Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 154 - Dee Dragon - SVP People Strategy, Admin Operations of Senti Bio

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Episode 154 - Dee Dragon - SVP People Strategy, Admin Operations of Senti Bio · The BioHub - by Avetix

0:06
Welcome back to the Bio Hub podcast.
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Today we are joined by Dee Dragon, who is currently SVP of
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People, Strategy and Admin Operations at Centibio.
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She is also Co founder of biotech Chro Sisterhood.
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She's been in the industry for seven years, having been
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previously serving in the benefits and total compensation
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field. So welcome.
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Oh, thank you, Rebecca. That was such a mouthful.
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I have so many titles. Thank you so much for having me
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on the share today. Yeah, it's an absolute pleasure.
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Thank you for joining us. We really wanted to.
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Obviously, I know we've spoken before, but really dig into your
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background, your time at Centi and of course the very famous
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biotech CHRO sisterhood that we want to do as.
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Well. Obviously in your career, you
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have built a career at the intersection of business
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strategy and HR. What initially drew you to the
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people side of biotech and how did that path lead you to where
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you are at Santi? Oh, that's such a great
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question. I'm someone who enjoys the
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pivot, at the art of the pivot and I love to do different
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things and use my talents in different ways and be creative.
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When I was in, I'll start from the very beginning.
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When I was in college, I really, I didn't know what I wanted to
1:18
study, but I did end up, I knew I was good at communication then
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I knew I was good at people. So I studied electronic media
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communications, which involves film, television, speech.
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And so that's in writing, actually.
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And so those are the four kind of gifts that I honed.
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And then when I got out of school, I really, again, still
1:39
didn't know what I wanted to do. I got a ton of advice and it led
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me to HR because everyone said that's the people, that's where
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the people, people go. I said, great, I'll go where the
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people, people go. I didn't love it because what I
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found to be the case was it wasn't necessarily about the
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people at work and making. I thought it would be about
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making people happy at work so they could be productive and
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have a great culture. What I found was legacy HR, what
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I call more the, you know, more the traditional HR route wasn't
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really doing that. It was very focused more I felt
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administrative type, work compliance, that kind of thing.
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I didn't love it. I don't think I lasted a year
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and in. And again with the pivot, I said
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I started to talk to people I trusted.
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I said, what part of HR actually helps people?
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And I researched it and I ended up in benefits.
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So it's like, oh, that's where they figure out what people are
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going to get like in terms of their packages and their
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compensation. I'm like, wow, this sounds good.
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I think I'll do this. And I was able to find work as a
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junior consultant working in this field for 15 years.
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I've worked at Willis Towers Watson, I've worked at Mercer,
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and most recently I worked at Aeon, just helping clients
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figure out what kind of company, what kind of package they could
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put together to attract, retain and engage the right people to
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get to their value, to get to the not just their values, but
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also to get to their corporate objectives.
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And so that's what I did for many years.
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I worked with many CHROS who over time I really credit them
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with mentoring me into the role I have today.
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I picked something from each of them along the way that helped
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me put together how I approach my role today.
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So I'm a constant learner and for all those years, I, I, as
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time went on, clients started to ask for more.
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They're like, oh, you're doing total conversation.
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Can you help us with diversity, equity and inclusion?
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OK, sure, we can do that. Oh, can you help us with
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employee experience curation? Sure, we, we can do that.
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Can you help us with employee engagement?
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And it just kept scope creepy until I started to refer to
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myself, our team, we started to call ourselves shadow HR people
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because we were just always behind the scenes supporting.
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And so did that for a long time. And about 7 1/2 years ago, a
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friend approached me and said, hey, we have this new biotech
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that's coming up, that's starting.
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It's about a year and a half old.
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They're looking for their first head of people.
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Would you consider applying for the role?
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I said, absolutely not. I don't do HR.
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Like that's not going to be the role for me.
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Who's going to let me do HR when?
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I've never really done it in the seat as a leader.
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And first lesson I learned is you, you say yes to everything
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and then if you don't like it, you say no after.
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And I thought it was an opportunity being presented,
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sure, I'll go in and do an interview.
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Why not? I'll talk to them.
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Why not? Within 15 minutes into the
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interview, we started to talk about how really my background
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was in HR and they weren't sure how to.
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And I, and I said, you know what, I wouldn't do HR the way
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people do it today. And so I'm not necessarily the
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one for the role. And the question that changed
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everything was the guy who was doing the interview who then
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became my boss. He said, so you say you don't do
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HR in the traditional sense, but were you to do it, how would you
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do it differently? And honestly, Rebecca, that was
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the question that changed everything because I knew how I
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would do it differently because that's was authentic to me.
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And so I talked about what I call the people centric approach
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to HR, the people centric, the people centric approach to
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people and how it can deliver stronger business results.
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So I made my case and 13 interviews later, I got the job
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offer to be head of people at Santibio, which was, which blew
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me away. Number #1 yes, someone will give
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you an opportunity to do something you've never done if
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they truly believe in what you're saying and you're
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authentic. The second thing is never having
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been in biotech. And that's something that really
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happens because biotech is very known for being quite insular.
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We really are a special industry and it's hard for people who are
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not in that industry to breakthrough.
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And so those two things happened for me.
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And you know, almost seven years later, I'm still doing this and
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in fact joined up with several colleagues to Co found the
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biotech Chr sisterhood. So it's been a wild journey, but
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it's been a wonderful one. Absolutely and I think that's so
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impressive to have only been in the industry for seven years and
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have made such an impact already, you know, Co founding
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biotech Chro, which I definitely want to go into a lot more later
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on as well. But being in the same company as
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well for seven years or coming up to seven years, that too is
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also so impressive. You know, you joined Senti in
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2019, so just before the big pandemic happened, which yes,
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changed a lot for the industry. So you you you've probably seen
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a lot more than you bargained for when you joined the.
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Industry, fair to say. When you obviously joined the
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company, you know, you mentioned that you you wanted to do things
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a little bit differently. What were the the priorities for
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you that you focused on when thinking about maybe culture and
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talent priorities? Yes, I, I think one of the, the,
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the curveballs we got a few months into my tenure was the
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pandemic. And I have to be honest with
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you, the pandemic and, and then I'll talk a little bit of about
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how I approached my role. Actually, I think I'll reverse
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that. I'll talk a little bit about
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what happened when I arrived at Senti.
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When I arrived at Senti, the employees knew that I was not a
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traditional HR person because they had read my bio and they
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understood that. And so there were a lot of
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questions like how is this going to be different and what are you
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going to be doing? So the very first thing I did
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was I had a one-on-one with every single person in the
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company at that time, about 42 people there abouts about 40
8:19
people. I had a one-on-one with every
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single person. And my goal was to understand
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each person, find patterns and find make myself a heat map of
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where to start. Because when you're the first
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head of HR in a company, people will hand you a list of 100
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things coming from a consulting background.
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Consultants are solution machines.
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That's what we do. We come in and we help clients
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sort out and solve problems. And so I put really my
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consulting hat on and a rule we had or kind of a mantra we had
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on my team when I was a consultant was know thy client.
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I took the same and I and I coined know thy people.
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And I felt like I wouldn't be a strong leader or strong advocate
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for people if I didn't know who they were.
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And so I made it my full time job for the first few weeks just
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talking to people, just understanding.
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And to your point about a list, how did I make that list?
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Literally from that I was able to create a heat map and find
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patterns that were that I now knew to be true.
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And I was able to three, three things rose to the top right
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away. Number one was compensation.
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People didn't believe that they were being compensated at the
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level that was previously communicated.
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The second thing that came up was we had a lot of people
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coming straight from academia into industry.
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Again, I could relate. I was coming from a different
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industry, but they were coming straight.
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So they were coming here and being told, oh, you got to
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manage 5 people. They had no idea how to do that.
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They'd never managed a single person.
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The third thing was a general feeling as we don't have
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culture, you know, we, we, we don't have, we don't feel like
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we have culture here. So those three things rose to
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the top. So of course I, I picked what I
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felt was not the easiest, but the simplest numbers.
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If people aren't getting paid the right number, we're going to
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know that. And so I did a salary assessment
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of everyone. And do you know what?
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They were right. They were under market and we
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were saying we were at 50th of market.
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We were not. And so guess what I did, I I
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went to leadership and I was very lucky.
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Leadership said, sure. We said, we're doing this.
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We want to stand behind what we say.
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And that because of that integrity, we just announced,
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hey, everyone's getting a market adjustment to their salary.
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And I'm going to tell you, Rebecca, if you want to make
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friends as a new head of people at a company, just give everyone
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a raise. Yeah, give everyone a raise.
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What that signalled to people was, wow, they're going to
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listen. This person's going to listen to
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us, this person's going to have integrity, and this person's
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going to tell the truth. And it was what I call rapid
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trust. People were then able to feel
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more open speaking to me, coming to me.
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And the culture part, that was more of a kind of short to
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midterm proposition because everyone thought, oh, well, we
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now have a head of HR. We're going to have culture now
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because we're going to have, you know, like games and ping pong
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tables and we're all going to hang out.
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And I'm like, but yes, let's not get let's employee experience,
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all right? Like the ping pong table is not
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going to create your culture for you.
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It certainly will help, but it's not going to be the thing that
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makes people stay or leave the company.
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And so the first thing I did was really help people understand
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that as much as I would like to think I have this power, I don't
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have the power to single handedly create a good culture
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in the company. I'm going to need every single
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one of you with me on this ride and we're going to intentionally
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Co create this culture together. Whatever culture we want to see
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here are our values. How do those fit into behaviors
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and how do we? So we created something called
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the Culture Club and our job was to figure out how to make
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behaviors out of our values. Is it a do we want a culture of
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kindness? Do we want a guiding principle
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of empathy? Do we?
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All those things already existed by the way, they just were not
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in the Better Together. All the things that we thought
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were our values and guiding already existed before I ever
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came here, but they weren't words and behaviors put to them.
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And that's what we did together. And that's how we intentionally
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started to create the culture, keeping in mind that every
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single micro interaction in any company and at certainly at
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Senti is creating the culture whether we want it or not.
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So we might as well be intentional.
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And that's really where the idea of the Senti culture started and
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why to this day, the culture we, we, we have two jewels in our
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crown. The science is impeccable and
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the culture I culture driven by the people because the culture
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doesn't stand on its own. Those are really the two jewels
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in our crown to this day. I think that in what you've just
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said, there is really emphasizing the difference
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between people, experience and culture.
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I think a lot of companies don't quite get that correct.
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I think I'll use that ping pong table as an example.
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You sometimes see it on job adverts, for example, we provide
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fruit or we have a ping pong table that isn't culture, but
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obviously creating a Culture Club and you know, making sure
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that it's not just one individual.
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Everyone has to align with those values.
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It's very similar to the the culture deck that came out for
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Netflix and one of the most important decks that came out of
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the the valley very famous. And you know, we've actually
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used that within our company. We have a culture deck that we
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continuously update as and when employees join our company
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because it is so important. As the company grows, the
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culture will shift, but it's making more that as that shift
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happens, it's still aligned with everyone.
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So I think that was a really amazing way of putting it.
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And you know, obviously taking time and of course, I'm sure you
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are everyone's best friend now. Definitely the the raises that
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everyone wanted. But having a leadership that
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backs you, I think says a lot about not only yourself as a
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leader, but also a lot about the leadership at 70, the type of
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company that you that you are. I think it does say a lot.
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There's not a lot of companies that would probably sit there
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and go, yeah, we are paying under market value, probably
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not. Yes, probably.
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I've I've never seen that. Yeah, right.
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I've never seen it. But I not across the board like
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that. I think I have.
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I always have to be honest and say why.
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I've been lucky. I've been very lucky with the
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Centi leadership. We had a first time scientific
15:08
CEO who came directly from MIT and you one might think that
15:13
that wouldn't set us up the way it did in terms of culture and
15:19
people. It actually did.
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He's just been stellar and he's always got the people in his
15:25
lens like in front of him. And so I've been lucky the the
15:29
group has been lucky. I think the science is
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unbelievable. It's a smart science.
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It doesn't currently exist. We are in the process of of
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completing our first our phase one trial on Senti 2O2, which is
15:46
the the drug candidate. And I think what I've tried to
15:53
always do is help people understand that in biotech the
15:58
science is so advanced and so innovative and we're always
16:04
future focused. Let's get this out to the
16:07
patient. Let's get of the therapies out
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there. Let's do a better job.
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Let's let's, let's. We're so future focused.
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What happens on the people side sometimes is we don't pay as
16:20
much attention as and work on as much innovation on that side of
16:26
the house. What I wanted to do as someone
16:29
coming from the outside was help people see that, Help people see
16:34
that we have to be in people operations and people strategy,
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as innovative as we ask our scientists to be.
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And they have to be as empathetic as we ask them to be.
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Because in order for you to actually think like a patient or
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think like a patient's family, there's an empathy there.
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There are these soft skills, as they are called, that help you
16:59
become a better scientist, a better technician, a better
17:05
colleague. And one of the jobs of the head
17:09
of people is that you're trying to because culture is how you
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work at the, at the, at the base of it, culture is your way of
17:18
life. It's the way you work, it's the
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way you approach things, it's the manner, it's the vibe, it's
17:24
all of that. And it's crucial.
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It is crucial to helping the company achieve its goals.
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People used to just look at HR as, oh, you're just in charge of
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hiring and firing and, you know, sensitivity training or whatever
17:41
it is that people were doing. Never really, which I thought
17:45
was a waste, truly tying the company objectives to what the
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people operations team actually does every day because a
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disengaged employee does not perform at a high level.
18:00
There is leakage there. There is there are hours of the
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day that do not go towards productivity if you don't take
18:07
care of the people side. So what I do is I believe it's,
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you know, you turn it on its head.
18:13
So it used to be you would hire someone, they would be
18:15
productive for the company, the company would benefit and maybe
18:19
pay it back, maybe pay it forward, maybe, maybe not.
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What I like to challenge us to do is to put the people 1st and
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what I call a people centric approach.
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My belief is that if you tend to the employee, the employee will
18:36
tend to the company and the company will be successful.
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So whatever the employee needs to be successful in their role,
18:44
we want to give them that. We want to make sure that
18:48
they're in a good environment, the culture is strong, they feel
18:51
connected, and they feel included.
18:54
Once all those things are met, once the basic needs are met,
18:58
like it's Maslow's, you know, hierarchy of needs, once the
19:00
basics are met, people can now turn their full attention to the
19:04
business, give their full attention to the business, and
19:07
the business can realize the full potential of every bit of
19:11
talent that we attract into our organization.
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And so my background in helping employee employers figure out
19:18
how to attract, retain and engage really feeds into how I
19:24
look at HR. The idea that we give everyone
19:28
the benefit of the doubt. I remember talking about this
19:32
and people being afraid like, Oh my God, you're just going to let
19:34
employees like, you know, like be people or something like
19:38
you're just going to like, give them basically trust.
19:41
It's like you trust 1st and then the trust is returned to you.
19:45
The old HR practices are very much like, no, we're going to
19:49
hide the key to everything, and then as time goes on, we'll give
19:52
you little bits of it along the way if you've earned it.
19:57
I and my belief is if someone is working in your organization and
20:01
they're trusting you with their career, they're trusting you
20:03
with their talent, you must be worthy of that trust and you
20:07
must return it immediately. There are people who won't be
20:10
worthy and they won't rise to the occasion.
20:12
We will deal with those people, but they're a minority.
20:15
That's not a way to run an organization.
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Saying, who are the worst actors?
20:19
OK, let's make policy towards them to make sure they can't do
20:23
something and let's punish everyone else.
20:26
And so that idea of building the culture, that way of approaching
20:30
the culture and engagement leads to rapid trust with employees.
20:34
And Santi has a 25%, what we call boomerang rate, which is
20:40
returning employees, even employees who were laid off when
20:43
we had tough decisions we had to make.
20:46
Those employees still want to come back.
20:48
And I think that that speaks for itself as to the kind of
20:52
culture, the people centric culture.
20:54
Because if, if you show people that you have their back first,
20:59
they will work their ass off for you because they believe that
21:02
the basics are handled and you're never going to break the
21:06
trust because that's something special indeed in in the
21:11
workplace. And so I do believe people can
21:14
be happy at work. I do believe that people have
21:16
their the right to be happy at work.
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And I do believe my job is to ensure that I figure out how
21:22
that happens and how we can do that.
21:26
And at the end of the day, the business will benefit.
21:30
Yeah, I agree. I think having the happiness at
21:34
work is it's really important because you spend the majority
21:38
of your life at work and I think you enjoy what you're doing, you
21:41
enjoy where you are. Then like you said, when
21:44
companies do have to go through tough decisions, because
21:47
especially in the biotech Bay, probably 90% of companies will
21:52
have to make those decisions. And it is hard and it's hard to
21:55
let go of employees. But the fact that when that job
21:58
comes back up or you know, a fundraise happens and they want
22:03
to come back and they're the one of the first people to be asked,
22:06
but they they want to do that. I think that speaks again, like
22:10
you said, it speaks volumes. You know, in, in obviously the
22:15
biotech company, you don't have necessarily every single person
22:19
that is in the scientific functions you mentioned
22:23
obviously being people. You've got different elements to
22:26
that. So I think as a company, you've
22:28
really translated the company's mission into something
22:32
meaningful for every employee, not just the the ones doing the
22:38
science. And I think, you know, that's
22:39
clearly been translated. You know, you did touch on
22:42
there. You have obviously had to go
22:44
through lay offs and have had to make those tough decisions.
22:47
It's been a very, a lot of turbulence in the industry,
22:52
especially since in in the seven years that you've been there,
22:55
you've probably been on that roller coaster and you know, not
22:59
stopping anytime soon, but it's, you know, slowing down a little
23:03
bit, which is good. How have Santi navigated that,
23:08
especially from AHR and people standpoint?
23:13
Yes. I mean, tough decisions are are
23:15
part of leadership and we can't avoid them just as tough
23:18
conversations are. I think it's never that they're
23:21
going to come up. We know they're going to come
23:23
up. It's always in the how, how you
23:26
do something is is always going to because even employees get
23:30
it. I mean, I'm an employee myself
23:32
and people get it. They know, hey, they see the
23:37
economy and they see what's going on and they know that we
23:40
will be impacted at some point. Everyone will have to figure
23:44
their life out at some point. And yes, we have had a couple of
23:48
tough layoffs. They're tough not just because
23:52
layoffs are tough. There's no good way to do it
23:54
really. There's just better than bad
23:59
ways to do it. And so I would say at Santi, we
24:05
do everything the way we do everything.
24:08
You know, my dad is how you do one thing is how you do
24:10
everything. If you've built those
24:13
relationships along the way and you've had integrity and you've
24:17
dealt with every employee in a way that what I call a small
24:21
fairness with a small F because and I, I guess I would say big
24:26
F, I'm not sure but one of the FS.
24:29
But I, I say fairness, my the fairness in this way, fairness
24:35
is in the eye of the beholder. Each person has their idea of
24:39
what's fair to them and what's fair to me might not be fair to
24:43
you, might not be fair to the third person.
24:45
And So what we try to do with Senti is really focus on the
24:49
fairness of the system, the fairness of the approach, the
24:57
fairness of the of the way that we that we run things around
25:03
here so that even if you don't like the outcome, you believe
25:09
the process was fair. It's kind of like an election.
25:12
You may not like the outcome, but people voted and it is what
25:16
it is. And that's what we try to focus
25:19
on at Centi when we have difficult moments, especially
25:22
when we have difficult moments, we're that way all the time.
25:24
But it's easy to have the the fairness when things are going
25:27
great, when things start to become, we've got 10 people we
25:31
need to lay off. And the people are saying, why
25:34
am I getting laid off and not this other person?
25:36
How's that fair to me? And so we're thinking about
25:40
always what's the fairness of it?
25:41
And the fairness is to tell the truth.
25:45
We had to, you know, get rid of this program.
25:47
It's true. We did so because we haven't
25:50
raised the way we thought we would because the market is
25:53
difficult. It's true.
25:55
We are going to do everything we can to help you land your next
25:59
role. It's true.
26:01
And So what does that mean? We don't do group notifications.
26:05
We don't send an e-mail. We don't pull a group of people
26:08
into the room and tell them today's your last day, go pack
26:12
your things. We don't do any of those things.
26:14
We tell people in small pods like or, or sometimes single if
26:20
we can. We let people know here's what's
26:24
going on. We give them to the end of the
26:27
day, sometimes the end of the week to pack up their things.
26:31
Some people have personal stuff on their computer.
26:33
Yeah, sure. Download your, your kid
26:36
pictures, whatever is in there. We trust our employees.
26:40
They're not going to do anything untoward and they never have.
26:44
They're going to say goodbye to their friends, they're going to
26:47
put an e-mail out, they're going to do whatever they need to do
26:51
to process that day, and then they're going to leave their
26:53
laptop. We're not walking them out.
26:56
We're not boxing their stuff up. We're not doing any of that.
27:00
We're treating people the way we always treat people, which is
27:05
how we treat people anyway. So it's not going to change.
27:09
And it's a risk, right? It's a risk that someone could
27:12
do something. We've never had that I I think
27:16
it's life is risky. Wake up and go to the store, get
27:19
in the car to drive. Everything's risky.
27:22
But this is a well placed one because we believe that the way
27:27
you treat people matters and people will remember that.
27:30
That's why even people who are laid off come back when we call
27:33
them because they know that we have treated them with
27:36
integrity. And so I think that the focus
27:40
should be that you are working in such a way with people that
27:45
you've built that and then you can leverage it in the moments
27:50
that matter. Well, happy new Year, happy
27:53
birthday, happy baby, and the moments that are tough.
27:58
And So what I always say is keep knowing the people, keep being
28:05
available to the people, continue to build those
28:08
relationships so that they can withstand when things go rough.
28:13
That's not the time to start trying to make friends.
28:16
Yeah, it's not that I'm starting to say, hey, you know, you can't
28:19
be a stranger. Like I grew up in the HR era of
28:23
HR not being your partner. If you went to HR, you were
28:26
being taken to HR. It was not positive.
28:28
Nobody people heartbeats, people's heartbeats quickened
28:32
when you were like, oh, we got to go to HR Now it's like, Oh my
28:35
God, you should build an HR team that feels like a partner so
28:40
that you can come to me for coaching.
28:42
You can come in and say, I'm having this tough time with my
28:44
manager. Can you help me talk through
28:46
those? That's what I I want people to
28:48
feel like we're a partner. Not a not a cop on the beat, but
28:53
a partner that they can come to good, bad, not the not great,
28:57
whatever in between. We want to be that partner when
29:01
things are good and we want to be able to say to somebody, Hey,
29:05
what you did wasn't right here or to say, well done, you know,
29:09
here's a reward. So we want to be all those
29:12
things as much as we can with folks And, and we that's my
29:17
goal. That's that's when I say HR
29:19
strategy, that's the strategy is that we want to be partner in
29:25
the business. And when I came into HR it was
29:28
very much like there's a role called a business partner, which
29:32
is very clearly focused on the business.
29:34
So that title is very clear and employees see that very clearly
29:37
and they act accordingly. What I would like to call it is
29:40
more of a just a partner, just a partner where it makes sense
29:45
because the people are the business and the people are the
29:47
business is bit. There's no daylight for me
29:50
between the people in the business.
29:52
Amazing. It sounds like it's gone as well
29:56
as it possibly could at Santi, but obviously and you've done
30:01
such an amazing job with the people, but you're not just
30:05
doing that at Santi, you've also Co founded the biotech Chro
30:09
sisterhood. We're seeing a lot of the
30:12
sisterhood at the moment. It not, I'm sure about everyone.
30:17
It's covering my lifting feed. So it's obviously doing the
30:20
right thing. I've seen a lot of the biotech
30:23
CEO sisterhood. So how did that come about?
30:26
And yeah, I just wanted to touch on that because I think it's
30:29
such an important topic. You know, more women in the
30:32
industry kind of raising their voices to, you know, get a lot
30:37
of more quality across the industry.
30:38
So yeah, how did you come about it?
30:40
Who did you Co found it with? And yeah.
30:43
Well, thank you for the option to discuss.
30:46
It's, it's a, it's a new project, newish project for me.
30:51
So I'll talk about it. It's how I how I got involved.
30:55
So in the probably around this time last year, in April of
31:02
2025, I got a tap on the shoulder from my chro friend.
31:07
We have sister, I should say, she's now a sister.
31:11
And she called me up and said, hey, you know, a couple of us
31:15
have gotten together. We're thinking about, you know,
31:18
the Chr of sisterhood because prior to that, the CEOs had done
31:22
a sisterhood of their own a few years before.
31:24
You know, CEOs, they're executives.
31:26
They don't waste time. They immediately jumped on it.
31:28
I think it was 3 or 4 years ago. They immediately jumped on it.
31:31
They immediately started it and got it off the ground without
31:37
much, without much structure to it just yet.
31:41
They just wanted to get going and they did.
31:44
And so part of their kind of task was, you know, there's a
31:48
vision. The vision is more women in the
31:51
C-Suite, full stop, period. That's what it is.
31:55
And so they started, the CFO started not too long after again
32:01
got right to it, made the group got going.
32:05
And then we got a tap on the shoulder.
32:07
It was there were 4CH Ros or so myself, the CHRO Anne whom I
32:15
talked about, she's at Lyle Immunopharma.
32:21
My another good friend Shannon, she was, she got, she was in the
32:26
group. She's a CHRO and Carrie also
32:31
CHRO. So the four of us were Chr and
32:36
then we had two people who were also connected to the CEO
32:41
sisterhood, but Linda Sierra was the other person and Sammy
32:45
Schneider and the two of them are a trusted advisor.
32:48
So they're not sitting Chr, but they're trusted advisors
32:51
supporting us. So they, that's, that kind of
32:55
rounds out the group. It was 4CH Ros and two trusted
32:58
advisors. And we sat there and decided we
33:01
wanted to, to, to be the founding people.
33:03
We would take the time and we would do what was needed to get
33:06
it off the ground. What's really interesting about
33:10
this is we're, we're very, very diverse.
33:13
Different women from different backgrounds.
33:16
What's interesting, when we started, we noticed something we
33:22
are a little different from the rest of the group in that most
33:25
Chr OS are actually women. So having this mission of more
33:31
women in the C-Suite, it wouldn't necessarily come as a
33:36
result of having more female Chr OS because that was already
33:39
there. So that was the first thing we
33:42
noticed and we started to think to ourselves rather than just
33:46
jump into the fray. We need a lot more thinking and
33:49
planning and designing who we're going to be different from a lot
33:54
of the other. We know there's a shortage of
33:56
CFOs. We know this through like a lot
33:58
of the other people, CMOS, etcetera.
34:00
And so we sat down and we took months doing nothing but org
34:06
designing as CHRS or want to do. We love a good org chart.
34:11
We love a good structure to things we loved.
34:15
Everything just needs to be clear and organized and planned.
34:19
And in doing this we basically put together what we call the
34:24
CXO exchange, which is all the C's in these sisterhoods and
34:29
building what it would look like with an executive director in
34:33
the middle and a hub and spoke model.
34:35
We put together the whole thing without trying.
34:39
We just brought our talents to the table and without and, and
34:43
we put it together and we delivered it to the CEO,
34:46
sisterhood executive director and said this is what we think
34:48
it should look like. And she said, great, I think I'm
34:52
going to adopt it. And so the reason I say that is
34:56
that helped us find Our Calling and our own mission because the
35:00
vision is the same for everybody.
35:02
The mission is a little bit different for each C In our
35:06
case, we are looking to bring our talents to bear to support
35:12
the exchange itself and push it forward, and in so doing,
35:16
helping more women be in the C-Suite.
35:19
So a little different. And in our group, we have allies
35:22
as well, and we have emerging leaders as well, others who want
35:27
to be CHROS. So the way we're going to
35:29
contribute to the sisterhood is a little bit different than the
35:32
way others will, but that's OK. That's what inclusion diversity
35:37
is, is that we're bringing something different and a lot of
35:40
it is to support the sisterhood. Pretty much what we do and I
35:44
just compared to what we do in our day-to-day lives, which is
35:47
we bring the talent, we bring the tools, we create an
35:52
environment for the business goals to be achieved.
35:56
And in that way, we become a value center ourselves.
35:59
And that's what HR has the power to do.
36:02
When you allow it, when you really use it to the fullest
36:06
extent and speak in a full voice, that's what HR has the
36:10
power to do and people Operations has the power to do
36:13
in helping companies drive their business goals.
36:17
And so much talent and effort has been left on the table.
36:21
And so our goal is to bring more women, more, more CHROS into the
36:28
room where the the the room where it all happens.
36:31
I think is what they said in Hamilton.
36:33
You want those people in the room because they bring valuable
36:37
Intel and valuable insight into how to get the work done because
36:44
everything happens in the day-to-day.
36:47
The day-to-day is where we fall down and where we stand up, and
36:51
that's where the slowness comes, the quickness comes.
36:53
Everything happens in the day-to-day.
36:55
Who has the closest ear and eye to the day-to-day?
36:58
Or should the head of the head of people?
37:01
I think it's so important, but I think it's important to have a
37:04
bit of a different side. And I think it's powerful as
37:08
well that there are a lot more women CHROS and head of people
37:12
than and chief people officers being female than there are
37:16
male. That is that is a fact.
37:19
But then the fact that there are a lot more male CEO's CFOSCMOS.
37:25
So we have to be balanced somewhere, right?
37:28
So it makes sense. But it also is important to have
37:31
a bit of a different side. You know, you, you are all the
37:34
people with the Intel and the companies and what's happening
37:37
and you know what, what D and I looks like in your companies and
37:42
how you can translate that forward.
37:43
So I think it's good to have that balance and I'm really
37:46
excited to to follow all of them because they are all, you know,
37:52
like I say, my LinkedIn feed is just always fully pink, which is
37:57
great. Fully pink.
37:59
We love it. You love to.
38:02
See it. But it just shows, I know
38:03
obviously at JPM earlier this year, the amount of people that
38:08
showed up in solidarity for even not just obviously the picture,
38:12
but that just one picture just completely encapsulated exactly
38:17
what is happening. And I can imagine it'll be even
38:20
bigger next year and it's going to keep.
38:22
Growing. That's the goal.
38:24
The goal is to grow and the goal is to bring people along.
38:29
We want to, we want this to be something special and different.
38:34
So there's there are tons of women's organizations, there are
38:36
tons of places for people, people to learn and do things.
38:40
We're trying to create something different, something tangible,
38:44
and we're trying to do something only we can do and really
38:47
focused on how do we do this? How can we uniquely do this in a
38:54
way where if you were to bring all the seeds together, who are
38:58
women, and all we were doing was focusing on this, what
39:00
difference could we make exactly?
39:03
And that's how that's how we're looking at it.
39:05
We're going to do it differently.
39:06
There are a lot of wonderful organizations out there working
39:09
towards the same goal, but it won't be quite like this.
39:12
We want to see what we can do. I think that is just such a
39:16
great note to finish on. So thank you so much for your
39:20
time today. I think everything that you've
39:23
been doing in just such a short space of time in the biotech
39:28
space is incredible. I'm very excited to keep
39:32
following the journey of of your personal journey as Co founder
39:37
of CHRO Biotech Sisterhood, but also at Centi.
39:41
Thank you so much. Thank you, Rebecca.
39:43
Thank you for the opportunity and I hope to continue the
39:47
discussion. Thank you for all you do for our
39:50
industry as well. It's not lost on me.
39:54
It's not lost on many of us, the hard work that you also put in.
39:56
So thank you, Rebecca and your team.
39:59
We appreciate you.