Women are leading across various tech roles today, mainly by impactfully responding to the acceleration of change. To withstand this fast-paced world, leaders are expected to keep one eye laser-focused on short-term value and the other strategically scanning and capitalizing on internal and external systemic changes. Women have historically honed such soft leadership skills and are now leveraging these skills more than ever to execute cohesive visions through collaboration. Beth Bauer (CEO, PosiROI) is enabling disruptive innovations through data and tech by helping customers and employees become more at ease with this new normal speed of innovation.
Dedicated to Data and Health
A highly qualified personality, Beth double-majored in psychology and professional writing and minored in statistics at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). While referring to a CMU mentor, she says, “Dr. Stephen Feinberg, a top statistician at the time, played a crucial role by encouraging a statistics minor.” Later, her work at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reinforced her desire to stay in healthcare and pursue an MS in statistics from Rutgers University. The health information tech company IMS, now IQVIA, and pharmaceutical giant Merck both provided exciting work opportunities for Beth to ignite her passion for creating value through data innovation.
Feeling Fortunate to be in Data Innovation
As a self-described data detective, Beth spent much time mining massive databases for actionable insights. For 30+ years, she conducted data mining and led large analytics teams responsible for designing meaningful and trusted data products at a multi-industry scale. Expressing her affection for the profession, she says, “I was distinctively fortunate to be both a creator of data systems and then a user of those same data products, working in commercial analytics and leading commercial data strategy. To sit on both sides of data product innovation is eye-opening!”
Closes the Gaps to Success
Beth’s passion for data were fully realized through her company. Established in 2000 and again launched in 2021, PosiROI positions clients for success through better use of data to help ensure positive returns on investments. PosiROI responds to clients’ strategic challenges by sharing how to better leverage people, armed with data and analytics, to achieve commercial goals. PosiROI acts as the slider on a zipper: securely closing the gaps to align strategy and operations with data, analytics, and technology to successfully execute a cohesive vision.
Connecting People with Data
At PosiROI, Beth is responsible for crafting the high-level vision of a tech-enabled world, where shared knowledge connects people with data. She listens intently, then guides the execution milestones needed for customers to capitalize on new capabilities. Her biggest achievements were successfully executing data strategies at two Fortune 500 companies. Both implementations included creating internal and external partnerships with cohesive cross-functional teams. By regularly listening and acting on cross-silo and customer needs, these teams built the relationships and structures that produce ongoing, immediately usable analytics, trusted and created by the business. Beth’s teams derived unprecedented dividends on tight budgets. Each initiative brought $150M+ in new revenue opportunities over the course of just two years.
Finding Purpose in Work
During her journey, Beth faced challenges, such as understanding the interdependencies between data quality and the people using it, recognizing that a lack of playbooks in innovation puts pressure on the people who trust you to deliver, and despite all this, keeping an open mind. To handle such pressures, Beth followed the Japanese concept of Ikigai. “When you find purpose in your work, your work is in your wheelhouse, and you love what you do,” says Beth happily. Beth also realized there are often unspoken fears for organizations to take new risks. By teasing out these fears in PosiROI’s customers, her company guides innovative leaders toward calculated & shared risks, having honest, difficult conversations, and being willing to be accountable and learn from mistakes. Ikigai and this distinctive approach toward working have propelled Beth over the long haul as a trusted leader and partner.
Diversity and Inclusion
PosiROI advocates that a diversity of experiences and inclusion of alternate perspectives is needed to mine the nuggets that reveal actionable insights. The company hopes to empower not only women but also all less-heard voices. Beth adds, “No matter your business, at some point your strategies will either limit your growth potential or recognize the need to expand your market.”
Beth believes culture and core values are at the heart of work. PosiROI relies on partnerships, both new and old, to keep the company focused on a strong alignment of positive purpose, sustainability, shared value creation, the utmost ethics, and having fun!
For young women and other under-represented people who want to enter STEM careers or improve ways of working, Beth recommends seeking communities who support diverse and inclusive opinions. She adds, “What many people don’t realize about DEI is that it is not necessarily a specific program or set of investments. It is about a culture of respect and being open to opinions that are not like our own. This could be gender, age, race, religion, or even simply geography. It can even be business vs. data science.”
Emphasizing Local Communities
PoisROI prioritizes client satisfaction by transparently sharing processes and making sure the company and its customers work in alignment from strategy to mindset to execution. Its methods are unique in tech in that it also brings critical thinking, trust capabilities, and the human enablement needed to synthesize the strategic goals of clients through data and tech that maximize returns.
PosiROI primarily serves pharma/healthcare system customers, focusing on data and digital, but recently expanded offerings to tangential industries. Furthermore, it emphasizes helping local communities who want to leverage data better to meet their goals. By connecting local people and businesses to a larger network of insights and resources, PosiROI aims to help improve community trust in data and science.
Work Hard, Play Harder
Work-life balance plays a significant role for Beth. She believes in ‘Work Hard, Play Harder.’ She manages to stick to the priorities of self-care and family first, then friends and work. She adds, “I’m privileged to have always had the ability to flex my time to make it all fit, and feel supported by my husband and family.” She makes peace with having let some opportunities pass, saying, “While you can have it all, you may not be able to have it all at once.”
Beth loves adventure vacations with friends and family. She enjoys cooking, gardening, community groups, music, Broadway, and dancing. While expressing her travel affection, “I am thrilled we are back to world traveling. I believe through travel we learn, without barriers, about the multi-cultural human experience.”
Co-existence of Profit and Ethics
According to Beth, trends that will drive the bright future of tech include the rise of consumer-consented data, the facilitation of open-source insights & standards, and an alignment of the ecosystem shifts needed to reduce disparities in education, health, and wealth. She finds that profit through transparent and ethical business practices provides the most sustainable business model.
Beth shares advice for aspirants of sustainable high returns through tech innovation:
- Positive, diverse working cultures produce the highest returns.
- Servant leadership provides the trust and inspiration for teams to take calculated risks.
- The most effective leaders balance kindness with strength.
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Also read: The 10 Influential Women in Tech, 2023
