms, but more about how these diseases occur.” This led her to pursue doctoral work in the “exciting, young science” of immunology.

While still in grad school, Kleinschek came to the United States for the first time as a visiting scientist at DNAX Research Institute. Though initially intending to pursue a career in academia, she had the realization that “research in industry gives you a whole different range of opportunities to apply the knowledge that you’re generating.”

In 2014, after almost 10 years in ‘Big Pharma’, Kleinschek joined Theravance because she wanted to work for a “smaller, more nimble company and be even more impactful in what I’m doing.” Now, as vice president of biology, she heads a 16-person department. “None of this was really planned. I just followed my passion and it led me to where I am,” she shares. “It’s been a fantastic journey but there is so much more to accomplish.”

Renée Galá, SVP and CFO

Renée Galá developed her strong work ethic on her family’s farm. “When I was eight or nine,” she recalls, “I learned to drive the hay truck because we all had to do our part.”

After completing her MBA at Columbia University, Galá worked at Eli Lilly, where she “learned the ropes” of the industry before moving to the west coast to join Theravance. “I had recently given birth to triplets and needed to be in a role that didn’t require much travel, yet would allow me to pursue my passion for life sciences. Theravance provided me with that opportunity, as well as a flexible schedule at a time when it was very important to me. I’ve been with the company ever since, and in the CFO role since 2014.”

In her 12 years at Theravance, Galá has spearheaded multiple gender inclusion initiatives, including the Women’s Leadership Network, a development program designed to drive business success by attracting, developing and retaining a gender-diverse workforce.

“By making diversity a priority, we’ve been able to achieve gender parity as a whole,” she shares. “Equally important is the creation of a culture where each individual feels supported and empowered to bring their best, authentic self to work each day, to fully harness the power of diversity to develop transformational medicines.”

The post Discover 3 Women Beating the Gender Odds in the Life Sciences appeared first on Education and Career News.