- Today I am speaking with Julie Gerberding, President
and CEO of FNIH, the Foundation
of the National Institutes of Health. Welcome, Julie.
- Thank you. Look forward to our conversation.
- It is a pleasure to have you here.
This is the series called Bold Advances in Health Care,
and I couldn't think of a better example than FNIH
to talk about these bold advances.
- In that combination between your experience in academia
and industry
and also public sector,
what are the three biggest lessons you learned in those
roles that you now make use of?
- First and foremost sort of plan horizontally,
but execute vertically.
I think my career is probably characterized
by taking organizations
that were operating in a very vertical sense
and welding them together in a more horizontal sense, so
that you really leverage the alliance
and the capabilities that a lot of diverse people bring
to the table. And at the same time, executing vertically so
that you know who's accountable
and you have the right people trying
to get the right job done right. So that was the case in San Francisco when I built
what was then known as the Prevention Epicenter to study
and prevent infectious diseases in patients
and their health workers at CDC,
likewise at Merck, knitting research, manufacturing,
and the commercial organizations more collaboratively
to prosecute the globalization of our vaccine portfolio.
And then finally, at FNIH, again, just bringing these groups
that usually operate very efficiently in their vertical
sense, but can even be more creative, more innovative,
and I think more powerful at finding new solutions when they
collaborate together.
A second lesson learned is the one
that all leaders know: build the best team.
And I certainly have a fantastic team at FNIH.
The third big lesson is: be transparent.
Try to reveal what you're thinking
and go as fast as the organization can tolerate,
and maybe a little bit faster,
but make sure you're clear about where you're going and why.