Mark Mader, President & CEO, Smartsheet Inc.

In the first article of this series, I posited that a meaningful strategy for accomplishing collaborative work in the cloud can only be achieved by thinking more holistically than has traditionally been the case. The reality is that work collaboration that drives competitive advantage is a multi-faceted endeavor. It requires the adoption of multiple best-of-breed solutions across five categories of collaboration – Create, Store & Sync, Communicate, Reference, and the rapidly emerging category of Manage. Investing in each creates a composite that unlocks unprecedented value – a “new possible” where previously unimaginable levels of collaboration, automation, and insight are achieved.

The New Possible Simply put, when a new possible becomes reality, it fundamentally redefines what can be achieved and who can achieve it. Remember when video content and editing was exclusively done by pros? Today, tens of millions of producers exist, using little more than their phones and readily available software. Game, changed.

I contend that we’re now at a point when that kind of breakthrough exists for collaborative work in a way that it never could in the pre-cloud world. This new possible for collaborative work has become the new reality, by graduating from merely producing, storing, and talking about work – to actively managing it. When management is coupled with conversation and content, it improves accountability, accuracy, and speed, and yields unprecedented visibility into the work as it’s being done, and the value that can be derived from it. Collaborative software that enables enterprise teams to manage their work in a self-directed, no-code manner is doing for business operations and productivity what the iPhone did for video production. Information workers rejoice!

2. AI technologies can improve the working lives of Southeast Asians.
AI is essential to most forms of automation, from machine learning to robotics. And automated equipment and computer systems can be used to perform many of the activities that human workers do today, including repetitive and physically stressful tasks. That would free humans to concentrate on work requiring creativity and thought.

A Framework for Success
Here are the five core categories that, when fully and effectively deployed, enable organizations to fully realize their potential to undertake collaborative work in the cloud. Note that the walls between each are permeable – although an application’s primary purpose exists in but one category, that does not preclude it from having relevance in one or more of the others.

Create: Applications that aid users in the creation of content or digital assets, often shared, sometimes co-authored. (Think: Google Docs, Office 365, Adobe Creative Cloud, and others)With more than a billion people having used such software to document, plan, or design, the capability to create digital content is the most immediately understood of the five categories. A core tenet of this category is the freedom it provides its users. These applications enable nearly limitless potential to arrange, format, capture, and produce. With that freedom, however, comes somewhat of a lawless territory. The absence of “collaboration guardrails” can lead to inconsistency in how information is stored, uncertainty by collaborators of how they should complete work, and a lack of business process enforcement — which places the burden of information and process management squarely on the shoulders of information owners and collaborators.

The cost, frustration, and latency that results from relying solely on human oversight has been well documented, and has reached new heights in an era where more “cooks in the kitchen” through sharing is creating more challenges than ever before.

Store & Sync:
Applications that enable users to organize, access, secure, and share files. (Think: Box, OneDrive, Dropbox, and others)Content, once created, needs to be stored and synchronized. Performance, regulation, and risk mitigation are all contributing factors to why the storage and management of digital assets is a category that is alive and well. The pre-cloud analog was your c:\drive or your corporate fileshare. The latter was collaborative in the sense that you could provide access to multiple people. The new generation platforms greatly improve the accessibility, permission management, and, in some cases, auditability of digital assets. These platforms aren’t known for their role in creating digital content, but rather housing it, securing it, and regulating its distribution.

Communicate:
Applications that facilitate text, voice, and video from one person or group to another, often feed-based, and searchable. (Think: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business, Google Hangouts, and others)It’s remarkable to think how far things have come since the days when nearly all digital communications were conducted using email. In recent years, video conferencing, threaded messaging, group messaging, team spaces, and team channels, in which people share and comment on content, experiences and best practices, have leapt onto the scene and continue to produce new market entrants. Why is communication so attractive to innovators looking to develop software? Simple. Because communication is fundamental to information workers and the ways in which they want to collaborate with others. To some degree, one hundred percent of all people MUST communicate. Not optional. As such, the temptation of a large total addressable market remains alluring to technology innovators.

Communication solutions principally solve for conveying, and in many cases, storing information. They are optimized for notification and managing the continuous flow of sentiment, ideas, decisions, and targeted status. They, like solutions in the Create category, have virtually no guard rails for content quality or consistency, making it difficult to delineate valuable signal from a sea of noise when looking at communications en masse. As one tech CEO recently stated, communication solutions are like effective radios, but are not ideal at providing GPS information that can help you determine where you are or where you need to go next.

Reference:
Applications that create structured websites that people reference for knowledge, instruction, and navigation. (Think: SharePoint, Confluence, Google Sites, and others)While I include Reference as one of the five categories, it’s included mainly because of its close association with collaboration over the years. With respect to my categorization, I’d say it’s very much on the bubble because while the median enterprise employee might regularly access information from such a tool, far fewer contribute, and even fewer still (think less than 1%) actually create new assets on these platforms (without IT involvement) to accomplish the work for which they’re accountable.

Manage:Applications that enable visibility, action, status, and automation for collaborative projects or processes.For years, actually decades, people – and as a result, most businesses (including major enterprises) – have managed important work using office docs like Excel. And those same people have communicated about that work by sending it around, as attachments, in email. In recent years, the volume and velocity at which these office docs and their associated communications have been created has reached a dizzying – many would say unsustainable – pace.

For those of us with a front row seat to the new possible of collaborative work in the cloud, it is amazing to realize that – to a great extent – the old, manual, office doc way of organizing and getting work done has persisted, despite a recognition that the approach is fraught with risk in today’s high-volume, high-velocity world. Clearly, we believe there is a better way.

The Manage element of collaborating on work in the cloud is more than a forklift upgrade of something you used to do using pre-cloud software. It’s fundamentally new and it is transformative. In my next post, I will take a deeper look at the core tenets that bind this next-gen collaborative work management framework together – Track, Report, Scale – and will provide my thoughts on the fourth element – the holy grail long sought by information workers, IT leaders, and line-of-business owners alike – no-code Automation. In the meantime, I welcome your thoughts on this subject and encourage you to comment as appropriate.

Ina Behrendt is the kind of ‘brain’ that constantly scans, questions, and tries to evolve for the better, more productive and effective, more innovative, more human-centered, and most importantly, strives for solutions and ideas that are generated and implemented in an organic way that feels natural and right to the whole environment. “Taking challenges for solving problems, to create something for the better, is deep in my roots and part of my DNA. It’s just important that it comes out organically and evolves over time – prototype and beta-tested step by step to take everyone with you on this new journey.”

Armed with experience in the most influential digital creative agencies like R/GA, New York, inventors of Nike+ and Razorfish Australia, Ina is the Chief Innovation Officer for the INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CREATIVE INNOVATIONS – Miami Ad School Europe, where she is leading the school in regards of the digital transformation through innovative diploma programs, like Creative Technology and re-inventing the educational system for the digital age.

To help current and future business leaders regarding the rapid change, she is also driving the Professional Advanced Training, boot camps, and summits offering.

Miami Ad School Europe is one out of a global network of 15 schools around the world and has built its reputation over 25 years, as one of the world’s most awarded schools in higher education in the creative and marketing industry and is well known for producing outstanding creative graduates who are ready to work from the first day on the job. This school’s unique educational concept pairs realistic training – taught by well-known, practicing industry professionals – and hands-on, real-world experience. While still in school, Miami Ad School students may intern to choose dozens of the best global agencies and companies. This diverse approach has made their students the most awarded on the planet.

Miami Ad School is this place of infinite possibilities, collaboration, the discovery of challenge, and inspiration. The school is a refuge for the misfit, for the iconoclast, for the passion for the inventor and the visionary – a network of magic and writing, drawing, seeing, seeking and making and doing – a community that accelerates your dreams, where you become part of a global family, where everyone thinks like you and unlike you. This place is “The Place you go to, become who you are meant to be’.

Ina has also co-founded the‚ Women in Technology initiative in Sydney, Australia, a comprehensive and innovative program designed to address the gender imbalance in the STEM fields by nurturing, educating, and providing employment opportunities for women, together and initiated with her Managing Director, feminist, Doug Chapman. Their mission was to shake up the Tech World’ by addressing gender-imbalance in the digital- and tech industry. Women in Technology aimed to push for a culture change in this field through addressing digital industry gender issues with a major national program launch. The program’s key pillars are education and employment with young women in high school and tertiary institutions exposed to panels, experts, workshops, and mentors.

Women in Tech, partnered up, for example with General Assembly, hosting panel discussions, to explore, & how to shake up the tech world’. Internships and grad programs are a core part of the program, collaborating with other like-minded organizations and groups such as GirlsGeek, Miami Ad School, and the University of Sydney. It also encompasses the more experienced end of the market with senior and managing roles also targeted to benefit from the program. “It’s important to give women more confidence and opportunities in the industry, particularly when it comes to knowing how to advance their careers.”

Ina advises the budding entrepreneurs never to stop learning, observing, and collaborating. To develop new products and offers and business models, foster collaboration with partners and experts to gain for the better. It’s always a WE – never just a ME, so empower people and collaborate to help them achieve their best through your leadership and shine a light on them. “Always stay nimble and go with the time and technology progress,” she adds. “Try out and fail, as you’ll learn from it and become better. It helps to start small, prototype and beta-test – but think big!”IE

Leena Parwani, Managing Partner, Lets Plan Here, believes in solving problems with a clear intention to help people benefit from insurance. Educating the client and allowing them to decide for themselves is her working style and the most significant benefit of working with her. She likes her customers to make informed decisions and gain confidence in their financial matters. She is confident, strong and a supportive backbone of the team. Her innovative and curious qualities help her find the new gaps in the market and expand her business by filling those gaps.

According to Leena, each female business owner is a complete boss herself. “I commend them for how far they’ve come and support them no matter what. I believe that in today’s day and age, female business owners need to have an authoritative presence along with confidence to let the world know that they are here to stay,” she says. “Of course, everyone makes mistakes along the way but what makes you stronger is the persistence and willingness to learn and move ahead. I push them constantly to upgrade their skills to grow in life.”

Leena’s team is her replica in many ways that they know the standards of service to the clients as each one has learned directly from the Managing Partner. “They are my army who knows how to get things done in favor of client. I always believe that the more freedom and learning my team has access to, the better they perform. I wish that all of them become successful in all avenues of life, and hence, they are encouraged to do so.”

For Leena, there is no benchmark as such for finding success. “You feel that having money is success? Good for you! If you feel that having a family is success? Amazing! For me, having freedom, stability and opportunities to use my skills is all that I consider as success,” she explains. “Being financially free, being able to cultivate deep and meaningful relationships and being able to lead a life of joy, is my success. Milestones will keep coming, and I will keep celebrating them.” With this confidence, Leena has been surging ahead of the competition with her steadfast leadership.

Lets Plan Here Financial Services was instituted with a sole resolution—helping clients to create wealth with the help of effective and tailor-made financial planning services. The brains behind Lets Plan Here make sure that clients get goal-oriented financial recommendations to attain their dream promptly. The fusion of technology and high-end tools in their decision-making process is the cornerstone that makes them stand out in the market.

Lets Plan Here’s solution-based methodology helps clients plan their financial goals and choose the most lucrative investment avenue to park their hard-earned money. “We help our clients in the Middle East to prosper with a definite goal,” says Leena. “We at Lets Plan Here are specialists at what we offer to our valued clients. And we measure our success only with respect to our clients’ satisfaction. If their financial goals and aspirations are fulfilled, we take it as our achievement.”

The company’s proficiency in providing a comprehensive study on risk assessment and financial planning gives birth to effective investment options. It results in bringing out better financial plans and efficient wealth creation. Out of several special lines such as estate planning insurance, which focuses on addressing third generation syndrome, health insurance for Sr. Citizens, or corporate health insurance, Lets Plan Here has succeeded in educating people on how insurance benefits can save their lifetime wealth.

Leena and her team’s goal is to add value to one million lives in the next 5 years and grow their team organically. They are working on creating a product for retirement visa holders in terms of their health insurance, and cost-effective plans for that age group. “UAE is inviting new expats and offering ease for setting up businesses and making attractive offers to live here, while not to forget that this country is sharia complained. Therefore, right insurance becomes important to protect business and family and we constantly growing,” adds Leena. “We have expanded license in various countries, and we plan to expand here as well because of the new inflow of businesspeople.” WL

Jennifer Nardicchio joined Element in 2020 after many years as a marketing leader in the automotive industry. In her short time at Element so far she has transformed the structure and functionality of the marketing department, effectively centralizing the marketing team to allow all of Element’s business segments and their many new acquisitions access to the same marketing resources. Her efforts have helped to ensure that branding is consistent across the Americas and that Element’s many geographically separated laboratories have proper marketing support. Jennifer notes, “My goal is to establish a marketing center of excellence, that delivers great support and customer service to all our business units in the Americas”.

Element provides product and materials testing and certification services, along with advisory support, to a wide range of industries in verticals such as aerospace and defense, connected technologies, life sciences, transportation, industrials, and environmental monitoring. It tests everything from jet engines to electric car batteries, hearing aids to 5G devices, hand sanitizers, water, and food products at its hundreds of facilities throughout the world. Element collaborates with all parts of the supply chain to ensure that products fulfill manufacturer specifications and are fit for use in the marketplace. Additionally, Element offers a variety of services, ranging from consulting to custom testing, to assist manufacturers in understanding and meeting the regulatory standards that apply to their products.

“Just as in the real estate industry, ‘location’ is everything, at Element it’s all about the ‘people’. Our technicians are at the forefront of their respective scientific fields, and I want to empower the marketing team to be on the cutting edge of marketing industry trends.”

One of the most interesting factors of Element’s marketing is showcasing its specialists’ thought leadership and trustworthiness. Element employs the industry’s most experienced engineers and technicians, and Jennifer Nardicchio and her marketing team are responsible for proactively communicating Element’s expertise to potential clients across all verticals in a clear and straightforward manner. Both teams work hand in hand to exemplify the company’s purpose of “making tomorrow safer than today.” Element’s aim is to deliver the right message to the right individuals at the right moment. They achieve this by utilizing media that is at the forefront of the marketing industry, along with periodicals, tradeshows, email, social media channels, and pay-per-click advertising. Element relies on its marketing team to create campaigns that connect with a diverse client base. As such, it is critical that the marketing organization is aligned with internal thought leaders to ensure key messages are communicated properly and understood by their technical audience.

“Just as in the real estate industry, ‘location’ is everything, at Element it’s all about the ‘people’”, said Jennifer. Of course, machinery and computer programs are used in Element’s services, but the technicians and engineers with truly cutting-edge technical knowledge who understand how to execute these tests and analyze the results are invaluable. “Element’s ability to be a full-service partner for manufacturers is another major differentiator,” comments Nardicchio. Within its own labs around the world, Element can test a wide range of products, materials, and systems, and provide advisory support for regulatory and compliance testing. It enables Element to work end-to-end with customers throughout the entire product development process, as well as test a wide range of goods for the same manufacturer. Element is also involved in the testing of first responder equipment, such as those used by EMTs, police officers, and firefighters. During the pandemic, Element even assisted in the efficacy testing for disinfectants and hand sanitizers against COVID-19. Element is well-positioned to fulfill future market needs, so they continue to innovate and enhance new technologies before they reach the wider public.

“People are our most important asset,” Jennifer says, “and their feelings and expectations really matter to me. It is important to me to spend regular time with team members at all levels to learn about what is working well, what they enjoy most about their roles, and where we have the opportunity to grow. This includes everything from internal resources like equipment and advanced software to external resources like training from experts in the marketplace. Implementing these efforts and advancements will help keep the team on the forefront of the latest processes and marketing channels and inspire personal development.” Jennifer Nardicchio always keeps a positive attitude and looks at a challenge as an opportunity. Jennifer’s broad vision has set the pace for her team to be recognized as the marketing center of excellence, whose members work every day to showcase the future of the Element Materials Technology brand. IEWL

Silvia Graciela Tenazinha, Head of Commercial Banking and Wealth Management Santander Argentina is part of a team transforming Santander, and she is proud to be part of that team. “The main challenge is to transform a Santander of products into a Santander of customers. It is to turn the organization around so that everything is focused on the customer and not on the product. This seems very easy to say, but it implies a change of DNA,” says Silvia, who works with her team to take the bank to new heights.

Silvia is passionate about purposeful technological advances. “Why do I think this? Because I see in technology the potential to improve the quality of people’s lives. I firmly believe that technology enables new ways of doing things. Technology gives us opportunities. Digitalization brings us closer to people, their stories, their projects and their dreams,” she explains.

“Behind figures there are top stories…. What do I mean by these stories? The protagonists do everything to progress and we want to support them. It is a fact: technology equalizes opportunities. Today, access to information is within everyone’s reach. Let’s build on this by helping people and businesses thrive.”

Banco Santander Argentina is the largest bank in Argentina and what they do has a significant impact on the market. Santander is a leader and has a unique positioning. But they always have to go one step further, and there is always an opportunity to improve their understanding of what the customer wants and needs. “It is a path that started some time ago and that we are outlining day by day, and it never ends, and improvement is continuous. We are a reference in the Argentine financial market, which implies that we have and want to be pioneers in many areas, helping to advance and consolidate the financial system. That is our hallmark.”

Silvia is inspiring and empowering team members to become great leaders of tomorrow. “Our world has changed a lot, and the ways of working are no longer the same as years ago. We left behind the work in silos with agile work methodologies and gave way to work in cells. We believe in “netarchy” over hierarchy, and it is important because an agile company has empowered leaders who work in a horizontal format.”

She is building closer leadership when horizontal teams are connected to the needs of both employees and the customers. According to her, a leader is not a boss. A leader helps develop the best talent of each member of their team, making each one shine and perform at their best. High-performance teams generally do not have many individual stars but have a team based on trust, commitment, mystique, fun, and gain success. “Success is a continuous work of overcoming and learning. It is a journey that begins but does not end and that is the most fun. It is a path, not a goal. If we define that someone is successful, they have managed to do a task that they love, that they do with commitment and leave a mark. It is not about your position, but it is about doing it with passion and, therefore, with motivation.”

The 20 years of experience in the sector has allowed Silvia to investigate, study, learn and apply technology for the good of business and, above all, of people. “We believe in the culture of learning through error. We encourage people to do, make mistakes and learn.” One of the objectives is the participation of women in the labor market. The pandemic produced a severe setback in this issue, more than anything else because the country went back to work at home without outside help in many cases, so the bank had to combine work with care and domestic tasks.

“Today, 56% of women in Argentina are heads of household, that is to say that they are the main income of their household and this is a great responsibility and with the pandemic, in many cases this has been accentuated,” says Silvia. “A lot of progress has been made, there are many companies socially committed to this and we lose a lot of talent if we do not incorporate the female vision to our businesses. Additionally, women incorporated into the labor world help to eliminate toxic social elements (domestic violence, abuse, among other issues).” WL

When Paula Provoznik was hired by Palo Alto Hills Golf & Country Club in September of 2018, the Board of Directors was enacting a plan to transform the club facilities, golf course, and programming, but they also wanted to create systemic change from the top down with management. They wanted a new approach to behind-the-scenes operations that would carry through to create a tangible and more meaningful member experience with measurable outcomes. “Though I was coming from another country club where I had handled communications, operations and programing, I’d never been on the sales side of the operation so the Member Services, role was new for me,” says Paula. “What I was able to bring, however, was experience leading a club through a major $15 million renovation while maintaining high member engagement and satisfaction. So, I was brought on to bridge that transition in management while also taking the opportunity that change provided to create a new culture of service delivery for our members.”

“I’m successful if the club is successful, and the club is successful if the members are happy.”

Paula’s focus has always been on the member experience and doing everything they can to go above and beyond, providing members and clients what they need before they know they need it. For example, during the pandemic and the renovation when golf was limited or unavailable, they enhanced other amenities to keep members engaged and connected to our community. Nearly four years later, the management team has been reconfigured, and the team is powerful and dedicated to working together and doing what’s best for the membership.

“We have a Management in Development Program at PAH that attracts a lot of young staff who are new to the industry and it’s been really inspiring to work with them and share the knowledge I have, which is instinctive at this point,” adds Paula. “I’m a member of the Club Managers Association of America, which is a great network for all club managers, but especially for women in the industry. The organization is generous with resources to help women take the lead and it provides a forum to network with other women, which also provides me with opportunities to collaborate with these women in our industry. Private clubs are such a male-driven environment that it’s very important to ensure that women feel supported and appreciated.”

Apart from enhancing the visibility of women in the sector, Paula leads by example and works side-by-side with her team members to show them how to deliver a high level of service. “I have always possessed a servant leader mentality which is what lead me to this industry and my role to develop talent, showing them to think about not just the details but the bigger picture – that’s where we can be creative and showcase leadership by integrating new amenities holistically. We create programming for all members of the family at the same time so we can provide something for everyone no matter what the interest or their level in any activity.” Armed with such a strong ideology, Paula has attained immense success.

“I encourage everyone to enjoy their work. I love what I do because it is about the team and we get to celebrate our successes with the members. When you work at a club where you believe in the mission, it’s easy to put in the work,” she elucidates. “It’s not about my success; it’s the success of the club and all of the talent in the room that gets us to these pinnacle moments, such as unveiling our new 18-hole golf course or completely updating our dining amenities to exceed the expectations of our members. I’m successful if the club is successful, and the club is successful if the members are happy.”

One of the club’s biggest accomplishments has been overcoming a membership turnover of over 25% throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. For most clubs, that would be devastating, but thanks to their member-centric focus and prioritizing the member experience, the club maintained a full roster with a waitlist, and dropped the average age of membership by 10 years. As a result of the member centric philosophy, the membership share price has increased by 400%. “We achieved this by being focused on creating value by association. During those really challenging, uncertain early days of the pandemic, we quickly launched to-go food service, which expanded to include groceries and household staples, virtual wine tasting and cooking classes, and instruction and tips from the Pro’s in golf, fitness, tennis and swimming so members were able to have not only their basic needs met but created a deep nurturing and emotional connection in one place.”

The club has been a lifeline to many during tough times, and for the days to come, the focus will continue to be on the member experience. “We need to remain fresh in our service offerings and provide a consistent delivery of experience. By focusing on innovation and improving our systems we will continue to be a leader in the industry and deliver life changing experiences with a human touch.” WL

When Milena Kanova joined Palladio Biosciences 15 months ago, the company was scaling up its operations in the planning of the execution of their global pivotal phase III study. The scale and complexity of the study required large-scale global expertise and the attention to a detailed strategy approach, which forms the basis of rare disease research. It also requires a highly functioning team of experts to rise to the challenge. Over her 25 years in the industry, she has been fortunate to work with professionals in almost every country globally, establishing a strong professional network of trusted colleagues. With their help and support from the Centessa and Palladio Leadership Teams, in less than 3 months, they were able to recruit and structure an excellent global team of experts with complementary skills, enthusiasm, and expertise.

Milena sits on the board of a woman-led start-up organization in Africa, working closely with the young management team to provide support and encouragement and pass on all her learning to establish new clinical research countries.

It is revealing how history repeats itself even many years later, how the challenges of clinical research in Africa are like those when Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) was taking its first steps and when the first countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) joined the clinical research map, too. “Palladio values our growth and development and is supporting a strong mentor-mentee program in which I also participate both as a mentor and as a mentee. There is always so much still to be learned by all of us.”

There is a statue in the United Nations city in Vienna of a woman who has stepped out of her frame and outgrown it. “I found that image very empowering over the years. It has helped me find strength in myself to overcome obstacles, limitations and restrains, and outgrow them, and look forward with passion,” she says.

“I have always strived to support my teams to adopt the same approach to work and life and empower them to stretch the frame of their comfort and expand their knowledge, experience, and influence. Once you open another door, and step out of a frame, there is no going back. I think this is what is driving progress in general, too.”

Milena’s career started in Bulgaria, meandering to Turkey, where she worked out of Istanbul, and then to the UK. She started as a CRA in Sofia and has grown together with the clinical research industry in CEE and MENA with increasing responsibilities and expanding remit. “Operationally, I have also worked as a Clinical Lead, Project Manager, and Medical Advisor, Rare and Orphan Diseases strategy unit leader, and Global Therapeutic Area Head for Psychiatry and Neurology with a team of more than 120 Project Leaders and Study Managers,” adds Milena.

“It was only when I joined the biotechnology industry, that I was able to apply all my skills, knowledge, and expertise fully, combining the sharp focus on science and quality with the drive for successful and efficient delivery.”

One thing Milena learned was to value and honor every success. She was extremely proud when the highest recruiting site in a pediatric study was one she worked with as a Clinical Research Associate, when the organization she led in Turkey successfully delivered clinical trials in complex indications, and when the first FDA inspection in Eastern Europe at a site she monitored had no findings, when she was awarded a Presidents Club award at Quintiles, whenever a new product reached patients in need and improved their lives, every time a colleague or a team member got promoted and their success rewarded. “I think being successful is a process and not something that suddenly comes to you. It is a path paved with hard work, dedication, with the help of the many mentors, leaders, and colleagues I had the honor to learn from and work with.”

The steadfast leader believes in a future state of health care that will be centered around the individual and where everyone will have equal access to the most advanced treatment. She believes every success in developing new treatments brings people closer to the future of personalized medicine and well-being maintenance. She is now focused on further developing the clinical operations team at Palladio and expanding their collaboration network with Centessa. “While technology advancements and scientific discoveries in medicine pave the way for a better future, many challenges of our daily lives require nimbleness and flexibility, and strong support from our families, friends, and colleagues to overcome. I am grateful for all of them!” WL

Dharti Pancholi likes empowering people, whether it is her team, her clients, or her network. She believes in bringing together people with diverse experiences, skills, or perspectives, who might not normally work together, and collectively develop something, grow a company, or add capabilities.

Dharti’s industrial network, including her former direct reports and people with no reporting relationships, look at her as their mentor. Dharti has an “open-phone policy,” and hundreds of people have called her for career advice. She genuinely likes to be this part of people’s success, to see her mentees succeed. She likes brainstorming with them about their long-term aspirations and laying out their short-term goals. She guides them to pursue value-added certifications, skills, degrees, and experiences that can enhance their ability to excel and set paths to achieve their dreams. “I like to have the ability to touch someone’s life in a positive way – both male and female. I have promoted many woman-owned businesses and female leaders on social media,” says Dharti. “I also mentor several female entrepreneurs to use strategies and take actions toward making a positive impact both for their businesses and in the world.” Some female business owners have passion, determination, and conviction, but their companies are in the rescue phase; Dharti has supported them with the process, infrastructure, and other guidance to save their companies.

For the last two decades Dharti has always been passionately involved in the biotech and pharmaceutical engineering industry. She has tried to contribute her expertise and ideology to this arena in various ways through some of the most brilliant companies including MedImmune /AstraZeneca, Codexis Inc., ADVENT Engineering Services, NNE Pharmaplan. She is the Chair for ISPE’s Disposable (Single Use) COP (Community of Practice) and has presented at multiple industrial forums. She holds a Masters’ degree in Chemical Engineering with emphasis in biotechnology. “Our industry continues to implement new technologies, Cell-, gene-, immune-therapies, mRNA, and evolve how to bring biologics, vaccines, antibodies to market faster and more efficiently,” she says. “I absolutely love to support the life science companies with solutions and talents, to help bring their innovation to market, and to improve patience lives and business processes.”

As the executive vice president and global managing director of PharmEng, Dharti has spearheaded some expansion efforts to grow PharmEng in new territories, e.g., southern and northern California, Denmark, etc. All domains she established had been ‘profitable’ in no time. Additionally, Dharti has been the catalyst for some of the outstanding opportunities that PharmEng conquered, including opportunities that many leaders of PharmEng thought were not commonly possible to pursue.

For example, one of the leading Covid-19 manufacturers reached out to PharmEng and several similar bio-pharma service companies with specific reosurce requests to provide many automation resources and some process engineers in less than a week. When most companies and many leads from PharmEng thought this was not normally doable, Dharti took on the challenge of bidding on this with unique strategies, such as partnering with vendors. She has always believed in collaboration with vendors and other companies that most will view as competitors only. She built a robust ecosystem of partners to enhance collaboration and gain access to data sources outside the organization. These cooperative alliances enabled them to expand into the competencies and provide timely solutions to the client to win this opportunity. This empowered team members to manage this project to develop the site further and to take on similar challenging proposals in the future. Several of these approaches by Dharti has set new standards for PharmEng. Due to the aftermath of the opportunity, PharmEng Technology aims to master the new logic of competition by building such strong cooperative alliances approach to expand data- and analytics-driven solutions so they can quickly use old and new data sources to improve their current value proposition.

In addition to working in the life science industry as executive VP and MD of PharmEng and owning a company Omni Consulting Services, Dharti is also an investor. “In the past, I used to only invest mostly in publicly traded companies but lately I am seriously looking into investing more in small private firms. During Pandemic, biopharma industry has shifted its deal strategy,” she explains. “To mitigate Pandemic, some life science companies partnered, some companies merged, or some companies formed collective specific product interest companies. Contributing to such partnering efforts, as well as mergers and acquisitions to strength company’s portfolio, primarily in life science space is part of my interest and this should also help ecosystem.” WL

Sukumari Shorey, Manager – Digital Marketing,
Radiant Insights

Global big data in the healthcare & pharmaceutical market is estimated to witness a strong growth rate during the forecast years (from 2017 to 2030). The term big data describes large data sets. Along with traditional data, big data integrates many new types of data and data management. Data volumes in the healthcare IT sector have increased tremendously as a result of rapid adoption of different wearable and m-health technologies in the healthcare industry. Current big data trends in healthcare offer benefits to caretakers as well as to patients, such as real-time patient monitoring.

•Healthcare Internet-of-Things (IoT)

The term IoT defines the ever-increasing number of smart, interconnected sensors and devices that share data across the Internet. These devices monitor patient vitals, right from blood glucose levels to heart functions and blood pressure. Data collected by these devices sometimes need follow-up visits to the clinic, but smart devices eliminate the need for any follow-up visits. The best example of this would be smart medicine dispensers. Smart dispensers can sense whether or not a patient is taking the prescribed medicines regularly and can also initiate a call to remind the patient.

•Predictive AnalysisElectronic Health Records (EHR) allows sharing of patient data between patients, insurance companies, and healthcare providers to reduce costs and enhance patient outcomes. Thus, with access to a huge amount of structured and unstructured patient information across various data sources, predictive analysis can help diagnose patient conditions and predict people at risk of disease or hospital readmission.

•Real-time Patient Monitoring

Real-time analysis of collected patient information helps recognize any changes in a patient’s health condition, which allows caregivers the ability to make quick medical decisions based on the analysis results.Growth of the big data in healthcare and pharmaceutical market can be attributed to the many advantages presented. Datawatch Corp.; Absolutdata Research and Analytics; Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD); American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM); 1010data, Inc.; and The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) are some of the prominent companies operating in the global market.

Andrea Atkins works as a marketing manager at Google Cloud, focusing on higher education offerings for faculty and students. She is also a champion for tech diversity and creates educational programs for underrepresented communities who have historically been excluded from stem coursework and lucrative technical roles.

Cloud skills are in demand, with a 66.74% increase over the past year in job listings. While the number of cloud computing jobs increases quickly, a shrinking pool of qualified candidates is also available to fill these roles. These roles are challenging to staff at the entry level, especially for candidates belonging to communities of color.

A recent study from Deutsche Bank shows that the current racial tech gap, if left unaddressed, could get Black+ and Latinx workers disqualified or unprepared for 86% of U.S. jobs by the year 2045. Andrea supports several EDU teams at Google to create programs to change this industry trend and help meet the demand for qualified cloud computing job seekers.

“At Google we aspire to design tools for everyone. Our education teams provide a portfolio of free training, labs, and classroom credits, and curriculum designed to empower learners to upskill and pursue new careers,” she explains. “Years ago I was the one woman and only person of color struggling through my computer science degree despite bullying and microaggressions from my classmates and instructor, and now I’m fortunate to work on programs like Career Jumpstart, Google Cloud’s first virtual learning journey for underrepresented communities. Leveling the playing field by providing new pathways into technical fields for minorities gives me purpose and fulfillment in my work.”

For Andrea, her mother has been her role, constantly influencing her to become a steadfast leader. “My mother, who hailed from rural Mississippi and faced harsh discrimination on her journey to becoming a university professor has taught me everything. She never forgot these struggles and continued to serve students at historically black colleges through her entire career. This is the value I impart to everyone.”

According to Andrea, “marketing is an amazing field because it encompasses so many different jobs and activities. One minute you’re working on a study to collect biometric feedback to visual stimuli and the next day you may be writing a white paper for enterprise customers or planning a large conference in a different country.” She adds, “within the company marketing is the glue between sales, product development, and customer service so we get a complete view of how well we’re meeting customer needs that most other teams aren’t privy to.” Modern marketing is much more data-driven now, and many of us have picked up data science skills to keep up with new marketing channels and technologies. Marketing is always evolving alongside technology, and this is undoubtedly an exciting time to be a marketer.

Effective marketing strategy must connect the right user with the right product at the right time and the correct cost. “I still see diaper ads on social media and my twin daughters are seniors in high school! With the marketing data we have available today this lack of proper targeting is unnecessary, wastes marketing dollars, and creates a poor brand experience for users.” Return on investment is critical for effective campaigns along with a solid testing strategy. “If your marketing campaigns convert to sales, but don’t generate more revenue than your campaign spend you’ll lose money very quickly! Build experimentation into your strategy to identify messaging and channels that optimize your returns,” she explains.

According to Andrea, “as marketers we want to create the best experience we can build, and that includes ensuring our campaigns are as inclusive as possible. Being inclusive shouldn’t be an afterthought, it should be a fundamental part of our approach. From choosing wheelchair accessible venues to using gender-neutral language in collateral, to using diverse groups in our imagery, we can all do our part to promote diversity and inclusion in our daily work.” IEWL

Google

Management

Andrea Atkins
Marketing Manager at Google

Description

A problem isn’t truly solved until it’s solved for all. Googlers build products that help create opportunities for everyone, whether down the street or across the globe. Bring your insight, imagination and a healthy disregard for the impossible. Bring everything that makes you unique. Together, we can build for everyone.