Ryan Sousa leads data innovation for Research, Hospital, and Foundation at Seattle Children’s. He is a senior leader, entrepreneur, and practitioner and brings more than 25 years of leadership experience in some of the biggest companies such as Amazon, Starbucks, Expedia, and Nokia as well as several successful startups.

Next to all the companies that Ryan has seen, he clearly noticed one key factor that drives success and innovation in companies which is empowering people! Many companies focus too much on deadlines, pressure from investors, and other things, and lose track of the main thing which is people.

To be product and not project-driven, it's crucial to share a problem instead of solutions.

In this episode, Ryan talked about the key points a leader needs to understand to empower teams instead of micromanaging them to be successful.

Table of content:

0:28 - Intro Ryan Sousa
5:20 - Paradigm shift: User centricity
7:38 - Evolvement of the health care industry
9:20 - Processes vs. company maturity
17:15 - Restructuring organizations with the right mindset
22:35 - Organizational structure to empower (product) people
28:30 - Establishing open & direct communication as a Leader
30:00 - Enabling people to be innovative
42:50 - Planning frameworks on steroids
47:55 - The value of Hackathons
49:00 - 3 things that Ryan would have done differently 10 years ago

Ryan's book recommendations:

Connect with Ryan:

Email: ryan.sousa@seattlechildrens.org

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#23 Empowering teams to be innovative - with Ryan Sousa CDO @Seattle Children's Hospital

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