Don’t Just Be an Armchair Leader: Interview with Leslie Orne, CEO of Trinity Life Sciences
I recently went one-on-one with Leslie Orne, CEO of Trinity Life Sciences.
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?
Leslie: Thank you for having me, Adam. My love for science started early on -- when my first biology teacher in high school got me excited about the intricacies and logic behind the topic. From that point forward, I set my sights on making it a career.
I attended Dartmouth College where I pursued a BA in biology and spent lots of time in the lab. That time at the bench taught me that, while I still loved science, being in the lab wasn’t a long-term career for me. I’m grateful for this realization as it led me to open up my aperture and explore roles in the business of science. That’s when I started consulting at Trinity.
Joining Trinity as an Associate Consultant in 2001 was the first step in a long line of roles at the company. I have seen virtually every level at Trinity and know the unique set of challenges that each brings. Now, as CEO, I oversee both the business itself day to day as well as the strategic decisions we make such as executing on M&A and determining new offerings. Our mantra is that every decision impacts a life – and it’s true. We have the incredible opportunity to help the 350+ global life sciences companies we work with to solve their greatest challenges in commercializing therapies – ultimately helping them to deliver the right medicines to patients across the globe.
Adam: In your experience, what are the key steps to growing and scaling your business?
Leslie: The key to scaling your business is to become as big as your dreams and set big goals. I have tasked myself with positioning Trinity as a major force in the life sciences consulting industry, and to be the “go-to” that pharmaceutical execs first approach when in need of a strategic commercialization partner. This can all be made possible by devoting my time to listening and learning from our clients and our internal team to identify how we can continuously improve. We achieve this by being the best partner for our clients and the best place to work for our team. Never rest on your laurels.
Adam: What do you believe are the defining qualities of an effective leader?
Leslie: Everyone can rise to the challenge and be a leader at any stage in their career. Being an effective leader means taking charge, stepping up, offering solutions, moving conversations along, brainstorming ideas – and anyone pursuing leadership can do these things, not just executives. I do think some characteristics – resilience, growth mindset, a bit of grit, agility to connect with a broad range of people, willingness to put aside your own ego and adopt an enterprise perspective – help set people up to be executives in the future.
Adam: How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?
Leslie: There are several steps that leaders can take to help advance their skills to the next level.
Surprisingly, the first is to relax and remember to have fun. It may seem simple but it’s an important reminder. I like to say “work, work out (keep yourself healthy and take care of you!) and go out (have fun!).” You need mindspace to think outside the box and be creative.
Try not to sweat the small stuff either. It can be easy to get caught up in the little things, but as they say, “If it won’t matter in five years, why worry about it?” I’m a huge fan of the “Urgent Important Matrix” (look it up) and use it to organize my weeks and even my years.
Make sure your work has a purpose for you. If you’re doing work that you feel passionate about and inspires you to wake up every morning, it will be evident in both your career and personal growth. I wanted to work in a field that was ultimately doing something for human good, and at Trinity, we live our purpose every day – Every Decision Impacts a Life.
Remember that relationships are the most important part of anything – care about people. Always. Listen and engage.
Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives, and civic leaders?
Leslie: Essential components in success and leadership, in my experience, include:
Lead by example. If you wouldn’t do it, why would they?
Encourage those around you to constantly learn, and to be smarter than you are.
Give your team the freedom to innovate and own their work.
As we are doing at Trinity, take steps to simplify your business while re-igniting company culture by adjusting governance to lessen the sense of being pulled in too many directions, and re-focus on core roles and responsibilities to ultimately provide a best-place-to-work environment where everyone can contribute to success.
Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading, and managing teams?
Leslie: As CEO, I am responsible for ensuring that everything we do helps our clients make a positive difference in patients’ lives -- Every Decision Impacts a Life. That said, it is important to manage teams to operate business in a manner that is true to your company’s values and to position your team for success today, tomorrow and into the future. This can be achieved through working collaboratively with your fellow leaders to ensure that you are staying ahead of the curve on important trends to position your company as a leader in your space.
Listen, listen, listen. Maybe even consider reverse mentorship when more junior people “mentor” levels above them.
Also, make sure to set the right tone for corporate culture so that your teams have an environment in which they can thrive. This can be done by leading by example and showing compassion and inclusivity in all interactions with employees and clients alike.
Adam: What are your best tips on the topics of sales, marketing, and branding?
Leslie: To create a successful marketing strategy, you need to have the ability to work with anything a brand touches, a true understanding of the complexities of the industry it occupies, and the skill set to solve the biggest of challenges.
Trinity is committed to revolutionizing the pharmaceutical commercial model and works with life science clients to develop tailored solutions to support effective corporate strategy development, insightful pre-commercial planning, launch excellence, and ongoing commercial execution.
Many of the healthcare industry’s greatest challenges result from its suboptimal ability to develop the right drugs for the right patients. This leads to costly failures across the drug development and commercialization continuum. There are many effective tools for overcoming these challenges that are not only applicable in the pharmaceutical industry but in others as well.
Information is king. Multiple data sets are generated from diverse internal and external sources. You need to consider which one takes priority. What questions need to be answered? Companies need to know how to figure out how to access the most relevant information and adopt systems and processes that deliver relevant insights on an ongoing basis so that data driven decisions can be made across all aspects of product development and commercialization.
In the case of pharmaceutical companies, you need to adopt a patient-centric approach to selecting, developing, and trialing new drug candidates to narrow down targets, reduce the time and cost needed to get from the bench to approval and ensure robust market demand for approved products. In other industries, look at your ultimate customer base and ask what their true needs are and how focusing on them can impact your bottom line.
Adopt a commercial mentality. Regardless of the industry, strategies and marketing plans need to be viewed through the critical lens of commercial reality. Companies need to ask themselves the tough questions: What will the market landscape look like when a product is launched? Does the predicted market opportunity warrant expensive and time-consuming studies or market research? What's the ultimate customer willing to pay?
Companies and brands that can meaningfully differentiate themselves from the competition with an innovative, data-driven and cohesive strategy are the most successful.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
Leslie: The best advice I’ve received during my career was from my predecessor and 20+ year mentor, Dave Fitzhenry. I believe Dave’s advice truly has brought me to where I am today.
At one point in my earlier career, I was faced with the decision of going to Stanford Graduate School for my MBA or continuing my journey at Trinity. Dave really helped me navigate this crossroads and helped lead me toward my decision. Dave shared with me that staying and dedicating multiple decades of my life to Trinity would be worthwhile; and that I could learn all the important lessons graduate school could offer me, in the real world at Trinity. This has rung more than true. Beyond this piece of advice, Dave has helped show me how to lead authentically, by arming people with the right tools, empowering them to get smarter than you are and then letting them lead.
Adam: Is there anything else you would like to share? (OPTIONAL)
Leslie: Thank you. It’s been great to be here. I want to close with a few thoughts about what is important to me:
Life is short and if you're not doing what you love, you need to change. I’ve been at Trinity for 22 years and love what I’m doing.
Focus on the people. At Trinity, the team is the heartbeat of the company.
A culture where you are in the trenches with people who have your back.
A flat organization where you can be more in touch with people, listen to their ideas and know their names.
Focus on clients/customers. Remember what they are going through, bring that to the table and figure out what they need. Don’t just be an armchair leader.
Overall, I strive to have an organization where we have each other's back and enjoy what we do. Of course, we want to have a legacy. We want to be successful. We want to be the best we can be to compete in the wide, wide world. Most of all, we need to have fun while we're doing it.
Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally-recognized authority on leadership. Adam is 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. 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. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, 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. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.
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