Ep 68: Building Up Women Leaders

Carina Clawson  00:19

Women’s History Month is a time to honor and reflect on the contributions of women. At Think Medium, we’re reflecting on our first show, Her Story.  We are thankful for the time and dedication of our audience, guests, and incredible advisory council. The Her Story advisory council members bring a breadth of expertise to their interviews. They elevate the conversations by asking thought-provoking questions and providing insights of their own.  So let’s hear from them, about Her Story’s purpose.   To begin, we turn to Ceci Connolly. Ceci is the President and CEO of the Alliance of Community Health Plans. She shares with us why it’s important for women leaders to tell their stories.

Ceci Connolly  01:01

We want to make certain that as women leaders, we are really doing our part to bring others along my own perspective really evolved over the years throughout my career, in terms of the responsibility of women who, to one degree or another have made it to then not just say, well, hooray for me, it was a hard struggle, and I made it. So that’s it, I’m done. The Her Story project is so important, in my view, for the future success of the nation. And for women really advancing other women.   Helping women advance, especially in healthcare, but in other realms has become as I have grown and had fantastic opportunities in my own career, and some nice successes along the way. My passion has really been to not stop just with my own career focus and trajectory, but trying to bring along other women.

Carina Clawson  02:13

Her Story is about uplifting women. Experienced leaders like Ceci can share their unique experiences and insights to cultivate the next generation of women leaders.  Joanne Conroy, M.D. is our next Advisory Council member. She is the CEO and President of Dartmouth-Hitchcock and Darmouth-Hitchcock Health. Dr. Conroy has been a long-time champion of women, even starting her own group called Women of Impact.

Joanne Conroy, M.D.  02:38

I actually went to a very unusual leadership retreat, probably in 2011. And it was talking about actually building your legacy. And most retreats or leadership development programs you go to, you know, they may be build a skill here are there. But this was really a program that said, if you are at the height of your influence, what are you going to do to put that influence to use to actually create a greater impact? women often do tasks that are put in front of them, instead of doing things with a purpose and for a purpose. And how do you actually have a very purposeful way of making decisions in your life and also living into the future that you imagine for yourself? So this is really an imagination exercise that women leaders go through now. I was the only healthcare woman there I was with women from Microsoft and Dutch royal shell and Google and I thought, wow, I bet I could pull together a group of women that want to think about fixing health care as much as I do. So I wrote to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, we got a small grant to actually bring 23 women together in 2013, calling ourselves women of impact. And these women went through this imagination exercise These are national leaders, they said is the first time they had ever thought about their careers in that way. And it was transformative for many of them. And they have all stayed incredible friends. And actually, we said, How can we actually increase the number of women that could experience this? So we’ve had four cohorts? s bar, no, we don’t want to be a really large organization. But right now we have about 70 women that have gone through the legacy exercise. And we meet, we’re actually on the phone about every three weeks talking about how we’re going to create greater impact. But we’re all focused on really contributing to fixing healthcare, because we all have different perspectives. But healthcare is broken and a lot of different ways. And there’s probably not one solution. But there’s great strength of us all working together.

Carina Clawson  05:16

Dr. Conroy is dedicated to empowering the women around her. On Her Story, we explore how female leaders find their purpose, create impact, and make meaningful goals a reality.   Next is Kristi Ebong, our newest advisory council member. She is the head of Partnerships and Market Development at Define Ventures. The venture capital world is male-dominated, but that doesn’t change her approach to investing or leadership.

Kristi Ebong  05:42

I think it’s a really real problem that pattern recognition is a thing. And so step one is saying, you know what, pattern recognition is there for a reason. We are really busy, and we only have so many hours in a day. And so if you can look at a pattern, a Stanford, Harvard background, and say, you know what, this is probably a reasonably hedged bet. Somebody who’s been in an entrepreneurial ecosystem has the network, probably has the, you know, that pedigree and that background. It’s a safer bet to make than, you know, somebody from maybe a university you’re not familiar with, you’ve never met anybody from, you don’t know the context. There’s a lot more diligence, and understanding, and context that is required to overcome patterns and patterns that have been built and created with intentionality. And I think, for me, coming from an unconventional background gives me an arbitrage of sorts, in that I’m able to see through some of the existing patterns, or some of the quote unquote rules, especially in Silicon Valley. I’m able to appreciate them and apply them, but also to question them in a unique way. And I think it’s very easy for folks to say, oh, diversity is the right thing to do. But at the end of the day, and it’s not even the stats, and the stats are there to prove it, it’s being able to have a completely fresh and unconventional way to look at something, and recognize talent, and recognize the solution to a problem. And there’s, I mean, millions of examples of this throughout history, right. And so for me, I’m energized by bringing that to the table and I actually view it as an arbitrage and not an Achilles.

Carina Clawson  07:19

On Her Story, we tease out what gives successful leaders their competitive edge. Whether it’s venture capital, healthcare, or any other industry, being a woman can be an advantage, not a weakness.  Next, we will hear from Julie Gerberding, M.D. She is the Chief Patient Officer and Executive Vice President of Merck. She is also the former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Julie Gerberding, M.D.  07:40

One thing I would say to people who are looking at making career changes that the mental model that has worked for me and I’ve tried to pass it on to a lot of people as a toolbox. If you try to plan out your whole career, forget it. Like poster childhood never turns out the way you think is going to turnout. But if you think about what you’re doing and what tools you’re putting in your box, I mentioned earlier about laboratory experience. So those tools turned out to be really helpful when I was at CDC, because I studied Staph aureus. And while I was serving in my first job at CDC, Staph aureus became a really important community infection from a drug resistant perspective. And if I hadn’t had that tool in my toolbox, I probably would not have been able to understand and perform as well as I think we were able to do at that time. But whether it’s getting your master’s degree or taking advanced training and getting a business degree, whatever it is, there’s no bad answer. So when people ask me, should I do this or this? I usually say yes. Please do those things. Because they will put tools in your toolbox, you never know when they’ll be handy. But in today’s world, the people who will have the best opportunities long term are the people who are the most versatile, who have more than one capability more than one experience under their belt, because they can flex from one opportunity to another and have not only the inner confidence that they have some capacities and some knowledge, but they will be valued by those who are making those choices, because they have demonstrated ability to blacks from one role to another. Leadership is pretty translatable. And that’s a good thing.

Carina Clawson  09:27

Lessons in leadership are timeless. Each episode of Her Story is an opportunity to add another tool to your toolbox, and glean professional and personal insights from healthcare leaders.  To wrap up is Sanjula Jain, Ph.D. Dr. Jain is the SVP of Market Strategy and the Chief Research Officer at Trilliant Health. She is also a co-founder of Think Medium, and sums up the vision of Her Story best.

Sanjula Jain, Ph.D.  09:52

Her Story is the platform that I wish I had when I was 18 years old, when I was this person that was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I guess I was lucky enough to know that I wanted to be in healthcare, but even for someone who didn’t just what are the realm of options out there for someone who’s interested in different facets, and at the time, all I really was exposed to and I think a lot of folks, whether they’re my students in the classroom or others that I work with, you know, it’s, we think about it very linearly, like you can go be a practicing clinician, so you can go to medicine or saying, you could if you’re interested in policy, you can go work on the hill, if you’re interested in business, maybe you go to consulting, technology, you know, maybe you go more in the Apple, Microsoft route, but it’s really hard to know where to start, what are the realm of options. And so I think her story is this great platform and resource center for individuals to see, first of all, healthcare is complicated, and there’s so many different interesting career paths and opportunities and companies out there that are trying to make healthcare better. I think that’s the one thing that I hope Her Story shows is just bring a diverse range of individuals who work at various organizations, various sub sectors of healthcare. So it’s not just providers, it’s digital health. It’s people who work in finance investors who are thinking about healthcare and nonprofits. I mean, you name it. I think the point is, anyone who touches healthcare directly or indirectly, you kind of get this broad lens view of the ecosystem.

Carina Clawson  11:28

Healthcare is a wide-reaching and complex industry. Her Story showcases the many different career avenues within this sector, and highlights how different industries overlap, or work in tandem with healthcare.  For young professionals starting their careers, to established leaders looking to refine their skills, Her Story is the show for you. We tell stories by women, for women, to expand the vision of what is possible in healthcare.