Bo has seen every corner of the tech world, and the natural world! With the accumulation of experience, insatiable curiosity, Bo has launched from Amazon to found Scientix.ai, next generation Ontology for Healthcare & Life Sciences. A humanist first, his unmatched AI and tech talent is approachable and real. Going after interoperability in data sets along the healthcare value chain and within the industry, Bo has leadership, AI, and life wisdom every leader needs to hear!

It’s not necessarily the technology as much, it’s really the digital mindset and how you think about digital and transforming. It’s really transforming the way you’re working. To be honest with you, how much of this is hype? How much of this is reality is something we need to sort out and be careful how we are using it.

Biopharma is known to be a little slow adapting of these technologies, but even compared to other technologies that are slow to penetrate (GenAI) has a very big competitive edge. I see so many applications for AI but one thing that doesn’t change is in order for these things to work, you need to have a strong, very strong data foundation. Sometimes we call it AI-ready data. My personal horizon is to see end to end, research from molecule to patient, but then getting the feedback loop – patients, care takers, manufacturing, suppliers – to get your medicines faster, better, in cost-effective ways to the patient. I’ve been doing this for 30 years. Five, ten years ago this was a pipedream. With how digital capabilities have advanced and skill sets, this gives me hope. Everyone at every level is skilled, interested, and motivated to use these technologies and thinking ways how they can use it better. My colleagues in IT are learning more science. And my colleagues in science are learning more in digital. That’s another reason [for hope].What works for me to differentiate is I always talk about, “What can we do? We are doing something to carry out our core business. How can I do that more automated, simpler, so I can focus on more value-added things?” But how do you bring everyone along? One exercise from my UCLA Anderson gift is I apply what’s called bringing the future to present. You simulate, “What if we are there and actually living the moment. How would we experience it?” Once we see it together, it’s hugely empowering for the team. Sometimes it’s about being bold. Take on risks, proper risks, but then go for it and try!

"Implementation beats knowledge every day of the week. Instead of landscaping and scoping over and over again, by the time you’re finished 30-40-50% is obsolete. My advice is take something, implement it.

Add value as fast as you can. Don’t watch from the sidelines, just get it done and implement something that is useful for the organization."

"We were able to create the space to step back, clear our minds, and do out of the box thinking gave it a fresh perspective on challenges that we all face.

A powerful takeaway was realizing the potential we have when we join forces. When we collaborate across the industry we are not just tackling problems, we have the opportunity to shape the future of the industry together."

"When we talk about digital adoption, most people talk about tech itself. What I’ve learned is it’s not the real challenge. The real challenge is us. The challenge really is our mindset. This is particularly important in this rapidly evolving healthcare sector we’re all working in."

"We are the CEO of our own life, the pilot in command. If we are not driving the change and adopting digital solutions in healthcare, who will?"

"A key part of embracing a digital mindset is not about become the tech expert. It’s really about seeing technology, especially AI, as a partner. Instead of seeing AI as a replacement of human work, I see it as a powerful tool.

"A digital mindset isn’t just about being ready for the future, it’s about really actively building that future."

"The outcomes are rooted in individual learning and also the coaching sessions which are based on the principles in the book Live with Intent. They helped me get out of my own way and be a better version of myself."

"A key lesson is ownership creates freedom. When you truly own a project, you’re not just doing the work you have the freedom to shape it and really make a difference."

“You cannot just change the mindset because from tomorrow on this is a new mindset. This is a journey. You need to create an experience.”

“Change is connected to how you organize yourself and where you spend your time. To focus and prioritize on what is really important. If I can be a good example to my leadership team, it’s something which has a very high likelihood to be scaled.”

“Being more efficient in your professional life you need to balance your energy level. It’s important that we do something to free up your brain energy. You cannot constantly be in the red zone. And it’s also not good to be only in this aerobic zone. The brain is the same.”

“As a teenager, I got this experimental lab and I went into the basement and developed this intrinsic passion and started to do a lot of experiments. Long story short, it didn’t work. So fast forward. I kept this pattern. I was driven by curiosity and later, much later, I understood what went wrong. It’s a nice operating principle which I appreciate a lot: Follow the science.”

“I decided to leave academia and join a company like Roche. That would multiply my impact by millions. That kept my motivation to join industry and leave academia. [Roche] is in a unique spot to integrate Diagnostics and Pharma and then we can talk about prevention and create a global healthcare system.”

“Many of us forget, everything starts in healthcare with Diagnostics. Moving forward we may be able to move it into prevention. That’s why I have a passion for Diagnostics.”

“If you have an opportunity to do something in a different way where you learn and meet other great leaders, this program is definitely worth it to be considered, because it is breaking out of the traditional way of learning and connecting.”

“We are designing scalability from day 1!”

“You have to come into this with the right mindset from the beginning that you’re going to shape this and you are going to redefine or define for the first time what these roles could look like. No one has done this before. It’s our chance to do it for the first time.”

“We are at this point where we can design what our jobs can look like, what our workflows and processes look like. We are part of this group of individuals that can creatively think about how we want things to work and how we want things to be shaped. That’s an exciting space to be in!”

“In the realm of artificial intelligence there’s a high degree already of skepticism, trust issues, and people generally worried about their jobs so it’s a space where you can’t come in there with, ‘It’s going to be amazing and we have to do this and it’s the right timing.’ It’s not a place where people can be told that this is what we need to do, where you simply mandate it and everyone from this day forward you use it."

“Without personal ownership at scale, you may get adoption rate up, but you won’t get that efficiency gain that you were expecting. That only comes when people really buy into it personally.”

“Sometimes constraints are a beautiful thing. Constraints allow you to think out of the box because you have to find a way out of it. Failure is not an option…no option of going back. I have to figure it out. And it’s quite amazing what people can come up with!”

“There is no option but to try. Unless you have tried it you will not know if it’s going to work out. You have to at least try it. I only ask for one thing. Whatever you’re doing, do your best. It carries through everything in your life.”

“Trust [given to others] builds confidence. They did a better job than I did because I trusted them. I set up a safety net, but now they are much more confident. They now say, “I’ve got this. I’m going to take care of this.” Give people their space to do their own thing. The only way to swim is to jump in the pool.”

“Sometimes you go through phases where things aren’t working out. You have to find your north star, to say, “Is this going to help me get closer to that? If not then let’s not worry about it.” We do so much in a day that doesn’t take us closer to it [our north star].”

“I don’t need anybody’s permission….we are the ones who hold ourselves back. We are the ones who say, “I won’t do that. I won’t go and ask this, etc.” No. The biggest permission you need is from yourself to say, “Let’s do it!” Have the courage. Once you have given yourself that permission, you’ll see that things are actually very different.”

“Have trust in yourself so others can build trust in you. While it may sound obvious, it is not.”

“Building trust and having trust in oneself takes time. It’s not just bringing in your skill sets, but everything that comes along with it."

"This group was able to build up trust not doing anything business related and then all of a sudden everything came up very quickly. We took so much care building trust that we could go with many other topics.”

“Practical ways to build trust? We need to find ways to get to know each other without an agenda. We can build no agenda-driven relationships. We will be working on something important and trust each other’s expertise regardless of where we come from. Trust in the core person regardless of what our business card says.”

Better healthcare to more patients faster. Faster is theoperative word.

If we can get back into people’s mindset, it would be agreat opportunity. For example I was talking with one of my colleagues and he was giving himself permission to be disruptive, to try to let go of restraints. If we can help peopleunderstand it’s not the fear of the unknown, it’s the opportunity of the unknown. It’s limitless on what we can do!

So often we feel like we’re in a stalemate when in realitywe’re not. It might be a small decision or a big decision, but it is important to ask, “Am I doing the right thing for me?” So many people don’t feel free.

A lot of people have great ideas and a lot of peopleinnovate. But what I’ve observed is that if you create a connection among people in parallel to innovating you not only have an idea but you have the power of the few. We’re moving together as a whole. So, it’s not moving together individually but moving together as a whole that gives me confidence we can achieve what others haven’t, even than if it was a great initiative.

Accelerating digital adoption, I’m getting into the heartsand minds of my customer and shutting out all the rest of the noise, creating that connective tissue. What technology do I need to really understand to remove the blocks? And probably more importantly, I need a lot more people inthis family to make it successful. So I spent a lot more time networking with those that have the same vision I do.