Stephanie Trunzo: Paved in Partnership

Show Notes

Meg welcomes Stephanie Trunzo, SVP and GM of Oracle Health.

Oracle Health provides cloud solution systems for health insurance, healthcare providers, virtual care, electronic health record systems, and public health.

Stephanie leads the P&L across strategy, product, services, sales, support, and operations. Oracle Health connects clinical, operational and financial data to improve care and advanced decision-making around health and wellbeing. In one of the largest mergers this year, Oracle acquired Cerner, an electronic health record company. 

Meg and Stephanie discuss the unique benefits of the Oracle Health/Cerner merger; the journey to more equitable care; the promise of increased integration of health data; the future of predictive AI modeling in healthcare; and some of the ways Stephanie is working to address the gender gap in healthcare leadership. 

 

Further Reading:

 

PointSource

Episode Credits: 

The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare is a production of The Krinsky Company. 

Hosted by Meg Escobosa. 

Produced by Meg Escobosa, Calvin Marty, Chelsea Ho, Medina Sabic, and Wendy Nielsen.

Edited, engineered, and mixed by Calvin Marty. 

All music composed and performed by Calvin Marty. 

©2022 The Krinsky Company

Creators & Guests

Host

Meg Escobosa

Meg Escobosa has 15 years of innovation consulting experience, focusing on the unique challenges of healthcare since 2012. For The Krinsky Company, Meg leads client engagements overseeing advisory board design, creation and management. She also leads industry research, expert recruitment and trend analysis to support corporate innovation initiatives centered on the future of healthcare. Her background in innovation and strategy consulting began at IdeaScope Associates where she was involved all aspects of strategic innovation initiatives including understanding the voice of the customer, industry research and aligning the executive team to invest in promising strategic growth opportunities. Meg received her BA in Latin American Studies from Trinity College in Hartford and her MBA in sustainable management from the pioneering Master’s degree program, Presidio Graduate School. She is also on the board of a non-profit foundation focused on researching and developing technology to support a sustainable society. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two teenage daughters.

Producer

Calvin Marty

A man of many hats, Calvin Marty is a Podcast Producer, Editor, Engineer, Voice Actor, Actor, Composer, Singer/Songwriter, Musician, and Tennis Enthusiast. Calvin produces, engineers, edits, mixes, and scores The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare. Calvin is also the creator of the 2020 podcast, irRegular People, among others. Find his music under the names Calvin Marty, Billy Dubbs, Nature Show, and The Sunken Ship. Over his long career as an actor, Calvin's has voiced many Radio and TV commercials for a wide-range of companies and products and has appeared in small on-camera roles on shows such as Chicago Fire and Empire.

What is The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare?

The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare is a podcast featuring exceptional women making an impact in healthcare today. We celebrate our guests’ accomplishments, setbacks, and the lessons they've learned throughout their careers. We dig into the many healthcare issues we face today and how these innovative leaders are working to solve them. Join host Meg Escobosa in conversation with some of the many brilliant, courageous women on the front lines of the future of health.

Stephanie Trunzo: Why is it that you can get a recommendation on the sweater that you should buy that matches the jeans that you bought in the store with way more precision and user friendly kind of consumerism, but I can't get the same kind of recommendations on my health?

Meg Escobosa: Welcome to the Game Changing Women of Healthcare, a podcast featuring exceptional women making an impact in healthcare, today. We celebrate our guests’ accomplishments, setbacks, and the lessons they've learned throughout their careers. We dig into the many healthcare issues we face today and how these innovative leaders are working to solve them.

I'm Meg Escobosa. Join me in conversation with some of the many brilliant, courageous women on the front lines of the future of health.

Meg Escobosa: Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. Today we're talking with Stephanie Trunzo, who's the Senior Vice President and general manager of Oracle Health, which provides cloud solution systems for health insurance, healthcare providers, virtual care, electronic health record systems, and public health.

Stephanie leads the P&L across strategy, product services, sales, support, and operations. Oracle Health connects clinical, operational and financial data to improve care and advanced decision making around health and wellbeing. In one of the largest takeovers this year, Oracle acquired Cerner, an electronic health record company.

Welcome to the show, Stephanie. We're so happy to have you here.

Stephanie Trunzo: Thanks, Meg. I'm really glad to be here.

Meg Escobosa: So your title is SVP and GM of Oracle. But in your head, what do you think your role in the organization is?

Stephanie Trunzo: I think my role is to create change and help the people that are part of this organization feel empowered to be part of that change.

Meg Escobosa: Yeah, I, and that's a difficult thing. I think people with change feel a lot of anxiety and there's a lot of uncertainty that comes with that. And sort of leading change in a large organization requires a lot of engagement and reassurance, I'm sure. And kind of a constant sort of righting the ship, slowly but surely, turning in the direction.

Can you describe some of the experience you've had trying to lead that change?

Stephanie Trunzo: Yeah, Recently one of the leaders at Oracle who I respect a great deal, Mike Sicilia, who leads all of our industry's organizations–we were having a chat just kind of reflecting on the past year, which has involved quite a lot of change at Oracle, including our acquisition of Cerner and growing out our Oracle Health portfolio.

So he said something that I thought was a really wonderful observation. He said, when I think about you and your role, and kind of the question that you just asked me, he said, what I see is somebody who understands how to drive change, not somebody who is driven by a particular domain.

And I think that that kind of broader, you know, more horizontal way of thinking about driving change, wherever that change needs to happen, that particular skill set really involves understanding the motivations of the humans that need to, you know, pick that up and, and drive it forward.

So, being able to be an empathetic leader that thinks through what are the things that are gonna be most meaningful and impactful to them personally, so that there's really a connection to the purpose and they feel fulfilled by what we're trying to achieve together.

Meg Escobosa: That speaks to me as well, just the…connecting to who I am and what I am motivated by. That just makes a lot of sense. It's very, very logical.

You mentioned the Cerner acquisition. Can you explain to the listeners what does this mean for the healthcare industry? Why should our listeners care about the fact that Oracle and Cerner have come together?

Stephanie Trunzo: Yeah, I think, you know, even speaking from my own personal perspective, I've had a long career in technology and that career has involved changing and transforming major clients and industries. And that's Oracle's DNA.

You know, Oracle has come from a data-driven background. Oracle's birthright really is to think about how to develop what the future of data looks like. And this acquisition of Cerner–you know, we of course–we're excited, extremely excited about what is going to be possible, but I think it comes back down to using technology in a way that affects an industry that hasn't been able to leverage that technology to its full capacity yet.

You know, I don't think that–and this is coming from somebody who works at a tech company–technology is not gonna be the long pole in the things that we need to change. A lot of this tech already exists.

We've been proving that it works in other industries. So this acquisition for us is about building out a portfolio with what we already know from a tech perspective, the foundational things that we've been building at Oracle across, you know, whether that's the horizontal tech like cloud or data lake houses or the applications.

But combining it with the depth that Cerner brings in real industry experience in the healthcare industry, the practitioners, and you know, the long history that they have of working directly with the hospital systems and the clinics. So combining those things, I think gives us a really unique way of looking at the future of healthcare with this combined portfolio.

Meg Escobosa: Yeah. I mean, what…how would you describe Oracle's ambitions in healthcare? What impact are you trying to make?

Stephanie Trunzo: I think ambition is kind of an interesting word because on the one hand, you know, there's virtuous ambition that says, How can we really almost have a, a moral obligation? We've got experts, we have the technology, and this is, you know, truly it's a global challenge and it's a global conflict that we need to try to help overcome.

I think Oracle is really looking to be the driver of that change that we all know is necessary to shift the lens of healthcare more towards the humans rather than the systems to leverage our expertise in data to not just create aligned and interlock data, but actually turn that data into something that is real insights and and information.

But I also say, of course there's gonna be commercial opportunity and Oracle is not a non-for-profit. At the same time, I think that it's really important and it's an important message to me personally, that the reason that we're investing in this industry is because we believe that we can help drive that change, and we believe that we have something unique to bring to the fuller ecosystem.

And we will not be able to do that by ourselves. That we do need partners and we do need to open up the way that we develop our solutions so that it enables that kind of interoperability across different organizations and different partners in the ecosystem.

Meg Escobosa: Yeah, I agree. Partnership is key. You don't have all the answers. Neither does Cerner, neither does any one player. Sort of the ecosystem philosophy, I think is what you're also talking about, that there's an interdisciplinary interconnectedness among the players. Translating this to more of the human side. So what is the benefit?

I mean, I know from a patient perspective, I experience going to the doctor. Let's say I have an accident, fall, get an injury, have to get imaging done at the E.D., (the emergency department) and then I have to do follow-ups with other providers. And you go to those providers and they have no record of your emergency department visit.

Meanwhile, the whole reason that you're at this other provider is to check on how you're healing and what have you. So it's kind of frustrating from a patient perspective to think like, “Wait, you don't already know all this stuff about me? Like, come on, Target knows more about when I was last there and what I purchased and why,” you know?

So is that kind of what you're talking about getting to the level of data sharing, data-interconnectedness so that all the providers are on the same page and the patient doesn't have to re-explain to, you know, the nth degree, why they're there at the doctor's office?

Stephanie Trunzo: Yes. I mean, that's definitely part of it.

And you know, Meg, the example that you just gave of Target, we talk about this a lot. Why is it that you can get a recommendation on the sweater that you should buy that matches the jeans that you bought in the store with way more precision and you know, user friendly kind of consumerism, but I can't get the same kind of recommendations on my health?

And, you know, the scenario that you walk through just now, where these health records are extremely disconnected and the provider is…you know, no one's winning in that scenario. No one's winning. The human, the patient, you know, in the role of patient isn't winning because they don't have the expertise or knowledge and they expect that the system is getting that information to the right people.

And on the providers side, they're not winning because they're not able to, you know, digest the kind of incoming patients in a way that makes it efficient that they can focus on care–that they're actually not spending 80% of their time in data reentry. I won't even say “entry.” It's data reentry.

Meg Escobosa: Yeah, you’ve just laid out what a big problem this is and there is, there's a big race, it seems, to solve it. There’re a lot of companies out there trying to address it. Why do you think Oracle is best positioned to solve it?

Stephanie Trunzo: I think that the amount of energy that the technology industry is applying now on healthcare problems is fantastic, and as far as I'm concerned, if everyone were aligned across different tech companies at driving towards solutions here, I think that we don't need to have a race to the solution.

What we need is collaboration so that we can all maximize our individual resources and best capabilities because this is an enormous problem and that problem has, you know, a huge number of dollar bills attached to it, but there is plenty to go around.

From an Oracle perspective, of course we do believe that we're uniquely positioned. We do believe that we have that kind of data-driven mentality and standing of what it really looks like. You know, we've proven it in other industries. So because we have proven that we are able to do things like process a hundred billion dollars in transactions in our retail business as an example, we've done that in a way that's secure, safe, private.

We give access to the data appropriately, to the appropriate parties. I think we do have some unique differentiators that we can contribute to that. But at the same time, I think that if everybody took an approach that was like, we're, we've got to work together to solve this, we would all be further ahead.

Meg Escobosa: Yeah. I was just–you talked about privacy–I was gonna ask you about privacy.

As time goes on, and as technology is just ubiquitous to every generation, there's an acceptance of giving up a level of privacy, which, you know, Is kind of strange to acknowledge and realize. Like I see…I have teenage children and you've probably heard about them if you've listened to this podcast before, because I happen to bring them up all the time.

And I apologize to my listeners.

Stephanie Trunzo: I have a 15 year old myself, Meg, so I'm totally with you.

Meg Escobosa: Yeah, yeah. And there's just a level of acceptance, of giving up data, giving up information about yourself, and not seeing the harms and the threat or the, you know, vulnerability that may present.

So I'm curious, how do you reassure patients that Oracle is kind of best set up to protect patient data and health data? What do you say to that? To people who are concerned?

Stephanie Trunzo: Yeah. You know, I think, to your point, I think some of it is generational, certainly. And you know, as younger people become part of their own healthcare experience and it's not their, you know, guardians or caretakers, I think that there's going to be, overall, a shift.

We see this in general with consumerism, so the expectation is that you should know this information about me, that you should be able to serve me. Things that make sense. So I think from that aspect, generationally things are gonna shift.

But I think the other thing is that broadly, regardless of age group or region or you know, any other kind of differentiator, people feel more comfortable sharing data when they can see the value that they're getting back.

And I think if we are able to draw that connection and you think about [it] from a health data perspective–so as an example: if you're consenting to share your data for a survey, for a trial, or if you're sharing your data for, you know, greater good or global good, if you're able to give back to those people who've consented to share their data, (results that show, you know, your data actually contributed to a new learning, your data contributed in a way that, you know, drives some good, even if it doesn't apply to them directly) and, you know, understanding what their data is being used for and that it's driving some value for them–I think that's really the key and the trick to it.

Meg Escobosa: Right. Stephanie, I know that Oracle has played a big part in the pandemic addressing data and helping public health systems deal with data from Covid.

What have you learned from that experience?

Stephanie Trunzo: Yeah. You know, I…what has been really eye-opening throughout the course of the work we've done on pandemic response systems–whether it was rolling out vaccine management or helping, you know, track and get responses and you know, kind of patient-oriented feedback to understand how vaccinations were working and what responses were–is that generically, and this is a broad statement, but we take a very North America-centric view of healthcare.

And it truly is intensely different depending on what region of the world that you're in, the problems that they're looking to solve. It could truly be “how do I figure out how to get clean water?” I mean, I can't open a clinic or run a hospital if I don't have fundamental infrastructure within the country.

So I believe that Oracle is going to truly take the approach of looking at our Oracle Health Solutions and our health portfolio in a way that can address needs in different regions in different ways.

Meg Escobosa: That's really cool to hear. I totally agree. I think that you're also just raising that important point of we are so North America-centric in our thinking.

We lose sight of how different it is around the world,

Stephanie Trunzo: And I think that the benefit of taking a more global approach is truly back to the data point. If you're only thinking about North America, you're limiting the amount of data and, you know, the way that you're able to collect that information and get a different kind of insight and pattern from it.

One of the important reasons why we need to think about healthcare more globally is that from an Oracle Health perspective at least (although I think a lot of organizations share this idea) is that we want to fundamentally, increasingly bring point-of-care closer and closer to the human, but we want it to be fueled increasingly by global data and expertise.

And if you don't think about healthcare as a global industry, you're kind of missing half of the equation. The only way that you're gonna increasingly get that global data, global expertise access–perhaps to specialist doctors or physicians that you don't have today–is by considering that there is a whole world that we're trying to solve for and not just a couple of countries.

[music break]

Meg Escobosa: We also, you know, as The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare, we really love celebrating women leading change, making an impact in healthcare, and we want to kind of explore the challenges that still remain as far as the gender gap in leadership in health IT, in healthcare technology.

Women make up a huge majority of the actual workforce in healthcare and make up the largest major…the largest body of, um, who make decisions on behalf of families in health.

And we also see a difference in the amount of investment in women-led entrepreneurial startups. There's higher investment in male and startups with men founders than women. So there's really remained some sort of sticky gender gaps in healthcare, and I'm curious what you think can be done about it and whether Oracle is actually interested in making an impact in that as well.

Stephanie Trunzo: Yeah. You know: obviously a topic that is near and dear to my heart.

All we can do is continue working on this incrementally. So things like this podcast, right? These things are the things that start changing mindsets. I had a conversation just yesterday with another woman that is a leader in healthcare industry, and she was mentioning she had just started a new position and a new role.

And she was saying that she was starting to feel that same kind of complication in not getting the right kind of respect or not being able to get her voice, you know, to be heard. And so we had a really, very honest conversation about not pretending that these problems don't exist, but actually addressing them in a way that really is loving and kind.

And I gave an example. I think that as we move forward in our career or our titles start to get fancier, you know, these kinds of things, they, they confer a certain level of respect automatically. What I encouraged her–and I think I would give this advice to everybody–is: you know, use that as an advantage for helping other people see why that is important.

And you know, I've got a lot of really awesome male colleagues that I will point out to them because now we have a trusted relationship to be able to say, “Hey, you know, in that last meeting, three people didn't get their voices heard. And interestingly, there's one common factor: that they happened to be the women,” right?

So I think that it's a little bit of an incremental change and it's the same kind of transformation that we're making, you know, within tech industry overall, including, you know, healthcare industry. Very similar.

Meg Escobosa: Great point. I'm happy to hear that you, you know, are able to act in your role to spur change and to bring light and clarity and, and point out these issues.

So that's great to hear. I know you're also engaged in a number of boards outside of your work. Can you tell us a little bit more about those other areas where you're trying to make an impact outside of Oracle?

Stephanie Trunzo: Yeah, absolutely. I love–and I think many, many folks like myself–love being able to give back.

You know, we kind of collect scar tissue throughout our careers, things that we've experienced and learned, and if we can help anybody else skip that part or learn from it we do so.

So I sit on several nonprofit boards. Largely, I, I try to find areas that are focused on STEM education for women or girls in technology.

And in particular, I really like to work with the age group that's kind of you know, 12 to 15, 11 to 14-ish. Because it seems to me, and there's a lot of, you know, research that backs this up, that there's a lot of focus on girls in tech in elementary school. There's a lot of focus when you move into careers or move into college level, but there's really not anything that, and, and kind of corresponding to girls development cycle and kind of that period of life. That's when a lot of cognitive development happens and it's, it's kind of a gap.

So I try to focus on those areas, sitting on boards where I can help, you know, kind of provide an example of what it looks like to drive a business and a career in technology and encourage them so that they know that that's really an option and that there are career options for them.

I think that we've gotta rethink the way that we also teach and you know, what does that look like? Learning about health is maybe not just, “This is your vascular system” but really think about how we teach that in a much more whole way. Like, “What does health look like? How do you think about health?”

And all of the aspects of that: that the food that you eat has an impact, that the thoughts that you think have an impact, you know? I think that's an area that we all, you know, when we talk about kind of that broader ecosystem, being able to contribute back to how these humans as they grow–and they will be the people that take roles in the future–how they approach their perspective on health.

Meg Escobosa: Great. And I think that we're in that era now where we just see the cost of healthcare, the amount we spend on healthcare has risen so dramatically for all kinds of reasons. But a lot of it is we have chronic disease that is preventable. Mainly because there is this disconnect that you're pointing out, which is we don't really understand the role that our choices make every day.

We may…vaguely get that what we eat does–like an apple a day, keeps the doctor away–but at the same time, there's major marketing arms of major food brands that are very, very sophisticated, communicating to our reptilian brains about how badly we need that, whatever snack food, and so there's just an army of research pushing us towards behaviors that aren't necessarily healthful.

And then we're so poorly educated about the role of the food in our bodies and the activity levels…but it's true that we're changing. We're turning a corner, hopefully, as we become more tech-engaged and we use technology to help us become more aware of our choices and the impact they have on us.

Connecting those dots.

Stephanie Trunzo: Right. Becoming more aware. Well, and it's, it's sort of like a parallel to what we were discussing earlier about data, our reptilian brain… Humans, we're wired to make sure that our actions benefit us in some way, and so, the point that you made about so many kinds of chronic illnesses and things that are preventable: This is kind of where I see data playing a bigger role as well. Because, you know, data, by nature, is backwards-looking. It's historical, it's things that have happened. That's how data gets created. And you know, we're sort of in the stage right now, I believe, where we're moving from the past into the present so we can see real time information.

But when we…can get to a stage where we're using artificial intelligence and machine learning and training models to get predictive about the future? That's when I think we'll start seeing that shift from, you know, being reactive, kind of a reactive health world into something that is more proactive about “how do you actually create healthy humans in the first place.”

Meg Escobosa: Can we…I wanna hear more about, um, how you got into this. You said you are…you have a psychology degree. You've described yourself as…well, you've had a marketing background. You also are an entrepreneur, and you've described yourself as a storyteller, and I'm sure I'm leaving things out. This, I mean, it's a really great combination.

I'm curious, tell us about your entrepreneurial experience starting that company back in the day. Describe it. And I know it grew very quickly, so I'd love to hear how it happened.

Stephanie Trunzo: Yeah. You know, I think, you know, just to maybe unwind a little bit, how did I get to this position?

I would say that the story I had told myself was that I was focused on technology. That, um, yes, I have a psychology degree, but I didn't pursue following that degree. I have an English literature degree. You know, things that are sort of adjacent and maybe don't seem like directly applicable.

And just over a year ago, or a year and a half ago when I started talking about focusing on health industry, I initially thought: I have experience in this area, but not depth. And what I realized is that as I unwound that, actually health has actually been a thread throughout my career. I just hadn't realized it.

So I can only see it now in sort of a backwards-looking way, you know? Yeah. I got a psychology degree. I spend a lot of my personal time thinking about how to help people reevaluate what their vision of health is for themselves, whether it's, you know, through yoga or movement practice or you know, just getting healthier in our minds and our bodies.

I feel like in health there's an amazing number of healthtech startups and startups that are helping try to create a single-purpose app economy around health and Ilook at any kind of startup that is tech-focused, and I truly believe that having some kind of corporate experience is what helps startups go and vice versa.

If corporations can bring entrepreneurs in to be “Intrepreneurs” and really let them do what they're great at, I think there's a bidirectional value that happens with people who have learned what it really takes to run a business. It's hard in a very, very different way to grow.

And then having that corporate experience as a backing because you can't talk to big clients if you don't know how they work. Just a way [of] understanding how to navigate large corporations that you can't get if you haven't worked in one.

Meg Escobosa: Yeah. I actually, just thinking about the entrepreneurs being brought into the corporation: as long as the corporate antibodies do not attack…

Stephanie Trunzo: That's right.

Meg Escobosa: …the new way of thinking, the fresh ideas, the…

Stephanie Trunzo: Absolutely. Correct.

Meg Escobosa: …new entrant.

Stephanie Trunzo: That's absolutely, I mean, “antibodies” is a perfect way of saying it, right? Because you don't want that transplant to be rejected. The system is built to reject it. So it's, it's, you've gotta fight against that.

Meg Escobosa: Yeah. It's the immune system protecting.

Um, you know, I love you went there and I was actually, if we didn't go there, I was going to describe, like: it's so easy to look in hindsight and draw a throughline through a career and have it all make sense and be logical, but when you're graduated with a degree in literature, it is so unclear that you'll end up as an SVP and GM of Oracle Health.

Stephanie Trunzo: Yes.

Meg Escobosa: So it's so great to hear that. And was it that you, kind of…one thing led to another kind of organically, or did you at some point make this dramatic shift from your early career to where you are now?

Stephanie Trunzo: Yeah, I mean, I guess the answer's “yes” because I think both is true. I reflect on the saying, “Fortune favors the prepared mind.”

Because I cannot claim that I have architected this career path in any way. What I can claim is that I am always open-minded. I'm always curious and I think things will present themselves if you are open to them. And then it's just about making those decisions in the moment and following that path.

So I would say, you know, to some degree it's been extremely organic and it's a lot more about attitude than anything. But I would also say that I did make a fairly intentional decision to focus on health specifically. I had been at Oracle, my role prior to this, I was running major cloud transformations. So taking companies through that, that process of digital transformation.

And everybody wants to feel more purpose in their work. They wanna feel more connected to what they're doing. And from a technology perspective, what I was feeling was that I was really, really far away from impact. I can draw a very distinct line between why infrastructure and cloud technology and you know, data science, like how that's really gonna change the world. But it's a lot of clicks away from seeing the impact.

And so for me that was an intentional decision to say, I wanna do something with this understanding of technology, what it takes to make large transformations happen and apply it in a space that I'm gonna be able to actually see, you know, like literally with my eyes, that this is having an impact.

Meg Escobosa: Well, you know, just that your experience taking corporations through to transitioning to the cloud is so, so relevant. It's happening right now in healthcare. There's a lot of questions about…how to do it, why to do it, whether it's the right move.

So it seems like Oracle's very lucky to get you with that experience to bring to bear for health systems. It's, it's really terrific.

Stephanie Trunzo: Thank you.

Meg Escobosa: And I did wanna hear the story of Point Source.

Stephanie Trunzo: Sure!

Meg Escobosa: Tell us what happened. Why did you start that business? What was it? And then, do you have any tips for how to grow so quickly for the next guys?

Stephanie Trunzo: Yes. Okay. Super, super fun. So, um, I was working at IBM, actually, and I had worked at IBM for, at that point…I'm gonna say 13 years, something like that. And I was at a point in my career where I felt like I've always wanted to start my own company. I always had that bug and that itch to actually experience that.

And if we go back in time to that time period, what was going on in the world was people were starting to adopt things like “agile practices.” Or “lean development practices.”

Meg Escobosa: And this, this was like 2013?

Stephanie Trunzo: Yeah. Roughly. Right? Like 2012, 2013. And what I was experiencing within a corporation was that it's really, really difficult to adopt these kinds of agile mentalities that were really designed for the speed of startups within a corporation.

And I felt like in order for me to be able to authentically lead in a big corporation, I had to go experience that myself. So I left IBM to build Point Source and that was as a business partner.

And so I would say one of Point Source’s success stories is that we built really good relationships with our partner. And, you know, you can kind of hear this echoing in my philosophy even with Oracle Health. I really do believe in collaboration, and I really do think that's the path that helps everyone move forward.

So Point Source was built on partnership. It was built on, you know, bringing in, at the time again, it was…the mobile revolution. So yeah, this was, you know, when apps was moving from, you know, “Angry Birds” into like enterprise applications, and it became a real thing for companies to say, “Do we have an app in the app store?”

There's enterprise apps now. We took that approach of saying, “Well, we need to develop a company that can help them think through, do they actually need an application? Like do they need a mobile app? Do they need a responsive web app? So it was building upon a direction that our partner company was already going.

And I think if you can find–in terms of suggestions for anybody thinking about a startup–I would say, begin by understanding who your partners are going to be and try to find a place where you can add additional value to the strategic direction that they're already headed.

Meg Escobosa: I'm curious if you had any hiccups in your career, any particular difficulties that you had to overcome, something that really threw a curve ball your way that, kind of, you had to dig deep and get over it. Get through it.

Stephanie Trunzo: Yeah. If I think about sort of the stickiest point in my career, I would say it was the year that I got pregnant and the year that I had my daughter.

And you know, it is unfortunate that that's the story I'm about to tell, but it is the truth. That during that time when I got pregnant, I was getting my MBA at the same time. And, and the reason for getting my MBA was because I felt like I had gotten too tech-focused and kind of zoomed out and said, “If I really wanna grow and drive business, I've gotta get this business perspective too.”

So I was getting my MBA working at IBM. And was offered my first kind of major management role at the same time and got lots and lots of advice that this was a really terrible time for me to take a different step in my career. And I went ahead and did it anyhow, because I thought, you know, this is, this is the way forward. I can't stop one thing to solve for another.

But it was really, really a very difficult challenge and it wasn’t that the challenge was balancing or juggling, you know, being a new parent at the same time. It was juggling perceptions and judgements. And, you know, I think that was…if I say one time in my career where I felt really uncertain and conflicted, it would have been that time period.

Meg Escobosa: Gosh, Stephanie, I feel like so many women out there can relate to that experience. It's not that you couldn't handle the job, it's how you were being experienced or treated–potentially judged–by the rest of the team. And I do hope that those days are behind us. Although, and I do think that there are more men kind of taking on the parenting, you know, more of those day to day responsibilities.

Stephanie Trunzo: I think frankly the more that we realize that continuing the human race is everybody's job…And I think that…and really that relates back to health and in fact, you know, kind of when I said I got this backwards-looking thread of things that connect, that time period for me was challenging.

You know, dealing with those perceptions of, “Gosh, are you really gonna try to drive your career forward at the same time that you're building a family?” And what motivated me and I've carried with me–I think, you know, up to the end, I told you my daughter's 15, so I've carried that with me for 15 years–is we need to redesign what that experience looks like. We need to redesign what it looks like for healthcare, for women who are pregnant. We need to redesign the experience for people that are pregnant. It's a completely different world that we need to acknowledge and it doesn't need to be the way that I experienced it.

Meg Escobosa: Yeah. Did you have a champion to help you at that time, or what helped you get through it?

Stephanie Trunzo: Uh, I'm a stubborn Italian…

[both laugh]

Stephanie Trunzo: I mean, you know, frankly, I just think, I think that that is why, you know, coming back to our center and what are the things that we truly believe and, you know, we believe with a hundred percent of our soul is right and good.

And if you can find people who support you in that, all the better. But I think, you know, you're your own north star. And you've got to make sure that…when you put your head on [your] pillow at night, that you're proud of who you are and what you're doing.

And, and I think for me, during that time, it was like, “I'm having a daughter. I'm having a child.” That “this is the world that she's gonna come into. And if I'm not helping make it better, you know, what am I doing?”

Meg Escobosa: Stephanie, you've been really generous with your time and I'm really truly thrilled to meet you and get to know you. So thank you. Thanks for telling your story. It's been great.

Stephanie Trunzo: Thank you, Mag.

Meg Escobosa: Thanks for joining us for The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare, a production of the Krinsky Company.

Today's episode was produced by Calvin Marty, Chelsea Ho, Medina Sabic, Wendy Nielsen, and me Meg Escabosa. This podcast is engineered, edited, mixed and scored by Calvin Marty.

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If you have any questions, comments, or guest suggestions, please email me at [e-mail] and you can visit us on the web at www.thekrinskyco.com.