Back to podcast

Pamela Spence

Hello and welcome, everybody to the EY Health Sciences and Wellness podcast. I'm delighted to be joined today by three very formidable ladies: Dr. Rabia Khan, Dr. Samin Saeed and Trecilla Lobo. I'll leave these ladies to introduce themselves but, suffice to say, I do hope that we've got some very interesting discussion for you all this afternoon and I'm also never cease to be amazed at how inspiring our formidable ladies working in health sciences and wellness actually are and their different career journeys. So, let me get straight to the conversation. So, maybe we could start with you, Trecilla, maybe you could give us a brief overview of your career journey to date, which has taken many different twists and turns and perhaps highlight one or two defining moments in your career thatyou believe have really helped you get to where you've got to today.

Trecilla Lobo

I am SVP of People at BenevolentAI. I also am a non-exec director for Tech Nation, and I'm chair of RemCo. Tech Nation are actually a UK-based, government funded organization. So, I actually came to the UK when I was 17. I was born in India, brought up in Mumbai. Very obviously, non-traditional kind of route into biotech, essentially. I wanted to be an economist, as I was growing up, and fell into HR completely by accident. So, a kind of non-traditional route into HR.

As a background, I grew up in the slums of Mumbai, I was just lucky to, to have the education and feel very privileged to actually have the opportunity to come to the UK at the age of 17. And, I would say my defining moment was having the opportunity to come to the UK. It had a huge impact, on my life. It was an opportunity to really break the cycle of kind of poverty, hardship, and helped shape the rest of my career.

The opportunity to build my career in HR was second, and, and having fantastic mentor who really spotted my ability to do well in HR and encouraged me to learn and grow in HR. And also the amazing people that really tapped into what I was able to do and my skills, and give me the opportunities. So, a lot of the opportunities that I've had, predominantly in tech, and more recently in biotech at Benevolent, have been through people and advocates who've really either recommended me or spotted opportunities for me and mentored me along the way. So, I feel really privileged about that.

Spence

Thank you, Trecilla. I think you come across as very humble. I can only imagine how inspiring some of these mentorships that you mentioned have actually had an impact in your life and maybe we could come back to that shortly. But, Samin, would you like to introduce yourself, give a bit of a precis of your career background and some of your defining moments?

Dr. Samin Saeed

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, firstly, for inviting me on this podcast. My name is Dr. Samin Saeed. I am the Medical Director and Chief Scientific Officer for Novartis UK. Novartis is a global pharmaceutical company, so I head up the medical department for the UK arm of the company. I've got a team of about 90 scientists, pharmacists and doctors who are all working to ensure that the medicines that are being developed are reaching the UK patient and the healthcare system. In terms of my career path, I trained as a medic, actually, and so doing studied medicine in London. I was a junior doctor. I had embarked on a surgical career, so I was a very junior surgeon back in the day. And, actually, the first career defining moment for me was, at a point that, sadly, my mother passed away, she was quite young, and I'd taken some time out to, to look after her from my practice, and then when I went back into the NHS, I just found everything a little bit of a struggle, to be honest with you. I think caring for patients when you're, perhaps, a little bit broken inside is quite hard. But then on top of that, I looked around at the career I'd embarked on, and when you look up and you look at the senior surgical teams and, and you look at, actually, where are the women? Where are they? And actually back in the day I think you know, those, those days there were very, very few female consultant surgeons. I think maybe six to eight per cent of the UK surgical consultants were female. I think it's probably gone up a bit now to 13% but it did make me question the path I was on.

I did start to explore other careers, where having a medical background was something of value. That was my first job in the pharmaceutical industry, actually, as a medicaladvisor at Nycomed and since then I've been in the industry now for 14, 15 years. I've worked in global, international roles. I've had UK-based roles. I've worked in research and development and through that I've been here.

I guess another career defining moment for me was landing a global international talent programme at another large pharmaceutical company about 10 years ago, when I was eight months pregnant. Having to go onto this really quite intense interview process but actually being able to land that programme was really, you know, a huge opportunity. it was, I was able to get the breadth of experience, you know, work in different environments and really hone that leadership muscle. For me, that's been another defining moment in my career path.

Spence

Thank you, Samin. And Rabia, last but by no means least, you have had an amazing journey so far. Maybe we could hear from you in terms of, what has your journey been to date and a few defining moments?

Khan

Yeah, thanks, for having me and it's been quite a journey to date and I've been very lucky and supported by some amazing mentors. Like Trecilla, born and raised in Lahore, Pakistan, and part of that international student contingency that gets moved over so my parents were supportive enough and I did an undergraduate degree, and then a PhD followed by an MBA, all within Montreal at McGill and Concordia. And really ended up, kind of like Samin, in Toronto for personal reasons. My father was not well and I was lucky enough to start working at the intersection of machine learning and biology, and back in the day I worked at a company called Meta that was building a biomedical knowledge graph and I think, Trecilla can probably relate to biomedical knowledge graphs! And so back then this was a young company in Toronto and I worked very closely with the CEO and truly fell in love with the tech industry. And coming out of the lab and into an industry where, actually, you can transform the way we understand data and the way we understand patterns was something really exciting, because I was coming from a place where we could generate data, but I was stuck in the world of Excel sheets and trying to make sense of it. And, I loved that role. I thought I was going to be a BD person, that was my dream. So, I did BD and realized, "Well, that is not your dream, Rabia," and I really missed the science and wanted to move to a bigger city. Having been a person that doesn't really believe in geographic boundaries, we were raised in multiple countries growing up, then Montreal, then I was in Toronto, I just upped and moved to London, UK, to the Francis Crick Institute and was lucky enough, again, to have mentors around me.

I met Jackie Hunter, who recruited me into BenevolentAI and she was truly someone that was very supportive of women, not just at Benevolent, but generally. My background in knowledge was what I think piqued her interest. That was a defining moment for me, because I could finally understand the thing that was missing, which is, "How do I take my skill set and apply it to what I care about?” - which is drug discovery. And since then, I've been on this journey of learning and I hope I stay on a journey of learning.

I worked under Jackie's supervision and guidance and mentorship, leading drug discovery programmes, then got recruited into a company called Sensysne Health where I had an excellent mentor in Paul Drayson. There we looked at NHS data to improve patient outcomes in clinical trials. I met wonderful people like Samin, and the thing that piqued my curiosity when I was at Benevolent is why we can't target the RNA within the human genome, which makes up most of the human genome, as opposed to the proteome, and thought about starting my own company.

Last year I was back in Toronto because of COVID-19 and decided that's the time to start a company, and so I did. I took the leap of faith, founded Ladder Therapeutics, now CEO-Founder.

And it's just been an amazing journey, and the defining moments, have been around support from incredible mentors and meeting supportive people along the way, that just believe in you and are cheerleaders.

Spence

Thank you, Rabia. If I just reflect back in terms of what each of you have said, you all, mention mentors, you all mention supporters. You actually all mention a supportive family. We hear so much about the glass ceiling. There are no ceilings, there is no barrier to what you can achieve if you get the right support around you.

Rabia, you talked about two individuals, who I, I know both of them reasonably well, but I'm just wondering Trecilla and Samin, have there been standout people for you that have really helped you on your journey like Rabia has spoken about? That'd be interesting just to, to dive into that.

Lobo

Mine hasn't been a traditional kind of route to education. I was just incredibly fortunate to even be educated. The defining moment for me was when I actually just went and got a job because I had to self fund. I had to fund my education, and the person, there was an amazing lady called Janet, who gave me the opportunity and said, “You're exceptional at this, and you can actually use your own personal values to break down barriers and create opportunities for others.” And that was really the inspiring moment for me in terms of having her as a mentor, and really developing my career in HR and the people function and gaining that confidence. And I will talk a little bit about it later.

Just to be among such amazing, such amazing people today - I just feel incredibly privileged, to be here. So, just helping build that confidence was so key, and when I look at my journey, to be honest, there's so many people along the way, and some of them are actually also men.

Having a very supportive partner was really, really key for me, in terms of developing and, and continuing to develop my career. The likes of Jackie, she sits on the board of BenevolentAI, and has always been inspiring. We have an amazing CEO, Joanna Shields, who also inspires me every day. and has been, continues to be a great mentor. The technician board, we have some incredible people on the board who continue to be an inspiration and provide that mentorship. And the fact that they actually believe in you. So the moment that, that true moment is just believing and giving you the opportunity.

Spence

Samin, any particular standout characters that have helped you along your way?

Saeed

I think there were just so many, to many to mention, and I'm not sure I'll do anyone really much justice. I was reflecting on  when you were speaking, Trecilla and Rabia, that actually I've taken inspiration from all sorts of different types of people from different sectors, different industries. I think the key thing for me, and I wanted to come back to this belief and confidence piece, and mentioned, Pamela, there is no real glass ceiling. I do sometimes wonder whether sometimes the glass ceiling is in our own minds. You know, you know, how do we really lean into things? And I know there's a very famous book about leaning in, but again I just want to come back to the, the two examples from my own personal experience.

One was the, this global leadership talent programme that I put myself forward for. I was eight months pregnant at the time. You know, there is part of me that was thinking, "Well, why should I be doing this? I'm about to go off and just have a baby, you know, I shouldn't just be thinking about this." But actually, it was the best thing I could have done. The company supported me. It allowed me to have the time off to, have my baby. I came back. They supported me coming back into work, and it was the best thing ever. And I can, again, this is just a message to, to women out there, you know, sometimes it's our own mindset that can then, that can hold us back.

And even now in the current role, so coming back to this whole idea of belief and, and mentorship, I have to say, actually, probably more recently, where I am right now, the fact that people that have given me this job or gave me this opportunity 18 months ago, you know, they were the ones that really inspired me to have the confidence. You know, again, I was probably talking myself out of whether I want to do this job or not. I've got two small children at the time, I was working four days a week, but clearly they saw something in me and they, they saw the potential and it was then up to me now to grab the opportunity and lean in.

So, I have to say, I think the most I've felt inspired and motivated to do my work has, has been in the last 18 months, with the team around me, the leadership team I work with, my current manager, Chinmay Bhatt, who is the UK President for, Novartis, Pharmaceuticals, and the senior leadership team here at Novartis. I've really felt that they really do believe in this idea of diversity and inclusion, and really are keen to ensure that talent does progress. Hopefully that's given you some flavor of, my experiences.

Spence

Thank you, Samin. I think, just listening to our conversation, I certainly have to continually remind myself, [and I've just written myself a note that] and, men or women, whoever's listening, are we each doing enough to support that next generation of talent coming through? And to hear these really amazing stories, its others that have supported us, or others that have given us confidence, that have empowered us to push ourselves forward.

Let's switch gears. We talk about the  journey, but what are we really most proud of? Maybe just one or two things from each of us. Rabia, let's start with you. What are the one or two things that you're most proud of in your career journey, your life journey to date?

Dr. Rabia Khan

You know, that is such an interesting question, and it's weird because I actually have to take a moment and think. Because you always default to the thing that's most recent, but if I pull back all the way, in the year 2000, we published the sequence of the human genome, and I was still in Lahore at the time. And I remember thinking to myself, "Oh my God, everything on the planet that I find interesting, the human body, animals, biology, is defined by four letters, just four letters, ATGC defines the difference between me, mother, my father, and I want to go be a geneticist," right? And, I remember that day clearly and, and then I remember graduating with my PhD. At the time when I graduated, my father was really sick, and it didn't really sink in that I had actually completed a doctoral degree in human genetics along with a concurrent degree, an MBA. I think that, for me, that was something I'm very proud of. Again, couldn't have been done without the, you know, the PI that I worked under, who decided to take an international student, which is a whole other kettle of fish.

I remember when I started working at Sensyne, and Paul was kind enough to give me the free reign to set up what is now called the Discovery Sciences Division at Sensyne Health. And I said to Paul, "We're gonna publish papers, and they're going to be transformational within six months," and people said, "No, you can't do it, it's not possible." And we did, actually. We published a number of papers, we filed a number of patents. We took the team zero to 50 in six months. People didn't think we could do it. And so, for me, I really thrive on the idea of when someone says, "You can't do it," and you just try.

And, frankly, I think Samin's concept of the ceiling's in your head, and I always say starting a company you have to have a certain level of stupidity. Because, if you actually knew what it was going to be like, you wouldn't do it. And so I've loved the journey but I think just thinking back, being proud of, of maybe maintaining a naivety of just believing and going for it.

I think sometimes we get scared of failure, but what's the worse that can happen? My father always says to me, "If you have a plan for the worst case scenario, and you are comfortable with that outcome, just go do it." And I wish I had internalized that earlier in my life.

Spence

Thanks, Rabia. Trecilla, what about you?

Lobo

So it does come down to, in terms of what we do and what I do and my role, giving back and really making some changes and really moving the needle. An example of that would be; I tried it early on in my career and have seen some big successes more recently, have been around diversity and inclusion.

We all want to have a very diverse and inclusive workplace, but what does that actually mean? How do you move that needle. One of the things that we did do was not talk about it too much, and just behind the scenes really put some very strong metrics and very intentional frameworks to move that needle. So we said, "Okay, we'll start now and measure in two years' time and see the difference." And moving approximately, we currently have about 49% male, 51% female, distribution across BenevolentAI. But that wasn't the case, say, two years, it was 60/40, and really moving that needle. That’s only a small element of what we were trying to achieve and the team were trying to achieve. We also had a 4.9 score on Glassdoor for diversity and inclusion, which we didn't have before. So, a lot of it is just more about personal values and really believing that you can make that change, and getting your team to, to believe in that.

Samin,what you were saying is just that inner belief in yourself that you can do that. And then just empowering everyone around you to say, "Actually we can" and celebrating those key milestones and successes, which we have recently done. That was great, actually, and really making a tangible difference in breaking that ceiling. And,Rabia, I know our paths didn’t crossed at Benevolent, but I mean isn't it incredible to have Samin, Pamela, Rabia, all talk about their journeys and actually you wouldn't be able to do that unless people are intentional about making changes.

Spence

That's very true. Very true. Thank you, Trecilla. And, Samin, a couple of proud things that you have achieved?

Saeed

That's a tough question, because I'm proud of so many things. So, if I may flip the script a little bit and talk about what I'm really excited about. I am very proud of where I work. I'm proud of what I'm seeing happen in the workplace for women, and I'm proud of seeing women step up and lean in and be strong leaders. I am particularly proud of myself. I know it's going to sound rather self-indulgent for being in the position I'm in, but what I'm probably more excited than I am proud about, are the opportunities now for the future and the things I can do for people in this position. I think that's the other key thing for all of us female leaders now – when you are in a position of influence, you can have an impact on other people, the inspiration you can give to other people.

We've talked a lot about this sort of inner belief and confidence and empowering and giving people that nudge and the push when they need it. I think for me, that's what I'm most excited by for now, and I think maybe you can ask me that question in the next five year, "What am I most proud of?" And I hopefully, at that point will have something to talk about when it comes to the people I've encouraged to go and reach their full potential and be amazing in their careers. I think that's what excites me the most in this role right now.

Khan

I think Samin and I spent quite a bit of time talking about this, because being proud of something's great, but how do you transform that into adding value into someone's life? And both Samin and I, and I'm sure Trecilla with your role at Tech Nation, spend quite a bit of time, if someone messages me on LinkedIn and say, "Hey, do you have time for a coffee?" I will always make time by definition, it doesn't matter who it is. I truly believe that one conversation can transform someone's life. That one conversation I had with Jackie was transformational for me and I'm sure she has tons of those conversations a day. So, I love the positioning, Samin, and, I think I am truly excited about that as well.

Spence

Thank you, Rabia. I think it's really interesting if we listen to the conversation over the last five, ten minutes. There's an element of consistency to being open, excited, and looking toward what can be achieved. Listening to the three of you, there's also a massive amount of humility which, makes us curious.

Rabia, you even said something like, “You know, starting your own company you must be stupid. If you knew everything that was gonna happen.” But it's that excitement, that passion, that drive, you know, to quote a famous phrase, it's ‘making the impossible possible’, but with that passion, that openness, the curiosity about the opportunity in front of us. So, I think that comes through very, very strongly, and I think it was also something Samin orTrecilla said about not apologizing for being proud. Also, asking ourselves, “Am I doing enough? Am I doing enough to help and support people in being curious?” And, and let's shout from the rooftops about what they are proud of and their achievements, because I think ladies in particular have a tendency to feel it's obvious everyone appreciates what they're doing and actually being a bit more proactive and encouraging people to be proud, I think is something that we can all benefit from.

I'm just conscious of we moved through the time of our podcast, so maybe we could just close with each of you, if you could give advice to your 25 year-old self, what would it be?

Saeed

I could start just building on all that's been said so far and, actually, as you say, we've talked a lot about inner belief and confidence. I think the advice I would give myself as a 25 year-old and, which people who know me might laugh, because I've often been described as quite unapologetic. But if you knew me 15 years ago, perhaps not so much. So I think the advice I would give to my 25 year-old self would be, just be bold, be unapologetic, be brave and grab those opportunities. Let's not shy away from the things that are round there. And this whole idea of curiosity, it's so important. It's curiosity that leads

you to new opportunities and potential. So, that would be my message, you know, be bold, be brave, be unapologetic. I love those words and I try to live those everyday, probably much to the chagrin of my, my boss but hey, he loves it really, I'm sure.

Spence

[LAUGHS] Thanks, Samin. Trecilla, what advice would you give your 25 year-old self?

Lobo

I have to start with a little story in terms of putting this into context. My father was very traditional and, basically didn't really believe in a career for women. And so was very much, "Okay, if you go and study, then you're going to do a very traditional kind of course," and he didn't really encourage choices. I didn't want to go down the traditional path that was intended for me - I wanted to break the boundaries in the family, and I decided to switch subjects, quite early on, and I enrolled in banking and analytics. I then realized I was the only female in the class, amongst a full class of men. I had huge amounts of imposter syndrome. I questioned if I was good enough, if I would succeed. Then  I attended a talk by a female leader, who was so inspiring. I just went up to her and said "Look, can I job shadow you? Can I just shadow you for a day?" So, she invited me to the city for the day, which, to be honest, I didn't even have a suit. So, I bought a suit from a charity shop. She invited me for lunch, and I went to lunch. I didn't even know how to use the cutlery, because it was such a posh restaurant. The reason why I'm saying this is just to say look, your CV may look totally different, your educational background may look totally different from others and you are going to compete in an environment where you probably may not feel you are standing out, but there will be something about you that will make you stand out. So, I think the main thing is believe in yourself. There is something about you that will stand out.

You just have to overcome your imposter syndrome, you have to believe in yourself and be bold. Make those bold moves because, if you don't, nobody else will do it for you. Just be humble along the way and be true to your values. That will take you a long way. I think, just honestly help people along the way. For one success that you have, try and multiply that. Like a drop in the ocean. Try and have that positive ripple effect. That's just really it's just comes down to belief, I think .

Spence

Thank you, Trecilla, thank you. And Rabia, what about you? What advice to your 25 year-old self?

Khan

I am going to steal other people’s advice to me. The first one I am going to echo is Samin's "Be unapologetic.” I think when I was younger, I was trying to fit in some box that was carved at the time, and I wish I had not tried to fit into whatever box was relevant for that stage of my career. It is always going to be a different box that someone wants to put you in. So, just be unapologetic, be yourself.

The last piece of advice that I think Paul gave me once, which was, I was in a meeting and people were not taking me seriously, and I was very frustrated, and he said, "Stay calm. Do not let people understand the frustration or see the frustration, because you are who you are. You are there because you have a seat at the table. You have earned that seat at the table, and, and don't let anyone convince you otherwise.” So, going back to Samin's comment of being unapologetic.

I'd say, the sum of it is, is be yourself. Believe that you can do anything. Always take advice. There is a place of belief of you can do anything you want, but grounding that, as Trecilla said, in humility and experience. I've always surrounded myself with people that are deeply more experienced than me in what I do. So you can temper your dreams to be grounded in reality, and just try it.

Spence

Thank you, Rabia. I was going to summarize, but I'm not going to. I think that what the three of you have just said is really quite humbling. But, I would say that I've certainly felt really inspired by listening to some of your stories and, the sky's the limit if we actually aim high and really reach for that sky.

I've certainly been inspired by listening to the three of you this afternoon. I hope our listeners have too, and let's really celebrate the progress. I think, Samin, as you said it, it's only opportunity in front of us. So, let's go get it, girls, really. And, that's probably all there is to say. So, thank you very much for listening, everybody.

Back to podcast