Waldron Career Conversation with Natasha Philips '00 & Preena Schroff '26

Preena:
Welcome to the Weinberg in the World Podcast, where we bring stories of interdisciplinary thinking in today's complex world. My name is Preena Shroff and I'm your student host of this special Weinberg in the World episode. I'm a third year student majoring in neuroscience and global health studies with a minor in data center. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Natasha Phillips, who graduated from Weinberg College in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology and biology. Natasha currently serves as chief marketing officer for GE Healthcare, leading teams that help healthcare providers design treatment plans for their patients.
Natasha, thank you so much for being here with us today.

Natasha:
Thanks for having me, Preena. It's a pleasure.

Preena:
We are so excited to learn about your work in healthcare marketing, but would love to start out with how your career path was shaped by your time at Northwestern. Maybe you can tell us more about your undergraduate experience, what were some impactful classes, extracurriculars, or mentorships opportunities that you had which impacted your post-graduate career?

Natasha:
Yeah. You're making me think a little bit, because I got to go back in time. As an undergraduate, I was super lucky, having both a biology and a sociology major, it gave me the ability to see a very wide range of classes. I wasn't 100% sure actually what I wanted to do. I knew I was somewhat interested in the sciences. I didn't actually know I would be that interested in the social sciences, but I took a couple of classes. One in particular was the Sociology of Race and Ethnicity with Charlie Moskos, which actually made me decide to ... That was the reason I became a sociology major. I just got super lucky, I loved that class. It's funny, if I ever had a second life, I always say I would have loved to have gone back and been a sociology professor. But I didn't take that path, I went more with the actual biology side of things.
I was weighing, do I want to do research? I actually was really interested in molecular biology, primarily because in the late '90s, which is a very long time ago to our students who are listening, but for me that was a time very formative because they were sequencing the human genome. There was a lot of promise in the space, not only of biology, but more specifically molecular biology and how it is linked to genetics and genomics as we think about the impact on healthcare. That really interested me to the point where I really was considering actually getting my PhD in molecular biology.
Some of my favorite classes were the ones in which I had exposure to research, because I got to see the importance of just the impact that research can have. And the ability to be able to find a practical application, even if it's on a very specific question, to really contribute to the body of knowledge. Ultimately ended up being unsure what I wanted to do right after undergrad, so I went into healthcare consulting in which I wanted to be able to figure out, do I want to go towards the more business side of healthcare and thinking about commercializing healthcare and science from the industry side of things? Or to the academic side and actually get my PhD, and think about contributing to science and healthcare in that realm.
I did have exposure, both in consulting as well as in research. I started in a research program at the University of Chicago in molecular biology after doing consulting so I could see both sides. And ultimately, actually, that was when I made the decision to focus much more so on the business side of it and to get my MBA, and to move into healthcare marketing. That led me into the career in which I've had today, in which I've been very lucky to have over 15 years working at very large multinational healthcare companies, primarily in sales and marketing roles, bringing innovation in healthcare to people all over the globe.

Preena:
Absolutely. Wow, yeah. I think your path is actually not only a common path that students seek out, but also something that students might end up finding themselves in, even if they do experience a career switch in their life. That's really interesting to hear about.
I have another question for you, more specifically job-oriented. Healthcare is constantly evolving, so maybe you can tell us a little bit about how your marketing approach has changed since you began your career?

Natasha:
Yeah. I love that question, Preena, because what really is happening is healthcare is evolving and the function of marketing is evolving constantly. I am really lucky that, both in the subject matter that I basically have decided to focus in, which is healthcare and ultimately the innovation around healthcare, but also have a really cool and exciting function that continues to evolve.
I was lucky enough during my ... Maybe I'll start with the functional part, I'll start with marketing first, and then I'll talk about healthcare. The basic function of marketing has changed significantly over the past 20 years as I've been a marketer, primarily with the advent of digital and social media. It continues now to evolve, as we think about personalized marketing and AI, and what that's going to do.
I would say the main changes that I've seen over time has been from a very I would say structured, one size fits all, if you think about it like mass media type of marketing in which there was a time in which you had one singular message and one singular way of approaching individuals, and not a lot of channels to reach them. To now, moving to almost a fully personalized marketing experience, where you have the ability with technology today to be able to say, even if you have thousands of targets, how do you understand the fine differences. There's got to be some generalization amongst those targets, but there's also some fine differences in how people consume their information, care about interacting with your brand, and want to be able to either become loyal brand advocates or detractors. How do you understand what those insights are to create an ongoing personalized journey that evolves over time with the individual as their media consumption and interest in whatever product you're selling changes? That's been one of the coolest innovations to think about, as we think about the function.
If I look at healthcare, I've been lucky enough to see innovation across a variety of different segments within healthcare. I'd seen the advent of biologics. If we think about innovation from a healthcare point of view, in basically the last 20 years or so, we've seen drugs like Humira, which started the biologic class and has now exploded into one of the largest categories or segments within healthcare. And the significant impact that that has had on millions of patients, and has changed diseases all the way from skin conditions to much more serious autoimmune type of conditions. I've been lucky enough to see innovation on the diagnostic side, in which I've seen the advent of brand new technologies, including things like multi-plexing. Of taking a single sample, and instead of wanting to get one answer, you can get anywhere from 25 to 30 answers of which virus of which disease somebody has. And the impact that that has had not only on just healthcare, but on infectious disease and vaccines in other parts.
For me, what has actually kept me so motivated in healthcare for so long is it isn't just an idea. I get to be part of the teams, and it's a cross-functional team that includes everybody from scientists, research and developers, operations, medical affairs, clinical affairs, marketers, salespeople, finance people, and everybody, I'm sure I'm forgetting some functions. It is such a complex effort to bring innovation like this to market and sometimes can take 10 to 15 years, but when it happens you actually see significant change in healthcare. For me, that's the ability to think even 30, 40 years from now, some of the either diagnostics, devices, or drugs that I've helped to bring to market will really have an impact. Either because it continues to improve healthcare or it was the precursor of future innovation that's going to continue to come because we've paved the way for it, so it's really cool.

Preena:
Absolutely. That's really incredible. And the way you're able to work with people of many different fields and backgrounds, and then learn from them as well is a really incredible experience, and I hope defines a lot of students' careers in the future as well.

Natasha:
Yeah. I think just to add to that, the one thing to really keep in mind is I love the interdisciplinary approach that a really good college in arts and sciences like Weinberg does. Because for me, that kind of thinking, although I didn't understand it at the time because I was just a student and I had no clue what I was actually going to do, is something that to this day in my career I think back to and I leverage. It's helped to make me successful, especially in a very large matrix cross-functional organization. It's something that, as all of you who are students potentially listening to this and are thinking, "What might I do in the future?" Really leverage the opportunities that you have to do that kind of interdisciplinary type of work because it will make you much stronger in whatever field you decide to do.

Preena:
Yeah, absolutely. Going off of that, a bit in the other direction, but what is a common misconception about working in the healthcare marketing industry?

Natasha:
That is a great question. This is maybe a little controversial, but I'm going to say it. I think there is this perception of big, bad pharma and big, bad healthcare. I think it's something that is an understandable point of view and one which requires probably much more dialogue than what we can answer here.
But I'll just leave people with this one thought. Which is if you think about most of the major innovations that have come to healthcare over the last 30 years, whether it's drugs to treat high blood pressure or hypertension, or innovations in diagnostics as I mentioned to be able to not just understand what's happening from blood count, but to be able to look at the molecular and cellular level to treat rare diseases and everything in the middle. Much of that innovation, while it is funded and founded in the basic research that happens at academic and other institutions, has really been driven by the industry. Whether it's the pharmaceutical industry, the med device industry, the diagnostic industry. That requires significant investment and significant time. It also requires a very high failure rate. In some cases, if you have 100 compounds or 100 ideas that you're bringing through, less than 1% of them will sometimes make it to market. There is a significant amount of investment that needs to happen.
While there's always optimizations that could happen, I always implore people to think about the fact that the drug that your mother or father is taking today, or that your brother or sister is taking for asthma, didn't exist probably even 20 or 30 years ago because we didn't have the funding and innovation that was coming necessarily maybe from companies that has been pushing that forward. While there is a lot of discussion to be had about healthcare and the rights to healthcare, I think companies like mine, whether it's my current company or previous company, have played a very important role in really helping to improve overall health and healthcare as we think about the impact on people's lives. I just ask people to be open to the fact that there's always a variety of different vantage points and it's always a great healthy dialogue to have.

Preena:
Of course, yeah. From what you said, it sounds like it's a bit of a trade-off and it's really important to discover where you fit in within that sphere, and learn how to interpret your work and your path in that direction as well. Just realizing what impact you're making and picturing that longterm.

Natasha:
Yeah, exactly.

Preena:
Okay. Then, I was also going to ask you about the student perspective, thinking about students today. How would you recommend students cultivate a personal brand? A lot of times people say networking. How do students network authentically, both online and in-person so that they can find the right opportunities or even the right opportunities can find them?

Natasha:
Yeah, I think it's a really great question. I very much will reiterate the importance of networking because I think that's foundational and fundamental to everything that we do today. In fact, many of you who got into very competitive colleges probably had to figure that out as you were even thinking about how to get into the school that you're in today. That thought process needs to continue as you think about getting your first job, or maybe you're getting your next pre-professional school that you're focused on.
I would take that networking to the next step to say I think some of the most effective networking has two really good components. I find this, because I have a lot of people who maybe reach out to me, either through my network or because they're looking for learning about marketing or healthcare, or other topics that maybe I've had some experience with. The first of those two things is really having a genuine brand, and one in which you really own and feel passionate about.
The most interesting and coolest networking that I do, even with students today, are the ones in which people are very purposeful about what they are interested in, what they care about, what their brand is. It's probably hard to even think about me as a college student, what is my brand? But you have a brand. You may not know it yet, but you definitely have and can develop a brand. That brand should be whatever you feel truly passionate and genuinely interested in, because that will only I would say help you have much more successful networking and much more genuine connections with the people that you are trying to connect with.
Even if that individual maybe doesn't understand or isn't that maybe close to the topic, you'd be shocked how just that genuine authenticity is going to help drive really stronger connections in networking that are going to help both you, as well as the network that you're creating, as you think about the fact that one day you're going to have a network and you're going to want to be able to pay it forward to students the way maybe people are helping you with your decisions and career today.
The second one as you think about networking is a lot of times, networking and finding a good fit, whether it's a company or your next pre-professional program, or what you even want to do, is based on having a shared purpose with whoever you're networking with or whatever that institution is. I find the people who come and are most prepared for interviews, in addition to feeling very genuine and knowing what their brand is, are the people who are very clear on what my purpose, either as an institution is, or whatever group I'm part of. They understand that and it is very much akin to who they are, what they're looking for, what makes them passionate. That sense of shared purpose in networking I think is another way in which you can more successfully think about how do you take your decisions or whatever you're going to do next in your career path and be more successful in terms of what you want to do.
Then the last thing I would say is don't feel super ... I know everybody's pressured to feel like they know exactly what they want to do and I understand that. I'm sure many of the people who are listening to this are very high performing, have always been very successful in life, have known exactly what they want to do. But there's a lot of benefit to maybe giving yourself the luxury of knowing you have a very long marathon ahead of you, as you think about the decision making in your career choices that you're going to make. If there's ever a time to be open to it, it's probably earlier in your career when you're maybe more willing to not only take some risks, but also be true to what you actually think will be interesting to you over a longterm career.
Don't be afraid if it's not going to be a straight line. It might be a really curvy, cool path. At the time, it might feel a little discouraging, but don't be discouraged. Because I would argue, if I look back, some of my coolest decisions were the ones in which it wasn't this straight line, very clear path of what I wanted to do. But rather, I was either more open because of external circumstances or internal motivation to being a little bit more flexible and not so purposeful, and everything must be this in this timeframe. I think if you have some openness to that, it will really help you and probably put a lot less pressure on you as you're thinking about your career.

Preena:
Right. Yeah, that's really great advice. In terms of winding paths, switching over to your career and more of your day-to-day role, what would say is a challenge or challenges that you often find or encounter in your day-to-day role and how do you approach those?

Natasha:
That's a good question. My challenges in my day-to-day role. I'm fortunate in which I lead a functional team, so I have the benefit of having an amazing team that I work with every day across a variety of brands and products, across a very diverse portfolio. I've been lucky enough to do that at this current company, which is GE Healthcare, and the previous company I was at which is Abbott.
Many times, if I think about the biggest challenges in my day-to-day, it really is around I would say three big areas. The first one is when you are such a large matrix company that is so dependent on your other functional teams, to ensure that you are all very clear on what the goal is, what you're all trying to accomplish, and that you're all rowing in the same direction, and have shared purpose and goals. Often times in our day-to-day, even in companies where you think everybody's on the same team, you can often find that there's actually sometimes a bit of misalignment or competing priorities. Sometimes that's because we're different functions or groups, sometimes it's because we're different segments. Sometimes it's just because we don't understand that shared goal. It's keeping everybody aligned to the mission, strategy, and vision. I would say as marketers actually, I feel like we are big drivers of that in an organization. It's something I always feel very responsible for and want to help my team feel very responsible for. That's the first one.
The second one is we work in a very complex landscape. We're highly regulated here in healthcare. We want to do the right thing. Actually, I always tell people I'm so glad that we're highly regulated because the decisions we make actually impact life or death. It's actually for all the right reasons that we have very strict regulatory and approval processes, and then ongoing monitoring of all of our activities from our quality processes to our commercial processes and everything in between. But that can bring a lot of complexity. You've got to navigate a lot of sometimes tough legal and compliance discussions. But at the end of the day, the way we navigate them successfully as a team is really by reminding ourselves that the reason these regulations exist is to keep patients, our own family members who are consuming healthcare every day safe. We're able to do that. I feel we, despite sometimes difficult discussions, always get to the best answer in doing what's right for the patient and what's right for healthcare.
Then the third thing, which is I think sometimes hard, is we all come to work every day because we actually care about healthcare and saving lives. That's sometimes really hard to remember when you get stuck in your day-to-day. You can be at a tough meeting, or a really hard strategy review, or a really hard finance review, or maybe you're missing your number in this sales goal. But at the end of the day, those hard days are really worth it because of what ultimately we're bringing to patients all over the globe.
Again, there are these challenges, but over a long career I've been able to figure out how to successfully navigate them. So that I feel that even the challenges motivate me to come to work, and figure it out, and be better tomorrow. Better today and tomorrow than I was yesterday and in the past. I try to motivate my teams to think about that in the same way.

Preena:
Absolutely. Oh, yeah, that was very insightful. I think a lot of these can be applied to any fields, because a lot of times, in healthcare specifically, there is definitely life and death impacts. Then in other fields, people can have those same hard conversations and still need to have that resilience and build up that resilience to come back from that.

Natasha:
Very true. Very, very true. Probably very similar, just maybe different categories, but very similar discussions that would happen-

Preena:
Absolutely.

Natasha:
... outside of healthcare, too.

Preena:
Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you very much for sharing this with us and thank you for joining us today. That is all the questions I have. We really value your time, and for coming on and speaking to all of our students. Thank you very much.

Natasha:
Thank you for having me. It was pleasure to talk to you.