What Would Lisa Suennen Say?
This week the national news reported that former President Jimmy Carter is the American President who has lived longer than any other in this history of the nation. Carter, whose presidency ended in 1981, is now 94 years old and a modern medical miracle. He was diagnosed with melanoma in 2015 and it metastasized to […]
Carolyn Magill had planned a life in foreign service or international relations. But it wasn’t until she found herself at the nexus of healthcare and public policy that she realized she found her home. She has now traveled through the worlds of pharma, payers, providers and had leadership positions at companies both large and small. […]
I was in Austin last week for South By Southwest (SXSW), a sort of conference/meetup/party/experiential mash-up which is really like no other event that touches healthcare. At SXSW you can see a healthcare startup pitch, experience the latest and greatest in weird automotive or robotics engineering, see a movie and take in a concert, all […]
When she was a kid, Toyin Ajayi’s career goal was to “be the boss of something.” Drawn to power suits and authority, she aspired to become an unspecified boss lady. She may be a boss now, but her authority is well-balanced by a soft side. And Toyin’s path to her current role as Chief Health […]
Allison Kurian never had a chance. The daughter of two prominent academics, Diana Chapman Walsh the former President of Wellesley College and Chris Walsh, a renowned Harvard biochemist – Allison was destined by genetics and environment, it seems, to become the exceptional scholar and clinician-scientist who now directs the Stanford Women’s Clinical Cancer Genetics Program. A self-described studious […]
There is an old song by Helen Reddy called “I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar.” It was written and sung in 1971 and the point of the song, one of the early pro-female rah-rah songs, is to encourage women to be confident, speak out, avoid being ignored. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br26Kj5C4T4 Today it is nearly 50 years later, […]
An unlikely pair, Brian Smith and Jerry Harrison came together over their shared passion for music and science and helping entrepreneurs succeed. Together they are helping healthcare startups find their rhythm and chart a path to success through a new expert crowdfunding platform called RedCrow. Here’s the backstory and it’s a good one: Brian Smith, […]
I do a lot of public speaking. I’m sure there are any number of people out there who think they have heard enough from me, but I seem to keep getting invited to speak at events and conferences, so I am not going quietly into the night. As Jimmy Buffett always sings in his live […]
Her illustrious career has taken her from clinician to biotech executive to university chancellor to CEO of the world’s largest foundation, yet throughout this exceptional journey, Susan Desmond-Hellmann has remained empathetic, inquisitive, and emphatically true to herself. Growing up in Reno, Nevada as one of seven children, Sue was inspired by her father, a pharmacist, […]
As everyone in healthcare knows, and also every single San Francisco-based Lyft and Uber driver, the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference (“JPM”) was held last week. “JPM” has become a shorthand for the ritual amassing of healthcare life forms in San Francisco that occurs right when your New Year’s Eve hangover is wearing off. It is […]
Lisa Suennen is a venture capital investor and the managing partner of Venture Valkyrie, LLC, which publishes the Venture Valkyrie blog and co-produces the Tech Tonics podcast. She is also co-founder of CSweetener, a women's healthcare mentoring organization.