Addressing Key Barriers for Women in STEM

Kim Boericke, CEO, Veristat, discussed her new role and the company's focus on data analytics, automation, and early-stage strategic consulting. In a conversation with Pharmaceutical Executive,she highlighted the importance of strategic consulting in clinical trials, emphasizing the need for early engagement to define patient populations and streamline data collection. Veristat's specialization in oncology, neurology, and rare diseases involves leveraging data, AI, and logistics to optimize trial execution. Boericke also addressed barriers for women in STEM leadership, stressing the need for advocates, mentors, and visibility.

A transcript of Boericke’s conversation with Pharmaceutical Executive can be found below.

Pharmaceutical Executive: What do you see as the key barriers for women in STEM leadership, and how can the industry begin to address them meaningfully?
Kim Boericke: So first of all, I think women in senior leadership positions need to be the first person to reach their hand out and help the next level coming up. I believe that was a very big thing that's very important to me. I've had a lot of people over my career that lended a hand, that helped supported me, that gave me an opportunity, or was the one person in the room that would advocate for me, and so for women in that want to move into leadership role, there's a couple things, from my perspective, that you need to kind of get in your toolbox.

The first one is, it's not so much as having a mentor, as having a mentor is great, and I think everybody needs a mentor, but it's having an advocate, somebody in the senior leadership position in an organization that would be your voice when you're not in the room. That's a really important thing to do.

The other thing is you need to be very focused on what your next step is, and it's a little bit like a chess game. It may be not a step forward, it may be a step out to the side, but you need to understand what you're grooming for and where you want to go. Are you looking to build depth in your expertise, or are you looking to build breadth? Or are you looking to do both at different points in time? That'll help you kind of zigzag your career as you're moving up the ladder, because it's not a direct rung by rung going straight up the ladder. I think that's really important for me.

The harder part for, I think for anybody, whether it's male or female, is visibility. We're not in a building anymore. So, you know, you talk in the course of a day on teams or on zoom with maybe five to 10 people, and that's a very small piece of a company, a world that you're working in. How do you get that visibility? You get the visibility by networking and doing initiatives across the business, so where you have opportunity to really work in different areas of the business, and working towards those common initiatives that either build collaboration or can build new processes or just a better culture to work in, also provides some visibility as you move up the ladder. That that will help you as well. But I think the biggest one is getting that advocate in the room for you.