What I do…

As a seni­or ex­ec­ut­ive in life sci­ences and health­care, I’ve spent most of my ca­reer with a tech­no­logy title. The change levers I’ve come to value the most, how­ever, are or­gan­iz­a­tion­al: lead­er­ship be­ha­vi­ors; team dy­nam­ics; the way an in­sti­tu­tion makes de­cisions and en­gages its in­tern­al and ex­tern­al com­munit­ies.

What I care about most is help­ing sci­ence, health­care, and oth­er mis­sion-driv­en or­gan­iz­a­tions do work that makes the world bet­ter for people and the plan­et.

What shaped me

Go­ing a bit bey­ond my primary ca­reer steps in­to the sub­stance that shaped me:

  • At MSK, I was hired to lead a di­git­al trans­form­a­tion of a 25,000-per­son can­cer cen­ter — and we de­livered it. The im­port­ant change and real chal­lenges, though, were cul­ture and lead­er­ship, not tech­no­logy and data. The people in my or­gan­iz­a­tion taught me how much real lead­er­ship changes their lives. (Leav­ing MSK)
  • Across fifty-plus bi­otech com­pan­ies at Flag­ship Pi­on­eer­ing, my team and I built a tech­no­logy and data eco­sys­tem to help launch and ac­cel­er­ate com­pan­ies. I learned that good tech­no­logy couldn’t fix bad strategy (no sur­prise). I was amazed to see how closely the cul­ture of a com­pany fol­lowed the be­ha­vi­or of its lead­er — and how much that mattered. (Join­ing Flag­ship)
  • At No­vartis, we took our glob­al re­search-in­form­at­ics or­gan­iz­a­tion from what the Sci­ence Board called “worst-in-class” to “best-in-in­dustry” in three years. My team did this not just by be­ing good at tech and sci­ence but by listen­ing, ask­ing ques­tions, part­ner­ing, and com­mit­ting. En­gage­ment and own­er­ship moved the needle. (My No­vartis blogs)
  • From the board of Tet­raS­cience and years of ad­vising founders: in non-tech­nic­al com­pan­ies, the hard prob­lems are al­most nev­er the tech­nic­al ones. And it’s amaz­ing and de­press­ing how of­ten tech­no­logy ends up a dis­a­bler rather than an en­a­bler.

Concretely

  • I’m not cur­rently em­ployed, which is de­light­ful. I’m in a de­lib­er­ate pause between full-time roles — time I’m us­ing to think, to ex­plore, to listen, to write.
  • I am work­ing on sev­er­al pro­jects, none of which I’m ready to write about yet.
  • I oc­ca­sion­ally take on ad­vis­ory en­gage­ments and board roles. I work best with CEOs and ex­ec­ut­ive teams fa­cing the hu­man side of a hard change: the shape of an or­gan­iz­a­tion, the health of its lead­er­ship, a real trans­ition.
  • If you’re work­ing on some­thing in­nov­at­ive or im­port­ant, I’d be happy to con­nect.