Ep. 96: Define Your Own Path

Sandra Fenwick: [00:00:00] I’ve gotten to know you pretty well and have learned a little bit about your history. You grew up in Germany. Where you got your bachelor’s degree and master’s and then went to Switzerland to get your PhD in organic chemistry. Organic chemistry is usually something people wanna see in the rear view mirror. But with you, you went on to get your PhD and to go really deep you went into biotech. As a medicinal chemist initially, and then as you’ve been deep in the science, decided how important it was to get those discoveries. To society, to patients and out to the market. And so you became a real expert in the translation world. So, you along the way picked up an mba and that’s when I think a little after that we were able to recruit you. to the Visa Institute at Harvard. And so now as the COO and technology translation director you have an incredibly [00:01:00] interesting role, but you’ve been on an incredibly interesting and unique journey. Many who have never really traveled such a rare kind of journey. So we’d love to hear.

Angelika Fretzen: Yeah. So as you said, I grew up in Germany. Maybe the fact that you didn’t know is that I lost my father when I was nine. I two had two elder brothers, 14 and 17, and I was the nine year old little one. And so when I got interested in the STEM field, it never really. occurred to me or to any of us that would’ve been anything remarkable for a girl. That’s not the kind of things we were worried about, right? We were the kids in town that grew up without a dad. That’s really what we were. And so it didn’t matter. It was me that’s the little sister or my my older brothers who were interested in engineering or science or in business. . The first time it really came up was actually when I told my older brother, eight year old, he years older and a little bit my career mentor that I wanted to go [00:02:00] into chemistry and he thought it was a terrible idea. He was just, he was an engineer at training. He felt the chemistry was utterly unpredictable. He couldn’t just calculate it and it would work, but maybe more importantly, he had never seen female leaders in chemistry in the traditional German chemical in. and nor had he seen them in academia. And so he said, look, you’re incredibly talented, you’re smart. You can do whatever you want. Why would you go into a field where you basically held back by very, by the very structures of that industry and where I have never seen a women lead. And so to make his point, he actually helped me to get an internship at the Max Plan Institute for co for. Hardcore organ, organic metal, Italian chemistry, catalysis, like really the core of German industry and very male dominated at the time. So I did that and I fell in love. I mean, it was easy. You know, organic metal, Italian chemistry is very colorful. It’s technically very difficult. Every time you take something out, it starts [00:03:00] to burn. I worked for some phenomenal grad students who were telling me a lot about the technology that they were developing, but also the theory behind it. And so I was. . So I did my undergrad in Germany, a little bit in Ireland. Then as you said, went to Switzerland to do my PhD and didn’t quite take it as advice obviously. But where he was right actually was, it took me until my third year of my PhD program to see the first accomplished female professor, and I will never forget it. It was Jacqueline Barton from Cal. and I know the lecture, I can imagine it’s still the lecture theater where she lectured. I know exactly what she was wearing. I can remember the tag because it was so remarkable to me at the time, and maybe it was becoming clear to me that there was something different in the United States that maybe did open up more avenues for women to make a career in chemistry. So I finished my PhD. I came to Harvard for my [00:04:00] postdoc and And again, the question was, what did I wanna do next? And again, I made a little bit an unusual decision to go into biotech. And so this was the beginning of the two thousands. Biotech was really a little bit in its first steps. and most of the companies came from, or were founded by people who had like really big farmer experience, also mostly male and and it was also recommended to me that if you wanted to do a career in medicine and chemistry or in chemistry in general, you should probably go into one of the larger companies first, start your career there and then maybe go into biotech and immediately take a leadership role. . Yeah. I met the, you know, the founding team of my Kobe at the time. It became Ironwood later. I really liked them. I liked the science they were doing and I wanted to be part of it. These were incredible scientists. We all could have done our chosen an academic career, but what we really wanted to do was make a difference and build a company around that, that we really wanted to [00:05:00] work in. And that felt like an incredibly compelling idea to me. I joined them again. I had listened to many people, but ultimately decided about my own path, a little bit different at the time, I was their first chemist. So I started the medicine chemistry program and then became in, and one of my major motivators was actually I was just wanting to learn what it takes to make a drug and see it being a small organization where I could see every step on the way. Now, where was incredibly naive was. , the arts were just against me. Even in a big pharma company. The arts would’ve been against me. Just the probabilities of success to take a molecule to clinical trials and to the market are just so against you. And forget about building a little startup on the same time, but actually we achieved it. We had, we hired our senior leadership. Some of it were coming from academia. Maybe some of it did come from big Pharma. We are, we’re a nice team. It was a wonderful time. . And we became, I became part of the [00:06:00] inventing team, part of the discovery team, the development team, and the launching team for Linz which is a drug for Inable bowel syndrome. It was a fascinating molecule. It was a fascinating mechanism and it was a wonderful indication because it was one of those indications. Women, a lot of times when they went to the primary care physician or gastroenterologist and complained about their pain and that it was really limiting their life, a lot of times they weren’t taken seriously. And so I got into this field of women’s diseases and one that I was incredibly proud of that we were able to make a difference when we got lenses to market.

Sandra Fenwick: So you obviously have taken a very purposeful career path that is really focused on making a difference. Can you reflect a little bit on some of the lessons learned? I mean, you talked a little bit about them, but you know, I think you, as I said, have had a. Sort of a unique journey that has been rarely traveled, so any lessons.[00:07:00]

Angelika Fretzen: Yeah. So I mentioned that maybe the. Role model, academic role model in the field was Jacqueline Bark when I was probably already 28. And so the really the first person I saw and could relate to in chemistry. And so I think what it taught me was to look far in between for my role model. Sometimes they were women, sometimes it was entirely so many different. Sometimes there were chemists sometimes that did something entirely different, and I find it important to find your role models and be open. Especially if you’re a minority in what you do. And I did was that in chemistry and especially I was in manufacturing later on , and so I typically was the only woman in the room. But more importantly, I think we also need to realize that for others we start to become role models maybe a little, little bit earlier than we expect, and maybe we’re not even ready. Right. So I went down, you know, the career path from scientists two. Director to vp and there might have been instances where people have already looked up to me and I [00:08:00] didn’t realize it and maybe I didn’t act the way that now would’ve liked to act. And it was brought to me recently, actually, I was also doing martial arts actually at the same time I was teaching kids martial arts. And I remember these two little twins, Maya and Isabelle, who started very young with me and I saw going through the. , I phased out. My life changed. I changed the town where I lived in and then recently I came across an Instagram page where I was on there. It was a photo and they were referring to me as one of their role models and I’m like, oh my God, , I never realized this. And they’re both now in stem. Actually one of them is, I think at the same university, Caltech of where Je Barton was , which I thought was remark. , but I think these two kids made me realize that how often I might have played this role model role and sometimes maybe I was ready and sometimes I wasn’t at all. And that’s a big responsibility for all of us. If we wanna bring other women along and encourage kids to go, sometimes a tough path. , [00:09:00] you know, because sciences are still a tough path. So, so I, you know, I think that’s a really important lesson learned to know that there could be always somebody looking at us and maybe aspiring to what we do and how we act, and that’s a big responsibility.

Sandra Fenwick: So you’re really now, and I guess, have been a leader in many different aspects not just organizationally, but a leader in pioneering. Some of the roles that you’ve taken on are you, do you see yourself as an intentional or an accidental leader?

Angelika Fretzen: Yeah. Intentional probably. But not in a hierarchical sense. Not because I wanted to have a certain title next to my name or I thought, or even an organization big or small, more because I wanted to solve problems and the best way to solve them is when you can lead a team, how it’s a solution. I will say, I also think it’s, as a leader, it’s important to be a really good team player. So sometimes you lead, sometimes you’re in the. . And maybe that’s what I was focused on. What was my passion? What did I really wanted to do? What [00:10:00] problem do I wanna solve? And if you have a good idea how you wanna solve it, then leading a team is maybe the most immediate way to get there. And I think that’s why I was probably always an intentional leader, but not with a career path in mind. And that was a title in mind. Not ever really, because you can see from my past it wasn’t that clear what I would do next.

Sandra Fenwick: So, you know, you talked about some of the characteristics. Of the attributes that you brought to your journey what were some of, if you wanna expand on them a little bit more, but also what were some of the ones that you had to learn along the way? Clearly you got an MBA after all of this, so there’s a little bit of a hint,

Angelika Fretzen: Yeah. That’s all theoretical knowledge, right? So, yeah I think there’s a few things that come together when you get into leadership. One is that you better be passionate about what you do because it’s gonna take a lot of time out of your life, and so you better enjoy it. We all have a technical competency and I think we should be good at it and take it seriously and work hard [00:11:00] towards becoming our materially. But I think the one thing that really comes with experience and where I only started to value it throughout my journey is the skill and the subtlety it sometimes takes develop relationships and to communicate well. And I’ll give you the example that maybe brings it home the best. So I worked in small biotech, right, and small biotechs for clinical trials. You don’t typically do your manufacturing yourself. You outsource it to a manufacturing organization, a lot of times big organizations, because it takes a lot of capital equipment to do it. . And so, but you’re a core customer really. You’re biotech, if you have money, everything has to be very fast. And then the markets go down and you have to slow everything down and have to say, wait, we don’t wanna spend this money right now. And then you raise your next round and everything should have happened yesterday. Right? So it’s a difficult customer to work with. And to everybody who is a CEO o of biotech I feel for you. . And at the same [00:12:00] time, you know, you are a partner who’s small, who doesn’t bring a lot of repeat business. So somehow you have to get this team on board and make them work for you and make them go the extra mile and buy into what you do. And so this communication of why it’s important what you’re doing to everybody from the, you know, ceo, all the way to the guy who works on the floor and runs the process, being explicit about it and make them part of your. and then be an exceptional partner when things go wrong because they of go wrong. When they go by. It’s easy to be a good partner when they go wrong. It’s when you really shine. When you get that phone call at eight o’clock on a Friday night that someone who active just went run, that’s when your real leadership comes out and it’s all about relationship building. It’s actually less about technical expertise cuz your technical expert a lot of times sit there, they know what to. but you have to tell them what you are ready to do now or what needs to be done from a quality perspective, how you’re gonna save your clinical [00:13:00] trial, and how you think the problem should be addressed. What was the cause in the first place. And finger pointing is certainly not the right way to go about it. So I would say, especially the highly educated scientists, there’s a lot of material knowledge we have, but we sometimes underestimate how much you’ll have to learn just by doing. and running through problems in terms of communication and relationship management. And that’s now what I’m trying to relate to the young entrepreneurs that come out of the visa, that they really need to learn a lot and listen and understand the subtleties of these relationships. When you overreact next time, when something goes wrong, they’re not gonna contact you. Right. And that’s a bad thing. So you have to be all the time on the team, a great partner. Clear what real priorities are. Not a push over, that’s not what I’m saying, but somebody who is credible and who’s a good partner to work with. And I think those are the kind of things I learn on the way and sometimes the hard way. [00:14:00] so,

Sandra Fenwick: So, you know, one of the things I truly love about being on the Board of the Vase is how unbelievably unique it is as a, an organization. How it was founded what it does today, how it’s looking at the future. Why did you decide to come and join us and what is exciting for you at the v.

Angelika Fretzen: Yeah, so, when you work into, in the area I worked in very impact focus all the way along, right? So I think what I and both companies did incredibly well was the patient focus we had was driving us and what we did every day, but it was very focused on one area, right? And it was sometimes deep into the detail. When I came and saw the visa, it was just astonishing how many technologies are there and how, what the intellect behind these technologies. What the Visa does is we are looking in healthcare and sustainability. We have faculty coming from many different splits, biology in [00:15:00] chemistry and engineering and something do some people do 3D organ engineering and molecular robotics and all these kinds of things that, you know, that were totally outside of what I was thinking about every day. And at the same time, the vase really tries to solve some big problems and the way to do that. And I think that has always directed my path too. In teams and in strong collaborations. And I think that’s what we’re really trying to do at the Beast. Take these technologies, think about your end users and all your stakeholders on the way and solve big problems in collaboration. And so that, you know, the combination of being able in to work with so many different technologies and at the same time become this relationship engineer to bring them into the future and into products. . I think that was incredibly fascinating. And yes, again I did a little bit, an unusual step there to come back from biotech into academia. But I have to also say Harvard was easy because I was a postdoc at Harvard and I loved my time at Harvard. I mean, it [00:16:00] was intellectually so stimulating. So I’m glad to be back. But also glad that I’m at the v where we thinking a little bit more about the translational aspects of product development, so that I feel that what I’ve learned in the past I can really bring to the.

Sandra Fenwick: What do you see as, you know, an exciting set of both discoveries and applications and really look at the, say the next 10 years of our future. And what do you see? Where are you specifically inspired and excited about what’s going?

Angelika Fretzen: Yeah. Nowadays we have to be people who love complexities, right? I think we are finding a lot of complex issues we are facing right now. We just came out of a pandemic. that I think opened up new views on healthcare, on diagnostics, on how we treat these things, but also how we interact around us around science, right? How do we communicate science [00:17:00] so that people don’t think it’s some crazy stuff happening behind a curtain, and it doesn’t, it’s not relevant to most of our population. I think the opposite is very true. We’re facing a climate crisis where I do think we need to give our young people some. that we are able to work with this. I don’t think we are gonna save our way out of it, but I think innovation can play an enormous role in shaping the world in a way that it’s gonna be livable for all of us, right? think we’re worried about many zones in there or on, on the globe where maybe that’s gonna become very difficult very soon. What the Visa does is it develops platform technologies sometimes super innovative ones. Sometimes the ones that we would, none of us would’ve thought about three years ago only. And at the same time, since it is platforms, there are multiple different ways of using them. And if you combine some we might also be able to solve some of the real big problems in collaboration internally with outside people who help us to steer us towards the real [00:18:00] problem. and that’s what I’m excited about. I don’t know what the future will look like. I know it’s gonna be challenging and I think a lot of our younger generation believes it’s really challenging, but I also think there’s some great hope that innovation can advance so quickly and solve problems. And then we have to rally around it and use them in the right way. And I think the Visa is really interestingly positioned through all that right to, to raise a generation with us. We are lot of post on PhD. to raise a generation that really cares about innovation, about science and about community, because that’s who we are at the V. Who cares about having an impact and then has the hope that we can redo it. And so I, that’s why I like being at the V and play that role and be encouraging to too many, especially actually to all women entre. . to raise that hope, not only for them, but a lot of our staff has kids too, and they want to tell ’em something at home. How are we gonna solve some of this? I think it’s solvable still, but boy, we better get going here, . So

Sandra Fenwick: What are [00:19:00] some of the, and some of the biggest challenges you’re facing today?

Angelika Fretzen: one of it is the challenges I think you all face, is to get our talent. Into the STEM community, right? And that includes all minorities. That includes women. It doesn’t include men, of course, , but for many different walks of life who maybe don’t have the perfect start. And stems is hard. Like the engineering, math, science, technology, those are area. that can be sometimes discouraging. You don’t always win actually. In fact, you learn losing for a long time until you start really winning and getting it. And so I think one of the key challenges we all face is to really get the young talent we need to care about the problems who come that come, but also to care about sciences and technology enough that they wanna take a similar to journey to the what I’ve taken. It hasn’t always been easy, of course not, but it has been incredibly gratify. [00:20:00] to speak another language, right? That’s really what science is. That’s why I always thought it was intriguing to do it in Switzerland and in Ireland and in Germany and America, because language per se doesn’t matter. Science is its own language, and I think we need to convince people again to do it and to see value in it and to find it interesting and exciting. So I think we all play that role for our PhD students, for our postdocs who are already with us on this topic, but also. and play that role model to say it’s possible. It’s exciting, dare to be bold and do it and get yourself ready to solve some of the big problems. Now, I would also say that for, especially for women, if we know, go ahead and we take the leadership template that was developed over the last, I don’t know many years where it was really the successful man in business. A very supporting wife at home and we put that template on female leaders and say, you know, the real success is your C-suite and [00:21:00] you know, a wonderful family. In some cases that works and it’s wonderful when it does. But it is a really high bar because we all know that the chores at home and we have seen an over covid. We are hearing the data now. A lot of the family life is still. by the mother and by the female participant in a household. So we need to let all of us, and that’s what I find sometimes difficult. We all need to encourage everybody to write their own leadership stories, to define their own template, not even a template, but to define what leadership means to them. And I’ll give you an example. , sometimes a woman who has decided to maybe do an interesting career, not have family be called Korea woman, right? Like they have done some selfish choice , which yeah, I don’t think is true. And sometimes I have seen leaders who have actually put the family first. One of my superheroes is Pat Furlong. She was a mother of two boys with Chen Muscular Dystrophy and I [00:22:00] really hope you’re gonna interview her at some point. . She was a mother of two boys with muscular dystrophy who she has both lost. And not only has she tried to deal with that disease and hold the family together, and there are many women like that, but in the end, she build an advocacy group to not only for our own boys, those ki those kids were gone. But for the whole disease that became so strong that it actually influenced the fda, how they thought about the shed muscular dystrophy. Now that is a leadership example of somebody who actually really put family. And not, it’s not a C-suite example, it’s not the big pharmaceutical company example, but I think it’s as impactful. And so where I think we sometimes struggle and it is a challenge, is to make sure we write the template for women again. And we are not imposing a template that’s really historically and what we mean by leadership on others. And we celebrate these successes and we make sure that we have a lot of shade. Of leadership and defined by [00:23:00] women, not by a society that was built around a whole different model. So it’s a little bit the challenges and the invitation to really think a little bit differently about leadership, especially for women that I would like to put together rather than just focusing on the challenges.

Sandra Fenwick: Well, thank you so much, Angelica. This was I hope. Hope as exciting and inspiring and informative to our audience as it clearly was for me to get to know you even more than I’ve been able to. So thank you for sharing your story and my best wishes to you and again, many thanks.

Angelika Fretzen: Thank you so much for having me. It was an absolute pleasure. . We only get a few occasions to tell the whole arc of our own story and it’s great. Appreciated that you’re taking the time to dig deep into our stories.