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The Life Sciences Leadership Show
Stakeholder Alignment in Early and Mid-Stage Biotech with David Esposito
00:28:49
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- [00:03]
Michael Piperno
This is the Life Sciences Leadership Show. I'm your host, Michael Piperno, and I'm a leadership communication coach and facilitator who specializes in the life sciences industry. On each episode of this show, I interview industry leaders from organizations of all sizes about their leadership journeys. My goal for the show is to help you gain leadership insights and knowledge that'll help you in your own life sciences leadership journey. Okay, on with the show. Hi everybody, and welcome to the show today. I'm so pleased to have my colleague and friend David Esposito here joining us. David is the CEO of O& L Therapeutics, and we're going to have a great conversation today that hopefully is going to be valuable to other life sciences leaders listening to this podcast. But first, David, I'd love to just have you introduce yourself to the listeners and tell us a little bit about your leadership journey in life sciences.
- [01:01]
David Esposito
Michael, thanks a lot for having me. It's great to be on your show. Well, I am right now the CEO of O& L Therapeutics. Behind me is Downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan. But my life science journey has been about 30 years. Just prior to getting to the life science industry, I was an infantry officer in the army for, for a while. And then when I got off active duty, started off my career at Merck, a large pharma company. Spent about 15 years at Merck in various sales, marketing, commercial strategy roles. And then the last 15 years of my roughly 30 year career has been building early mid stage life science companies both on the diagnostic side and now on the therapeutic side with O and L Therapeutics.
- [01:46]
Michael Piperno
Great, thanks, David. Yeah. You and I have known each other for a long time. We've had a lot of conversations about leadership life, both inside large pharma and then also in the early and mid stage world. And that's why I wanted to invite you on the show today because we've recently been having some really good conversations about the importance of leadership communication, which, you know, is my field and my love, but more specifically about making sure you're communicating and leading in ways that gain alignment. Because there's a lot of different stakeholders in big pharma, but especially in the world you've been in for what, the past, did you say 10 years? 13 years. How long has it been since you.
- [02:27]
David Esposito
Now I'm getting old.
- [02:28]
Michael Piperno
My father, 15.
- [02:30]
David Esposito
Yeah.
- [02:31]
Michael Piperno
So I mean, and you have a lot of experience with several companies now making sure that everybody's on the same page, but it's not an easy thing to do. And I think that any leader who Says it's easy is probably not being truthful about that. So tell me a little bit about, and tell our listeners a little bit about the importance of especially in the early and mid stage alignment and getting all the stakeholders on the same page and maybe a little bit about how you've, how you've done that in the past.
- [03:04]
David Esposito
Sure. No, it's a great question and just echo a little bit of what you said that I think these, these problems span kind of large, medium, small companies, the ability to align teams and key stakeholders around common objectives. And I think in the early to mid stage world. So some of those basic challenges are pretty consistent across those groups. First, figure out in a very clear way what's the strategy of the organization or the business unit or whatever, what are we really trying to accomplish over the next few years and how does that strategy boil down into some very clear objectives that then drive to milestones and timelines, all of those kinds. So those fundamental building blocks of the strategy and a set of executable tactics is probably consistent across the board with those. I think the, some of the differences or unique aspects in early mid stage is that you really have no, you have no room for wasted motion and effort in the early and mid stage biotech companies. I mean there's things that are always ruthlessly time bound, there's cash Runway to consider, there's long term intellectual property Runway timelines. So all of those things around the importance beyond just setting those foundational strategic direction and milestones is how do we ensure the team's very well aligned, that they can deliver on the objectives. And there's not a lot of spinning wheels or extra effort going in the wrong direction because or not in the aligned direction because just don't have enough people, money and time to deal with it. Perhaps the larger companies, again they have under the similar time pressures, but they may have a little bit more positive cash flow and could juggle a little bit of inefficiencies over time. And so I think that is one of the clear differences in urgencies and importance around alignment in early mid stage biotech. And I think many of the tools can be somewhat similar, but it's much more direct and hands on in early stage. So there's obviously a mix of a variety of meetings and settings, whether it's, you know, the cadence of the team to have weekly monthly type overview, operating plan meetings, combination of clear one on ones, all of those to ensure consistent alignment around those objectives. And I think again in the earlier mid stage decisions are made more rapidly so the importance of aligning around not, not just the direction but the rationale for those decisions, how they impact workflow, I would just say it's communicated on a more timely, consistent basis around a variety of what could be viewed as the normal building blocks, whether that's face to face meetings, zoom calls, one on ones, small team meetings, all of those that are, are important and probably occur at a more rapid, consistent basis than perhaps big companies. And then the other aspect of it to your question, around not only the process, but especially in an early and mid stage like in our world in O and L Therapeutics where we're venture capital funded, ensuring the alignment of those deliverables and specifics with investors, with board of directors to ensure in a very similar fashion, what's communicated to the team to work on is communicated to investors as well. Nobody likes surprises. Everybody wants to know where the team's headed, how the dollars are getting allocated and the people are getting allocated. So that kind of consistency across those very clear stakeholders in an early mid stage biotech is an important job for leadership and on the team it is.
- [07:14]
Michael Piperno
And a lot of the things that frankly I coach on, and you and I have talked about this too, is that you have these key messages, you have this vision, you have information to share, you have, you want to make sure people are aligned, but you have very different stakeholders. So you have to be very smart and audience centric about how you deliver to these different audiences, whether it's the internal team or the board or, or investors or whomever you're talking to. And there really is an art to that in leadership because a lot of, especially with my life sciences clients, a lot of times people miss the mark on that. They don't think about, okay, this is this specific audience member, what do they need to hear and how do they need it delivered? Because it's not just like here's the message and you deliver it the same. It's the same inside Big Pharma too. I mean, a lot of what I see in the larger companies is leadership has a key message or has messaging and has vision and they push it down through this whole huge system and give the same message to everybody. But that doesn't work necessarily. It needs to be tailored as it cascades down. That's actually a thing, cascading communication to make sure that you, that you, that you're doing that. So yeah, what have you seen as far as mistakes in gaining alignment or leadership? Because it's not easy. I mean, what you just talked about is it makes Total sense. But it's not easy to do.
- [08:46]
David Esposito
Yeah, great question. You're an expert on this and that's why I've leaned on you also to engage me and my teams over the years in various companies to kind of help do that. Because it's not a, not a simple task and many times I say not many times. Kind of all of us need a good coach who's not perhaps in the ring with you as part of the team. And you've played that vital role to me on a number of companies over the last 15 plus years on this journey. So I think one is it's not easy to your point, and it's important to be intentional about getting support to do it. But I also think you know the building blocks. So I'd say it is really important, especially in the, maybe the higher level order of communication to board of directors and a corporate direction to have those very clear strategic direction imperatives, key objectives outlined and at a level, at a board level to see how that plan comes together that's specific to time bound objectives and how you're moving and managing risk towards that. So that, and that's, I won't say basic, but the clarity of that is really important on what you're trying to accomplish and do. But I think what's really important is how do you bridge that strategic direction, large swim lane operating plan down to very successful execution. And I think where that really comes down to it is that ensuring everybody on the team understands what they do day to day eventually adds up to the team's contribution to the business unit's contribution ultimately to the, to those corporate objectives. And that's where I think, to your point, on tailoring the message, it is still important that everybody in a team understands the long term game plan and then what are the building blocks to get to that long term game plan and then what did they do on a day to day basis? So back to those, you know, interactions, whether they be hallway conversations in the office, a zoom call for remote folks or what have you, it is a matter of articulating, hey, like in our case we're running a large clinical trial in geographic atrophy. Well, how does every team member's contribution play to that? Study startup activities, the engagement of key opinion leaders, the evolution of the science, the manufacturing pieces, all of those need to be articulated to that broad direction. But then everybody's contribution and I think Michael, in that way you help drive alignment around the big picture and what people are doing. But it is the day to day communication and reinforcement of that, because I think you've said it to me a number of times and there's a bunch of books written on it. I mean, you can have a great meeting, say a lot of great things, and you think it's all clear, but probably 8 out of 10 people walk around thinking something different.
- [12:01]
Michael Piperno
Right.
- [12:03]
David Esposito
Repetition builds retention and you just gotta keep machining that along.
- [12:09]
Michael Piperno
Yeah, and I love, and you know, that's so important. I mean, people need to know how their role impacts the objectives and the goal and the outcome and what's going on and how and, and that does not only make give alignment, but it gives people more of the why behind where we're going, what we're doing. And I'll tell you, I mean, I know you're good at this, but I'll tell you, a lot of leaders miss the mark on that, making people because they feel like either it should be clear or my people don't need that from me. And both of those are usually wrong. So keep being aligned, reinforcing, making sure people understand the why. And you know what else that gives you, and you tell me if this is true in your experience, but it gives you also, it helps people, it helps your team through when things have to flex and change, you get data that wasn't expected or a strategy has to shift. If you're a leader that's used to transparently when you can helping everybody understand the why, it gives them much more comfort to flex with you and to make that move rather than, you know, oh, it's changing, it's changing again because, you know, especially in the early stage, I mean, early mid stage, but especially in the early stage, you think you know where you're going and something has to pivot, something has to change.
- [13:34]
David Esposito
No, that's a great point. Maybe I'll just kind of toss a few things over in following up to that. You know, it is, you know, it's certainly in the early stage and sometimes people from a big company moving into the early stage are perceived with an early stage that, hey, you got to move quickly and change direction and take in new data real fast to make some decisions. So in some aspects that's true. But the other side of it is back to my earlier comments. You can't afford a lot of wasted motion in an early stage company. And so the ability to maybe zigzag with a bunch of data points can eventually cause you going nowhere and running out of money fast too. So I think part of that communication and alignment around direction is there are Rapidly occurring data points in an early stage company. But part of that communication consistency is is this a data point that's changing course or is it just a helpful data point that's moving us further down the road, that's not changing the overall operating plan or the function of a particular unit, but it's a piece of data that needs to be interpreted and then further communicated that, hey, we're still on the same path. Yes, we're maybe, I don't know, in my world, 60 days behind now on the base case, but we're still moving in the same direction. Or is it a significant enough data point that causes a change in direction? And so I think it is, you know, part of what you described, ensuring alignment and stuff. It's not a one time deal. So you lay out that plan, that direction, those consistent touch points and you're interpreting data as it's coming in, sometimes on a weekly basis when we're running clinical trials. But ultimately the layering on top of that communication is yes, it's a helpful data point, but it's not changing what we're doing. Or if it is, back to your point, you've got to provide the why on why we're changing around that.
- [15:42]
Michael Piperno
Right? Yeah. And it is. The early stage world is not for everyone. And I know you've taught, we've talked about that. But curious if you wouldn't mind sharing, like what advice would you give? Because you've been in the big pharma and you've been in the early stage world. What advice would you give someone who's a leader in big pharma, who's thinking about, you know, I want to join that early mid stage world, wonder what it's like. And you've talked, you've talked already a little bit about it, but what advice would you give a leader who's contemplating that?
- [16:14]
David Esposito
Great question. So I mean, I think part of it is those leaders coming from large companies have developed a set of really fundamental, important skill sets. The things we were talking about earlier, setting strategy, building an operating plan that has discipline metrics to be able to track all of those skill sets that most senior leaders in large companies build and experience and have are really important. I think the transition or translating that to early stage is that you still need those skill sets. Even though you think, hey, it's just three folks sitting around a table, we can make decisions, you really still need that strategic skill set. But one of the fundamental differences, it's a little bit of maybe I touched earlier my army leadership background too is that in the early stage, you do need to lead and make decisions in a much more rapid fashion. Not to zigzag on plans unless it's needed to go in a different direction, as I was saying earlier. But there is a need to have leadership that makes decisions because the team needs that. And I think that's a little bit of the cadence of decision making that's a bit different from the large companies to early stage, that you don't have the quarterly operating plan meeting to get all senior stakeholders aligned all the time like you would in a big company. Before you make some broad changes in early stage, it very well may be that weekly staff meeting that says we're going in a different direction around I don't know what a particular maybe partner we want to engage with. And the team, the team in early stage needs a leader to make decisions. Doesn't mean you get, doesn't mean you steamroll everything. It's still those basic building blocks that people learn about. Getting feedback and stakeholder, all of that's very important. But at the end of the day, the cadence of those decisions needs to occur in very real time. Where in a larger company you may have the ability to shuffle on a decision like that for a variety of reasons.
- [18:35]
Michael Piperno
Sure, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's that rapid, that speed can cause some discomfort for some folks. And sometimes you have to make a decision and you don't have all the information. I mean, that sometimes happens and that happens in big pharma too. But I think it's more prevalent in, in my clients who are in the early and mid stage.
- [18:56]
David Esposito
Very true. And I just maybe add to it. That's an important part too. Even in the big companies where the default response may be, let's get a little bit more data before we make a decision. Inevitably you don't have a full amount, but it's probably a little bit more on extreme on the early stage where you probably have less as a percent of what you'd love to have to make a decision. And so you still gotta make it. But the other, the other point I was going to emphasize is that the cadence of decision making is a bit faster in the early stage, but there's still the basics of ensuring that that decision is communicated thoroughly and effectively throughout the organization is really important. And even in our team, which is relatively small at 15 or so, inevitably there may be a hallway conversation by somebody that says, I didn't know what the heck was going on, why are we doing that? You know, and it's like man, back to basics. How did I miss not getting the broad communication around even in a small team? Because I think back to the point you want everybody aligned. You don't want any wasted motion. So communications need to be thoroughly communicated and understood as best that can be to make sure everybody's kind of rowing in the same direction.
- [20:14]
Michael Piperno
Thoroughly communicated and often repeated.
- [20:18]
David Esposito
There you go.
- [20:19]
Michael Piperno
It's important. Repetition's important. Attention spans are short. People miss things, people misconstrue things, people are distracted and some people just need reinforcement of the message. So we're all humans.
- [20:31]
David Esposito
And you know, Michael, to that point too, what you've kind of always guided me over time is that there's, there's the, you know, the consistency of that message across a variety of channels. You know, some folks in organizations, email communication plus face to face and meetings or these are great, others, slack channels where it goes. There needs to be some enduring messaging that's housed across all these platforms or reinforced forced across all these platforms because at least we haven't figured it out yet, maybe others have. People are getting in a variety of message, whether it's text or these things. And you need to ensure all those channels are hit and the message is consistent.
- [21:19]
Michael Piperno
Sure, absolutely. And there's no silver bullet, there's no one right way to do that very often. That's very team specific, in my experience. What works for the specific team? Hey, listen, I want to ask you a couple rapid fire questions here, all right? So just give me your gut. Let's see how this goes. This is my first episode here, so if this doesn't work, David, I'll just edit it out. All right? Okay, so what's the best piece of leadership advice you've ever received? Boy, that is a good, that's a heavy question. That's not really a rapid fire question. Huh?
- [21:53]
David Esposito
I don't know if I've had enough coffee to start with that one. You know, I think at the end of the day I'll go back to some just my military experience. The first thing is you've got to set the example for others to follow. So leadership is about kind of doing and inspiring to follow a direction. And many times you just can't pontificate that in front of the crowd. You need to still be a hands on leader no matter how big the organization is. And so I think that, you know, infantry model, follow me, you know, set the example, is I think one of the cascading influence experience communications that I probably would say that's really important to me.
- [22:42]
Michael Piperno
Good piece of advice? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. And when I, you know, when I led teams as well, it's that was important to me to set the example. And then also the next step was to allow them to flourish and teach me, which I always loved when that happened, you know, when I was helping someone become more of a, become a leader, which is of course what I love to do in my day to day work. I love to help people be even better leaders and a lot of that is through presence. It's how they show up for themselves and for their team that can really make a big difference. So what's one thing you wish you knew earlier in your career?
- [23:26]
David Esposito
Yeah, that's another good one. You know, I do think, I wish I knew earlier that you probably didn't need to worry as much about everything. You know, even these are heavy topics. How do you communicate effectively? How do you keep. Because inevitably it's like, you know, you're building a purposeful business in our world to make a difference in patients lives and you want a team to be engaged, you know, and you have a tendency to really worry about the missteps or the potential risks that everybody's facing. And you know, at the end of the day in my journey I've had a few good exits in this early mid stage. I've also taken a few companies into bankruptcy or control, wind down, whatever polite term you want to use, but it's painful. Yeah, but even in those situations, like I probably would have loved to have told my younger self, I don't worry too much about it. It might hurt a little bit, you recover, you move forward. Don't, don't, don't worry too much about all these kind of things, you know, just keep moving the ball forward.
- [24:31]
Michael Piperno
Oh yeah, I hear you on that one for sure. I wish I had told my younger self that as well. Actually I have to tell my 51 year old self that now. You know, that's a good reminder.
- [24:39]
David Esposito
I'll go wrong with that. No, that's a good reminder today as it would have been 30 years ago.
- [24:44]
Michael Piperno
Two more questions for you. What's a hobby that you wish you had more time for?
- [24:49]
David Esposito
You know, that's a good one. You know, I enjoy clearing my head of running, you know and I think although I try to carve up as much time as my, my own body allow it to run, I think, you know, having the ability to just get outdoors, whether it's running or hiking or something to just, it's one of the few hobbies that really gives me the the clarity of mind, the peace of mind, all those kind of things. Because just, you know, just checking out, say we're, you know, on a vacation or something like that. Those are good. But I. I find the physical exertion of that kind of hobby is super helpful. It just level set me in my mind. And so if I had a little bit more time and my body would hold up a little bit more, I'd probably do a little bit more running and hiking.
- [25:41]
Michael Piperno
And maybe if you had a little warmer weather because you're in Michigan. So I bet you that affects.
- [25:47]
David Esposito
Is snowing right now. The dark, icy mornings kind of also make a convenient excuse not to do that hobby.
- [25:56]
Michael Piperno
Yeah, I know I've been. I don't. I haven't been taking my walks with the cold weather, so I got to get back on the bandwagon with that.
- [26:03]
David Esposito
So.
- [26:03]
Michael Piperno
Okay, last question, my friend. What's your go to comfort food?
- [26:07]
David Esposito
Oh, boy. Now, we've shared a lot of meals, so you probably might be able to guess a little bit of that, I'd say. Okay, my go to comfort food, that is probably not as healthy as it should be. I love a good calzone, Michael.
- [26:22]
Michael Piperno
Oh, I didn't know that. Nice.
- [26:25]
David Esposito
Yeah. You know, because it's. It'll put you to sleep, too. But you eat too many of those calzones, you're in trouble, you know, that's the problem.
- [26:33]
Michael Piperno
Yeah. Oh, but they are good. When you get a good one, they are good.
- [26:37]
David Esposito
We're both Jersey kids by birth, so, you know, I could just dream of a good calzone down the street of which you can get a few in Michigan, no doubt about it. But, yeah, that would be my comfort point. Food on a cold winter afternoon like this.
- [26:52]
Michael Piperno
Yeah. I think mine's a big pot of gravy and meatballs and pasta.
- [26:57]
David Esposito
There you go.
- [26:57]
Michael Piperno
I'll have that every day of the week if I could.
- [27:00]
David Esposito
That's a close second slide in a little chicken parm under that.
- [27:03]
Michael Piperno
Oh, yeah, Chicken parm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I could down a whole tray of that because I make. I have a family recipe of that that's like, I think is out of this world. World. So. Awesome. Awesome. Well, listen, thank you so much for doing this today and for being on the show and for you. I'll say this about you. You've always been very generous with spreading your knowledge, helping other leaders, and I appreciate you doing that today for the listeners of this show. So thank you so much for coming on.
- [27:36]
David Esposito
Awesome, Michael. Thanks for having me. You do great work out there. I encourage people listening to this dial up Michael. He's helped me on a number of companies, good times and struggling times to help me get going. So no. Thanks a lot Michael. Glad to do these with you.
- [27:50]
Michael Piperno
Oh you're welcome. So listen, you can learn more about O and L Therapeutics on their website. It's onltherapeutics.com I believe, right David sure is. And of course David's on LinkedIn so make sure to follow him. He shares some great content.
- [28:04]
David Esposito
Awesome.
- [28:07]
Michael Piperno
Thanks for listening to the show today. If you enjoyed it, please rate it on your favorite podcast platform and tell one colleague or friend about it. Thanks. We'll see you next time. The Life Sciences Leadership show is brought to you by the Commvia Group, experts in leadership communication, coaching and training for life sciences leaders. Learn more at www.wercomvia.com. that's we w e r A R E Comvia C O M V I a dot com.