SpreadLove In Organizations - Healthcare Leadership

"What makes you tick?" Alon Shklarek took this question to a deep reflection that led him to be free. Free to create impact through businesses, live his purpose to improve the world, and fix meaningful problems. His deep belief is that every company should have a social impact focus, and deeply think about how with their capabilities they can make the world a better place. Hear his thoughts on leadership being a team sport, his views on entrepreneurship, him not being George Clooney, and his words of wisdom on impact. "When I see a problem I care about, I start a business." MEET OUR GUEST Alon Shklarek, serial impact entrepreneur, investor, and enabler. Alon has founded, co-founded, and invested in over 25 businesses across 16 countries to date. Whether it is his ventures in the digital health space that are improving health outcomes for thousands of patients every day or his sustainability-focused ventures such as his leading plastics recycling company that gives over 100.000 tons of plastic waste a second life every year, all his companies are focused around leading with purpose and impact. As an active Impact Investor Alon directly supports and mentors selected social entrepreneurs and is an ASN member of Ashoka, the world’s leading social entrepreneurship organization. Besides, Alon teaches Leadership and Entrepreneurship as Guest Lecturer at MIT. More from Alon: Blog: https://www.alonshklarek.com/blog/category/blogpost/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/alonshklarek

It starts with the right people to solve the 75 steps! Jonathan Fleming is clear on what it takes to build successful biotech companies. He has built, cofounded, and funded several companies serving and changing the lives of millions of patients worldwide. Great leaders are humble and mindful enough to understand the blessing they were given for them to give back. They lead with care and love, especially in healthcare. Leadership is also about knowing when to go. In this provocative episode, you will hear incredible insights and straightforward words of wisdom. A great summary for us leading healthcare organizations: we should never forget our moral, ethical, and legal responsibility for patients, employees, and shareholders. "Leading with love and care is something you should do to the core of your being in healthcare." MEET OUR GUEST Jonathan Fleming Executive Chairman of QurAlis and Enclear Therapies. Former President and CEO of Q-State Biosciences, and former Managing Partner of Oxford Bioscience Partners, an international venture capital firm specialized in life science investments. Jonathan has been founding, financing, and operating breakthrough life science companies for over 30 years in the USA, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. During his career, he has raised more than $1 billion for early-stage investment funds that made more than 200 investments resulting in over 20 IPOs and 40 M&A events. Jonathan has been the CEO of a neuroscience company, been the chairman of the board of numerous organizations, and been a director of many public and private companies. He has participated in the creation of numerous startups and has worked with seven different Nobel laureates to create and build companies based upon their work. Jonathan has been a senior lecturer at the Sloan School since 2002 where I met him in an incredible class on strategic decisions in Life Science. 

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and don't forget Belonging. Belonging is one of the most crucial aspects we talk less about but greatly impacts us. We also talked about Health Equity, what it means, and what we can do as healthcare leaders - it starts by raising the problem for us to start solving it! Hear why quality is about love and other incredible insights in this conversation with a Top Voice in healthcare, Dr. Umbereen Nehal. "You have to raise a problem for it to be problem-solved." MEET OUR GUEST Umbereen S. Nehal, MD, MPH is a Dean’s Fellow and Sloan Fellow at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Her work is at the intersection of technology, policy, and healthcare delivery to diverse populations. Umbereen is a recognized thought leader on human-centered health information technology (HIT) design, ethical artificial intelligence (AI), payment reform, quality, and reducing disparities. Educated at Aga Khan University Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, Dr. Nehal trained at Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine followed by the Harvard Pediatric Health Services Research Fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital. Four times Dr. Nehal has been named “LinkedIn Top Voice” for “Healthcare” and as a “Top Female Voice” on International Women’s Day. As Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Medical Affairs of Community Healthcare Network, Dr. Nehal led a 14-site multi-specialty certified Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) serving 85,000 New Yorkers including behavioral health integration and telehealth. She had oversight of over 700 staff and a $100 million operating budget. Dr. Nehal served as Associate Medical Director of MassHealth -- a Medicaid program serving 1.6 million members and accounting for 40% of the state budget -- providing leadership on program development and evaluation, cost effectiveness evaluation, population health initiatives, and state-wide information “HIway” for intraoperability. Dr. Nehal served as clinical lead for the 5-year restructuring to create new Accountable Care Organization (ACO) models, co-leading a successful bid for $1.8b in new investment from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Dr. Nehal has expertise in leading multi-disciplinary teams for change management. She designed novel HIT for Medicare Advantage plans to track and rank new forms of data used for payment by CMS and contributed to a Series C fund raise for a client that offers an integrated cloud-based medial data and extraction platform enhanced by AI and natural language processing (NLP). As an MIT Sloan Fellow Dr. Nehal led an AI-focused hackathon, drawing hundreds of innovators from around the world, for human-centered design solution in the age of COVID-19 and was an invited senior author on a chapter on business models, payment metrics, and business ethics for medical AI. Dr. Nehal served as co-chair of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Healthcare Delivery and Disparities Research advisory panel, she informed national funding priorities for a portfolio of over $300 million clinical effectiveness evaluations. She co-authored national curriculum on the Patient-Centered Medical Home, now disseminated to over 8,000 residents. She is published on use of the Electronic Health Record (EHR) to promote transition planning for children with disabilities. She provided expert review to the Connecticut Department of Public Health’s medical home curriculum. Elected by her peers, she served as district representative and on the board for the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. A frequent invited stakeholder to the White House, CMS, HHS, and NIH, she was asked to moderate a panel for U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Regina Benjamin. Dr. Nehal served as the Principal Investigator of a community health grant to partner with community-based organizations and faith groups in low-resourced communities to promote improved heart health aligned with the Culture of Health. Dr. Nehal’s national leadership on community engagement won recognition from President Obama.

In this episode, I had a great conversation with a leader in Mindset: Aden Eyob. Aden is a clinical neuroscientist and author of the Book on Mind Training: The Secret for Positive Living. She is the founder and CEO of Mind Medication, a fusion of neuroscience-psychology and spirituality-based mindset consulting and speaker service that helps uncover people’s “why”, unlock potential, and free limiting beliefs to achieve the impossible. Aden’s mission is a world free from limiting beliefs. Her formula is straightforward: Change your thought for it to be positive, it brings positive emotions and leads to the correct behavior. Hear about her great CALM framework: Clarity of the why, Accountability of goals, Love and self-care, and Motivators. "Thought + Emotion = Behavior" MEET OUR GUEST Aden Eyob, Founder & CEO at Mind Medication, Author, Speaker, and Clinical Neuroscientist. Aden has over ten years of business experience working with Fortune 500 companies, including Gilead Sciences, Kite Pharma, Medpace, Kantar Health, Ogilvy Healthworld, and academic institutions such as UCLA and Charles R. Drew University. Currently, Aden is the founder and CEO of Mind Medication, a fusion of neuroscience-psychology and spirituality-based mindset consulting, coaching, and speaker service that helps organizations uncover their why, unlock potential; and free limiting beliefs to achieve the impossible. Before beginning her business, Aden spent most of her career in Biotechnology, most notable, three years at Gilead Sciences / Kite Pharma. She worked as a Clinical Trial Management professional within the oncology therapy unit. She also led Gilead’s Leadership Organization of Black Employees (GLOBE) Community Outreach Pillar, which engages in philanthropic endeavors and investments that provide opportunities to give back to the UK communities in which Gilead operates. Aden’s innovative thinking and mindfulness approach towards her career, health, and personal commitments were recognized by her peers and awarded the Women at Gilead Life Balance Award for 2018. Moreover, Aden is the recipient of Brainz CREA Global Awards 2021 in recognition of her innovative ideas, adaptability in business, and contribution to mental health projects.

Zen Chu built and invested in several successful medical and healthcare companies, his key to success: People first. When reflecting on the investor side, this doesn't change either, it starts with people. For Zen, the best leaders and investors are those focused on impact, and when love is in their life, it allows them to be laser-focused on the impact they bring. In this episode, hear Zen's incredible personal story and journey, his insightful advice, and lessons learned from leading turnarounds to building extremely successful ventures! "Love in your life allows you to focus purely on impact." MEET OUR GUEST Zen Chu, Health Tech Serial Entrepreneur, and Investor. Faculty Director for the Healthcare Ventures graduate courses and Hacking Medicine student teams at MIT, Harvard Medical School and UCLA. As founder of four medical companies and Hacking Medicine Venture Capital fund, Zen has 25 years of experience building early-stage medical technology and healthcare service companies, usually serving among the first investors in companies like PillPack.com, Abridge.com, FeelMore Labs, Nurx.com, Aptible, Luminopia, Molecule.to, MycoMedica, DirectDerm and a few others still in stealth mode. Zen cofounded and served as CEO for 3D-Matrix Medical Inc. a venture-backed MIT regenerative medicine company with a successful IPO in 2011. 3D-Matrix has wound-healing and drug-delivery products on the market outside of the US and multiple human clinical trials in process. I met Zen through the MIT Healthcare Ventures, a course that teaches entrepreneurship, business models, and venture creation around technology that can transform healthcare. Zen actively consults companies in pharma, health tech, and healthcare systems struggling to adapt to global digital healthcare transformation and emerging markets.

You rarely chat with a leader with such extensive successful experience, from building companies to being on boards of large institutions, whose purpose is to make people happy. Through his humility and focus on mutual respect, transparency, and honesty, Jim Dougherty believes that one of the most important keys to success is the culture you create in a company. For him, culture should be created strategically in every company including startups, and not only be words on a wall or a slide. You'll hear incredible advice on how to lead turnarounds while engaging teams to thrive and be at their best. In the end, people will remember how they felt with you, and this is the legacy that will remain... "People want to work with you because they want to learn how to behave like you." MEET OUR GUEST Jim Dougherty Executive Chairman and Co-Founder at Madaket Health. Jim is an entrepreneur, senior executive, and also Senior Lecturer in Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Strategic Management at MIT. He has extensive experience working directly with investors to execute highly successful turnarounds of troubled companies. He has stabilized and recapitalized such companies as Gartner, IntraLinks, Prodigy, and Small Business ISP. At Lotus Development Corporation, Jim was the founder of eApps (Internet Division), and he created the NOTES: NEWSSTAND business publishing service which was later sold successfully. He is also an Adjunct Senior Fellow for Business and Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He sits on the board of different institutions too. Jim is on the Board of Trustees for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he Chairs the Research Oversight Committee, Bright Spirit Children's Foundation, and the Foreign Policy Association in New York City. Jim holds a BA in government from Framingham State University, an MA in international economics from Columbia University, and a Graduate Certificate of Special Studies in finance and administration from Harvard University. Here are the great articles from Jim Dougherty we mentioned in the episode published in Harvard Business Review - HBR.

AI is simply the future, more explicitly Dimitris Bertsimas likes to talk about analytics which is for him the science of using data to build models that lead to decisions that impact the world positively. Personalized medicine is the aspiring future that we will get to soon. As leaders, we will have to drive those changes. This needs courage and openness to what data tells us. Hear from a leader who changed medical practices through data, models and decisions and impacted positively thousands of lives. "The beauty of computers is they don't get tired", but they can't replace humans, hear more about it in this episode. "Love is the most significant aspect of human happiness" MEET OUR GUEST Dimitris Bartsimas Associate Dean of Business Analytics, Boeing Professor of Operations Research, and faculty director of the Master of Business Analytics at MIT. Dimitris is Global Operations Professor of Management, a Professor of Operations Research, and the Associate Dean for the Master of Business Analytics at MIT. A faculty member since 1988, his research interests include optimization, stochastic systems, machine learning, and their application. In recent years, he has worked in robust optimization, statistics, healthcare, transportation, and finance. Dimitris is also a serial entrepreneur and was a co-founder of Dynamic Ideas, sold to American Express. He is also the founder of Dynamic Ideas Press, a publisher of scientific books, the cofounder of Benefits Science, a company that designs health care plans for companies, Dynamic Ideas Financial, a company that provides financial advice to customers, of Alpha Dynamics, an asset management company, P2 Analytics, an analytics consulting company, and of MyA health, a personalized health care advice company.  Dimitris has coauthored more than 200 scientific papers and several books. He is the former department editor of Optimization for Management Science and of Operations Research in Financial Engineering. A member of the National Academy of Engineering and an INFORMS fellow, he has received numerous research awards, including the Harold Larnder Prize (2016), the Philip Morse Lectureship prize (2013), the William Pierskalla best paper award in health care (2013), best paper award in Trapsoration (2013), the Farkas Prize (2008), the Erlang Prize (1996), the SIAM Prize in Optimization (1996), the Bodossaki Prize (1998), and the Presidential Young Investigator Award (1991–1996). He has also received recognition for his educational contributions: The Jamieson prize (2013) and the Samuel M. Seegal prize (1999).  Dimitris holds a BS in electrical engineering and computer science from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, as well as an MS in operations research and a PhD in applied mathematics and operations research from MIT.

We've been hearing a lot lately about empathy and its importance in leadership (finally!), have you heard about compassionate leadership? Marissa Afton will take us through her work and research on what compassionate leaders do to build and engage high-performing teams and deliver success. You'll also hear about self-care and the importance of "kindness to self" with great practical tips for us to fit in our daily schedules, like performance breaks and self space. "Do Hard Things in a Human Way" MEET OUR GUEST Marissa Afton International Partner & Head of Global Accounts at Potential Project Marissa is a Partner and Head of Global Accounts at Potential Project. She is a driving force behind leadership development and change initiatives at multinational companies, helping leaders and organizations unlock their potential to create cultural excellence and superior performance, resilience, and innovation.  A mindfulness practitioner for over 25 years, Marissa is recognized for her breadth of knowledge and deep experience in transforming organizations by transforming the mind. She is a sought-after speaker at leadership conferences about the impact of mind training on high-performing cultures, as well as the mental qualities of excellent leaders. She works with many Fortune 500 companies including Bloomberg, Cisco, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and White & Case, among others. Here's the link to her latest book on compassionate leadership https://www.potentialproject.com/resources#01-books

VC and Love? Can those two words coexist? For Richard Kivel, a renowned VC in healthcare, the most valuable VCs in the end, are those who are empathetic and direct at the same time. They are with you when there are problems, and point them out recognizing that things don't usually go as planned. For him, it is the love versus fear concept. When investing in companies, he looks for devoted CEO, truthful and focused, with a vision and passion for the company, a CEO who is loved rather than feared! "If people feel valued, they feel loved, if they feel loved they are going to be committed, If they are committed, the organization will have a higher probability of success." So, it really comes down to LOVE. "Look for a CEO who is loved, not feared." MEET OUR GUEST Richard Kivel Investor & Board Director in Technology and Healthcare. Richard serves as the Managing Director of GrayBella Capital LLC, a Pan-European venture capital firm based in London, investing in growth-stage technology and healthcare companies. Since 2021 he has served as a Board member of Lottery.com, a publicly-traded (Nasdaq: LTRY) leading technology company that is transforming how, where and when lottery is played. Since 2018, Richard has served as Chairman of the Board of BC Platforms, a Zurich, Switzerland-based bio-computing leader. Before this, Richard was Executive Chairman of the Board of ViS Research Inc., leading to a successful acquisition by IMS Health. In addition, he was a Board Director and Chairman of the nominating committee of Rexahn Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE: RNN) from 2010 until 2013. Richard's executive management experience also includes a Senior Management position at Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, and two Chief Executive Officer positions: TheraGenetics, Ltd. from 2006 until 2009, and MolecularWare, Inc. from 2001 until 2004. Both companies were successfully acquired. He has served various roles at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, including as the Chairman and President of the MIT Enterprise Forum, a Board member of the MIT Alumni Association, and is a regular Lecturer at MIT and other schools. He is also a Trustee of Bankinter Innovation Foundation, a technology think-tank based in Madrid.

When Bob heard the word love, he was really not sure... Hear his thoughts on the true meaning of spreading love in organizations from helping others realize their dreams to giving space for your people to thrive. Leadership is courage, entrepreneurship is loneliness, and if you go that route make sure the need is unmet, customers really think what you are providing is better, and ensure the sustainability of your venture. "Help them connect the dots to the purpose, inspire them, and get out of the way!" MEET OUR GUEST Bob Jones Entrepreneur, CEO, Speaker, Author of "The Start-Up Starter Kit". Bob is CEO of Scientific Nutrition Products, Inc. The company addresses medical conditions by creating and selling nutrition-based products. Bob was previously a Principal at Scientia Advisors, a strategy consulting firm, where Bob led the Nutrition and Wellness practice. Prior to Scientia, Bob was President and CEO of Vitasoy USA, Inc., the nation’s largest marketer and manufacturer of tofu and the pioneer of soymilk in America. This was a management turn-around. Before joining Vitasoy, Bob launched three start-ups in the medical nutrition field. Each company addressed chronic medical disorders such as diabetes via specifically targeted nutrition products (rather than drugs). All three start-ups were with staff and faculty at Harvard Medical School. Each company turned leading-edge science into consumer products that were sold through retail pharmacies. Bob has held executive positions at several other companies, including Abbott Laboratories and Baxter International. He has two awarded patents in the field of nutrition. He is an active mentor with MIT’s Venture Mentoring Service and has served as a judge in MIT’s 100K Business Plan Competition. He has an A.B. in biology from Princeton University and an MSM from MIT Sloan. After hours, Bob plays in a blues band in the Boston area and is a springboard diver, and an enthusiastic motorcyclist.