IWD'19 Celebration at KPMG: Healthcare & Life Sciences
- Sharon Loh
- Mar 8, 2019
- 7 min read
It was my first time visiting KPMG’s beautifully decorated clubhouse last Friday in anticipation to celebrate International Women’s Day (IDW) with people in the field of Life Science and Healthcare. The stunning bar counter at the clubhouse was particularly eye-catching with its shelves show-casing a myriad of premium alcoholic drinks. I claimed my complementary red wine and headed straight to survey the floor to be acquainted with the attendees.
To my delight, I realized that the crowd present that evening was not the usual community of Research Scientists whom I often interacted with at mega-scale international Stem Cell or Neuroscience conferences or symposiums. Instead, they were mainly from the corporates and start-ups. I spoke with people of various Life Science occupations. Among them were, marketing and regulatory managers from international Pharmaceutical firms such as Bayer, Sanofi and Eli Lilly, consultants from KPMG and Mercer, Biotech entrepreneurs (Engine Bioscience, ESCO Ventures, 21st Century Health Analytics) and Medtech representative (Resmed). I learned about the companies they work in or striving to establish, challenges in the landscape of Biotechnology and how they worked their way to where they are now. In turn, I also shared my Scientific accomplishments and my intention to transit to a Biotech-investment focused career. It was beyond a doubt that the extremely loud chatter going on in the clubhouse was due to the enthusiasm of the diverse attendees present that evening who were eager to build business partnerships and learn about one another’s functional roles in the industry.
I have compiled what I have learned from the event below & categorized them into 3 subtopics:
1. Women in Science: With Opportunities Come Great Responsibilities
2. Life Science Trends: Partnerships, Consumerism, Tech-driven
3. My networking strategies and experiences
1. Women in Science: With Opportunities Come Great Responsibilities
Since it is IWD, presentation topics hovered mainly around Women in Science. Presenters include Annie Lim from Sanofi and Vandana Ramachandra from Singapore Women in Science. The importance of diversity and inclusion on business partnerships were highlighted. Sanofi highlighted its ongoing effort to attain gender balance at the senior leadership level by 2025. Such an initiative from one of the world's most influential pharmaceutical company must be applauded for their commitment and effort to champion this change. According to the Women In business 2019 report by Grant Thornton International, among business that participated in the poll, 33% of the senior management team in Singapore constitutes women and only 9% of whom are female CEOs, which is significantly below the average ASEAN statistics. Loreal Group, A*STAR and SgWIS have taken a progressive stance in creating awareness of institutional sexism and have actively been launching new opportunities (e.g. fellowships) exclusively for female Scientists in Singapore. It might be difficult to pinpoint if sexism is the reason that had deterred women from getting a seat at the managerial table in the Life Science landscape or there is just a lower number of women willing to take on the leadership role. Singapore has been actively promoting equal work developmental opportunities for both genders in recent years and setting quotas for gender parity at leadership levels through its policies and campaigns to eradicate gender stereotypes. Besides societal ratification efforts through increasing awareness of sexism and opening more opportunities for women in the workforce, it is also important for women to prove themselves as capable and compassionate leaders.
2. Life Science Trends: Partnerships, Consumerism, Tech-driven
According to the KPMG 2018 Global CEO Survey, 61% of Life Science CEOs prefer to work collaboratively. More companies are starting to recognize the benefits of partnerships and information, platform and technological sharing that would value add and accelerate business success. The expanding collaborative spirit of Life Science and technology has enabled more digitalization and data science-driven basic research and the rise of medical device innovations and healthcare solution platforms in recent years. Immense optimism in data science and artificial intelligence to solve many healthcare problems and streamlining research, clinical and administrative processes continue to disrupt the Life Science scene. This leaves one to wonder if this will lead to the demise of the expertise relating to deep therapeutic research. It would be considered far-fetched at this point of time, but let’s postpone this AI disruption topic to my next article.
The rapid pace of technological change has caused the reshaping of the workforce and talent recruitment strategies. Businesses are also grappling with the problem of skill gaps. Most companies surveyed by KMPG tackled the problem of skill gaps by re-training existing permanent staffs, while surprisingly fewer companies opted to gain new capabilities through partnerships, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and short-term contracts. This could be partly attributed to the Singapore government’s movement to encourage local companies to reskill employees through subsidized schemes. Examples of such schemes are the Workfare Training Support (WTS) and SkillsFuture schemes. From a business standpoint, this approach might seem less efficient in accelerating business profitability due to the cost and obligation in permanent hiring compared to directly seeking alliance and acquisition of capabilities. Seconding employees to partner companies and vice versa across industries would be a good complementary strategy in alliance partnership as it establishes a win-win solution in retaining talent pool and promotes business progress. Seconded employees in turn also benefit through the exposure of new skills, ideas and culture in partner companies.
Amidst the hype of AI capabilities in the current economy, the essential need for human moderators should not be overlooked. Depending on technology entirely without a holistic patient understanding and interactions will head the business to a downfall. There is a need for Pharmaceutical and Biotechnological companies to work towards developing patient intimacy by delving deeper into understanding patients’ opinions and pain points. This not only cultivates a more human-centric endeavor and compassionate heart that the Life Science community ought to have but also benefits the business by reducing the risks of unsuccessful product launches. “Patient intimacy necessitates a softer approach. This is an example of how diversity has a measurable impact on the business – only with a greater sense of openness, trust and understanding is patient intimacy possible. We are all affected by health and care, and must demonstrate a level of empathy in our work in this field.” said Annie Lim, Sanofi’s Global Diversity & Inclusion Lead.
3. My networking strategies and experiences
I remember taking my first step out of my academic comfort zone to network with investors, consultants, marketing and business development professionals, and entrepreneurs in the Life Science field. It was especially daunting initially for a fresh Ph.D. graduate like me who do not speak the business language. Thankfully with practice and courage, I am becoming better at it. Below are the key steps I took to succeed at business networking events:
(i) Crafting my own elevator pitch. A self-introduction that is short, phrased in an easily understandable format, yet impactful. A common mistake PhDs do is to read out their thesis title when they make contact. If I do so, no one will understand what I am saying unless they work in the Neuroscience field. Failing to inform your acquittance about your expertise clearly kills all future deals.
(ii) Broadening my knowledge & speaking the business language. Previously, my fear stems mainly from my lack of knowledge in the Life Science sector, in areas beyond my Ph.D. specialization, such as the latest medical devices, deep tech and investment trends etc. Hence, I started studying and updating myself about the latest Life Science trends in Singapore and globally by reading, attending workshops, events and writing articles. Besides learning, establishing your foresight, critical opinions and values in the field are also important. This helps you sustain the ebbs and flow of the conversation and makes networking fruitful with exchanges of viewpoints and knowledge.
(iii) Developing concrete professional relationship. Networking should always be taken a step further, beyond networking events, with follow-up coffee meetings, informing one another on the latest events or conferences, updating one another on business deals and career opportunities. Helping others succeed also helps you succeed. Keeping regular contact foster trust and good friendships which are ingredients of potential future business partnerships.
(iv) Exhibiting good social etiquettes. This point is most commonly emphasized on webpages that coach the techniques of networking. Good social etiquettes such as desirable mannerism, showing appreciation and dressing decently are extremely important as they significantly reflect one’s personality. Surprisingly, I still meet people who dressed inappropriately, give fishy handshakes and smell like they just completed a gym session at formal networking events. Other important aspects that contribute to good mannerisms include holding good eye contact with the other person during the conversation, do not interject rudely, ditch the tone of assertiveness and interrogation. Humility is beauty. Exhibit your interest to learn from other’s experiences.
Networking at KPMG was a breeze and I met so many enthusiastic people in the Life Science field. It was nice to see people in the community making the effort to be present that evening, learning about one another to foster possible partnerships. One of more impressionable acquaintance at the event was Ernest who works as a deal advisor at KMPG. Coincidently, we convocated together last year. We discussed probable mutual friends, career navigation, Life Science business strategies, technological disruption and Life Sciences in 10 years' time. His career trajectory was impressive and I learned so much from him especially during this time that I am job-hunting. I also met an entrepreneur in digital health. We shared excitement for this space which I have been scrutinizing closely to detect upcoming new investment trends and bubble formation. (Watch my Blog for my next article on Digital Health).
Ever since I started my networking journey, it has been a fruitful one and I embrace the opportunity to meet so many like-minded business people and gaining a breath-taking bird’s eye view of the ever-changing Life Science landscape. It certainly helps me formulate an idea on the type of job I desire for my next career. A totally refreshing networking experience at KPMG IWG 2019!
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