Care About Something Besides Yourself: Interview with Dr. Inderpal Randhawa, CEO of Southern California Food Allergy Institute

I recently went one on one with Dr. Inderpal Randhawa. Inderpal is the Medical Director of Pediatric Pulmonary, Clinical Immunology & Allergy at the Miller Children's Hospital and the CEO of the nonprofit Southern California Food Allergy Institute.

Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?

Inderpal: I entered medicine believing 21st-century medicine was based on active science promoting the treatment of disease with a sense of urgency. I believed the incredible amount of funding dollars would result in major breakthroughs in a timely manner. As I entered medical school, I was seriously concerned by what I witnessed. Every active player in the space - physician, nurse, administrator, scientist - were all believing their meaningful efforts were creating a significant impact. On every floor of each hospital, a different story was being told. A diagnosis was made but no treatment existed. A diagnosis was made and it was just too late. I could not fathom that a system with so much data could not logistically approach medical disease and research in an organized, time-dependent, forecastable fashion. In my 3rd year of medical school, the truth became even more real. My father, a research scientist himself, underwent 4 stress tests for atypical chest pain. All were read as completely negative. He died at the age of 57 a month after his last negative stress test from a massive heart attack. Every cardiologist I asked told me the same story - heart attacks present as sudden death in 25% of cases regardless of stress test results. That is where my story began. I changed my entire perspective on medicine and research. I promised myself to dedicate my entire career to creating a new model of disease research and management based on the accumulation of data targeting one disease entity at a time. The data would be harnessed to identify patterns and signals. These would be our research targets. This would produce therapies that would work quickly. The data would also be used to track the outcomes of the intervention. The outcome would be disease remission for any disease approached. It was not easy. I spent 9 years in post-graduate training receiving board certifications in five different areas covering lung, immune and transplant diseases in both children and adults. I dedicated myself to basic science, translational science, and clinical research resulting in over one hundred peer-review publications. Most importantly, I built the system which would achieve my goal - the Translational Pulmonary & Immunology Research Center (TPIRC). The institute, a non-profit, would seat research scientists, clinicians, data scientists, and disease advocates at the same table. With appropriate strategies, multiple lung and immune diseases would be studied and deployed across treatment models simultaneously all under extensive federal regulation for safety. Currently, one specific disease area, food anaphylaxis, with the data science of the Tolerance Induction Program (TIP), has treated over 10,000 patients successfully into disease remission. The challenges have been many but the promise I made to deploy a new model of research and clinical care is real. It is time to expand the model to as many diseases as possible.

Adam: What are the best leadership lessons you have learned from leading a non-profit organization? What are your best tips for fellow leaders of non-profit organizations?

Inderpal: Non-profit organizations have strong mission-centric individuals at their helm. Despite the energy of leadership, the organization must operate as a business to generate revenue to support the mission. I have always said market capitalism should achieve a social good. Market capitalism is built on growth, revenue, and expansion. Non-profit organizations often cannot retain talent who share such a notion. Our success has involved a diversity of functions in the non-profit: research, data science, clinical care, etc. The activity around each sector attracts strong leaders in the organization. Building across the diversity of functions allows a continuous level of growth in the company to drive inspiration and education of its employees. As a large non-profit continues to grow, it only motivates its employees, leaders, and board to remain engaged, enthusiastic and looking to the future.

Adam: What advice do you have on how to lead effectively during times of crisis?

Inderpal: We survived the pandemic by being transparent and honest with our employees and patients. We promised to move quickly and nimbly in addressing the pandemic. We kept all parties updated on every step of an ambitious plan to remain open during the pandemic providing a level of safety and testing not seen anywhere else. Put simply, it worked.

Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?

Inderpal: There is one key quality that counts: sacrifice. A leader must sacrifice pride, financial reward, time, respect, and recognition in order to succeed. The ideas of a leader should be greater than the self. If your ideas are great, they should become the ideation and execution of others. In today's world, leadership seems to last as long as the next acquisition. Long-term ideals in leadership are key. Believe in the vision and the mission of a company where the problems targeted seem almost impossible. Start there and you will be humble as a leader. Stay at work for the long term in such a company and you will see self-sacrifice becomes common and the soul of the organization is built to create a lasting impact.

Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives and civic leaders?

Inderpal: A single field of knowledge and enthusiasm is no longer enough to allow entrepreneurs confidence in the risk of a start-up. Systems are now highly integrated across layers of technology. The first tip is to identify how technology is impacting your niche area of interest. The second tip is to determine the cost to acquire this technology and most importantly support the technology. The third tip is to understand the regulatory risk of the environment you are in. With a rapidly changing economy, regulations are also changing. By addressing technology and regulatory aspects first, your financial risk and your regulated time to launch will grant relative clarity to the future of the enterprise.

Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading and managing teams?

Inderpal: A team is only as good as its output. A well-managed team knows what its output goal is. A strong leader declares the output goal and studies how each team member can contribute to reaching that goal. Not every team is a Superbowl contender. But, every team can be a winning team when led properly.

Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?

Inderpal: The energy you have in your 20s will not be present in your 30s. The energy in your 30s will not be present in your 40s despite your best efforts to maintain it. Take advantage of the time when you have the most energy to make the most impact.

Adam: What should everyone do to pay it forward?

Inderpal: Care about something besides yourself. It does not need to be lofty. Clean up your neighborhood. Help a senior citizen. Start your own cause. Recognize that sense of altruism and capitalize on it on a regular basis over many, many years.


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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