The 10 Most Inspiring CEOs to Look at in 2020

Vol 06 | Issue 07 | 2020

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The 10 Most Inspiring CEOs to Look at in 2020

JEFF ARONIN Developing Innovative Life Science Solutions

INDUSTRY INSIDER WHY ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP IS DISTINCTIVE?

LEADER’S DESK BUILDING AN ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEM FOR WOMEN

Editor’s Desk

Innovation leads to Inspiration!

Leadership is not just a passing phase, but a habit that evolves within a person experiencing various dilemmas

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one are the days when meritocracy was just a myth, and was known to be forgotten. The world has witnessed many great leaders, some elevated the already established organization while some started from the scratch and made it into big leagues.

Every individual, with merit deserves to be the leader as they possess potential and ability to make a difference.

These leaders holds a great responsibility to create a difference and set an example for others to follow.

Through a quote, “Longevity in this business is about being able to reinvent yourself or invent the future,” the Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, Satya Nadella tries to emphasize on the significance of innovation in business. He states that a leader must polish his skills and implicate them to present new innovations out there which can penetrate the solid customary businesses. He advices them to understand the nature of such significance and make every effort to bring innovative ideas into reality.

With such a belief in its sleeves, Insights Success takes pride in presenting its’ special edition entitled, “The 10 Most Inspiring CEOs to Look at in 2020”. These leaders are ones from others should get inspired and get generate the courage to make a difference in business world.

Here is the cover featuring Jeff Aronin, Chairman and CEO of Paragon Biosciences, who founded several successful portfolio companies, including: Castle Creek Biosciences, Emalex Biosciences, Evozyne Biosciences, Harmony Biosciences, Qlarity Imaging and Skyline Biosciences. These portfolio companies are developing

innovative solutions for both human disease and societal challenges, including environmental, energy, agricultural and industrial. Along with his work at Paragon, Jeff and his wife Lisa provide funding for medical innovation, education innovation, and innovative approaches to neighborhood revitalization and economic growth, through the Aronin Family Foundation. Life Science is a proving ground where innovation has limitless possibilities. For the forward-looking scientists indeed the future is now. Life Science companies are producing new breakthrough technologies, medicines and treatments. The advent of these new advances will improve life for all humankind. Thus, one innovative company is Paragon Biosciences.

Let’s unveil such alike, inspiring stories and interviews of many such passionate leaders in this special edition and spread a word about their contribution in making this world a better place.

Also, while flipping the pages, don’t forget to go through the articles and CXOs written by our inhouse editorial team and industry experts respectively.

Bhushan Ghate

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Managing Editor Anish Miller

Executive Editor

Assistant Editors

Kaustav Roy

Jenny Fernandes Bhushan Ghate

Visualizer

Art & Design Director

Associate Designer

David King

Amol Kamble

Sanket Zirpe

Co-designer Asha Bange

Senior Sales Manager

Business Development Manager

Kshitij S

Andy Mitter

Marketing Manager

Sales Executives

John Matthew

Jordan, Manish, Vishnu Vardan

Technical Head

Business Development Executives

Jacob Smile

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Technical Specialist Aditya

Digital Marketing Manager Marry D'Souza

SME-SMO Executive Prashant Chevale

Research Analyst Frank Adams

Database Management Stella Andrew

Circulation Manager Robert Brown

Technology Consultant David Stokes

sales@insightssuccess.com June, 2020

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JEFF ARONIN Developing Innovative Life Science Solutions

“Problems people have deemed unsolvable are the problems worth solving. That's the philosophy that drives us at Paragon Biosciences.�

C O V E R S T O R Y

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ife Science is a proving ground where innovation has limitless possibilities. For the forward-looking scientists indeed the future is now. Life Science companies are producing new breakthrough technologies, medicines and treatments. The advent of these new advances will improve life for all humankind. One innovative company is Paragon Biosciences. The experienced team at Paragon goes beyond traditional biotechnology to identify unmet human and societal need across the spectrum of life sciences and match those needs with novel science and accelerate the approval and launch of solutions. Paragon advances life-science breakthroughs by building and supporting visionary companies.

Je Aronin, Chairman and CEO of Paragon Biosciences, founded several successful portfolio companies, including: Castle Creek Biosciences, Emalex Biosciences, Evozyne Biosciences, Harmony Biosciences, Qlarity Imaging and Skyline Biosciences. These portfolio companies are developing innovative solutions for both human disease and societal challenges, including environmental, energy, agricultural and industrial. Along with his work at Paragon, Je and his wife Lisa provide funding for medical innovation, education innovation, and innovative

approaches to neighborhood revitalization and economic growth, through the Aronin Family Foundation.

Jeff’s expertise in novel drug development and venture innovation has made him one of the most impactful and successful leaders in the biosciences sector, by transforming the lives of people treated for complex and severe medical conditions.

A Firm Beginning Jeff’s career has been built on bringing motivated teams of scientists and business leaders together to develop important therapies for patients in need and accelerate life-science breakthroughs. This is also the basis of the mission of Paragon Biosciences; to solve complex human and societal challenges by accelerating the development of novel therapies and life science breakthroughs. At Paragon, they originate the idea and create companies by providing long-term capital, deep operational expertise and comprehensive, ongoing support to let their companies focus on execution.

Paragon’s six portfolio companies, plus consistent flow of incubating companies in development, are focused on four areas of life science innovation, including artificial intelligence, gene therapy, synthetic biology and biopharmaceuticals.

One of Paragon’s portfolio companies, Evozyne, harnesses artificial intelligence and biology to manufacture new enzymes that have a wide range of applications to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges, such as creating sustainable energy sources, manufacturing products without petroleum, improving agricultural feed production, and designing new approaches to developing medicine.

In 2017, Jeff launched Harmony Biosciences with the hope of helping people living with narcolepsy. In 2019, Harmony introduced the first and only treatment approved for patients with narcolepsy that is not scheduled as a controlled substance by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. This first-in-class treatment

with a novel mechanism of action is now being studied in a variety of other orphan/rare neurological conditions.

In two years, Harmony has grown from three employees to approximately 150. It was essential to provide excellent leadership and continuously inspire employees as they worked through inevitable challenges to bring this therapy to patients in need. Harmony has since won numerous awards for its commitment and service to those living with narcolepsy. Jeff is proud of his exceptional team at Paragon, with a proven track record of developing new technologies to solve unmet needs, and confident that together they will continue to deliver much-needed advances with broad societal benefits.

Jeff states that Paragon identifies the ideas and scientific innovations with the highest potential to change lives and improve our world. They apply capital, expertise and strong support so these breakthroughs will reach people faster. As a result, not only are Paragon and their portfolio companies a success, but they are making measurable positive contributions to society and the health care systems that we all need and rely on.

Prior to Paragon Biosciences, Jeff founded Ovation Pharmaceuticals, where he served as President and CEO from 2000 to 2009, leading an organization that developed medicines which earned four novel drug approvals from the FDA. Later Ovation Pharmaceuticals was acquired by Lundbeck A/S in 2009, Jeff served as CEO of Lundbeck Inc. until 2011.

Providing Unique Solutions As Paragon’s vision states; “Our world is better, and people live healthier lives with life science breakthroughs from Paragon portfolio companies.”

The Paragon process is to identify the need, isolate the possible solution and then build a company around it.

With their proprietary Paragon Innovation Capital™ approach, this means putting in place seasoned, focused leadership and establishing the functional/administrative support services that start-ups often struggle with. Some ongoing support includes financial and expert clinical,

The 10 Most Inspiring CEOs to Look at in 2020

regulatory and deal-making advice. By applying Paragon Innovation Capital™ to accelerate the right ideas, they can help more breakthrough innovations reach people faster.

Five-year plan Paragon’s vision is to invest in new treatments and technologies that will make measurable positive contributions to society. Since 2017, Paragon and its partners have invested or committed to invest more than $1B in their portfolio companies to achieve their mission of solving human and societal challenges across the world. They plan to invest strategically to address unmet need through life science breakthroughs. Over the next five years, Paragon will likely have several companies go public or be sold but will retain six to 10 portfolio companies at any one time. While these numbers are useful for context, Paragon measures its success by the number of novel therapies created, scientific breakthroughs achieved and people whose lives are improved.

Utilizing the Technology for Betterment Jeff believes the use of artificial intelligence has the potential to transform medical diagnosis. One exciting example is Qlarity Imaging, one of Paragon's portfolio companies, that has used artificial intelligence to develop computer-aided breast cancer diagnosis software for radiology. This company's first offering was named to Time magazine's Best Inventions of 2019 list.

Jeff believes new technology can provide an impetus for addressing personal and societal challenges. It can help people and society in ways today that were only a dream ten years ago. Paragon has the talented and committed people to execute its vision Advising Emerging Leaders To the visionaries of tomorrow, Jeff says, “learn all you possibly can in your area of interest, surround yourself

with talented people that share the same passion and never give up when faced with what appears to be an insurmountable challenge. Be accountable to your team and help them achieve their personal and professional goals. Keep your team and those whom you wish to serve through your work as your paramount focus.”

Moreover, being a believer in education as a change agent, Jeff serves as a mentor to students and young professionals and is also a frequent lecturer at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business.

Through the Aronin Family Foundation, Jeffrey and his wife Lisa provide millions of dollars in funding for medical innovation, education innovation, and innovative approaches to neighborhood revitalization and economic growth.

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Vol 06 | Issue 07 | 2020

+

The 10 Most Inspiring CEOs to Look at in 2020

JEFF ARONIN Developing Innovative Life Science Solutions

INDUSTRY INSIDER WHY ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP IS DISTINCTIVE?

LEADER’S DESK BUILDING AN ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEM FOR WOMEN

Choose E xc e l l e n t, Choose Insights

The Fuss about AI I

have been a strong advocate of conversational technology (VoiceTech/NLP) and AI and have pitched for it in various conferences, Guest Lectures at leading business institutes and to corporates and I am often being asked what will happen to our jobs? So this is true that Artificial intelligence seems like a big untameable monsters to most, and everyone is little anxious about future.

And that could be true sitting in 2010, but past few years new old research and young progressive companies and devision of enterprises are willing to make it their sole purpose that the infuse digital transformation in their company and provide assistance to others. But, with the prevailing reputation that comes at a cost of educating everyone, really everyone.

They see it as a risk and any have burnt their hands trying to tame novice early stage AI models. But thats fine, thats how we grow. I believe that we are intellectual beings with curious minds, why would we want to do repeatable jobs which machines can do with greater efficiency. We can delegate these chores and teach the machines to help us better and imitate human decision making, innovate at personal level and “Democratise Artificial Intelligence”.

Democratising AI through platforms for like voice technology - Natural Language processing so the technical algorithms can stay with specific user base while use of the AI algorithms can be made as simple as conversing with machines. Thats a sure shot way to upskilling resources for example: Team of Analysts can train dashboards and Business Intelligence tools to map business KPIs and generate Compelling Business Stories and Insights in natural language for everyone in the organisation to benefit from, and then keep building the training over it through machine learning. We are personally running trials with Fortune 50 companies on this, so when I say you need to

18 | JUNE 2020

start looking at ways to incorporate new technologies I mean it.

For enterprises there are certain imminent crisis that demand that they change rapidly and market is not at all as forgiving as it was a few decades back, someone is constantly rooting for you to make a mistake.This is leading enterprise to transform under the integrated environment of Digital Transformation.

Voice Technology has lately become a stable AI process and would completely change the way we interact with technology in the future. Visualization will remain at the heart of it however with conversational technology, we can expect a shift to more verbal ads, like radio, but more personalized and actionable, but still to make a decision on which product to buy you would want to see it visually.

Also search will become more specific and hyperlocal, where we will be prompted to give verbal feedbacks, that would amount to popularity of products and places, how it happens with mobile applications today.

Siri, Cortana, Alexa have brought conversation technology to people for some time now. They come bundled up with smart phones and can be used to do basic searches, to look up certain things, cue up songs etc. Speech technology has come much further than that. With its advancement we can now control our oven, tv and other house hold devices, can search complex data from cloud or can make phone calls for ourselves. It can change the way we function in our daily lives, our time with our family, services we receive and the jobs we do. It can eliminate learning curve of devices, repeatable chores, and compiling excel sheets. And it will not happen eventually, it’s happening now.

Developers will innovate to create more audio centric user interface, there will be discovery period for them to find out how to minimally prompt user to give inputs and implement

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Expert Talks

About the Author Preksha Kaparwan is the Co-founder, CMO, V.UX Designer of Realbox.AI. The versatile IHM Pusa graduate initially served as the chef but got inclined towards technology and business analytics and founded RealBox in 2015.

Within three years of its inception, they have raised $300k for Realbox and, their customers include fortune 50 and big 4 enterprises. As a thought leader she has been part of TEDTalk talk shows. She was awarded 'The sparks 2018' by your story for tech services for her exceptional contribution as a Tech Evangelist.

voice modulated visual commands. We can see speech approaching a point where it would become so reliable that we can just use it, like how we do it with other humans, and not even think about it.

Preksha Kaparwan Co-founder & CMO RealBox Data Analytics Private Limited

I am personally inspired to bring acceptance for conversational technology globally and I believe that the real success for this would not be when big corporations and industries would be using it but when every small and medium business and every household would be using it and help us to get a hold of our receding grip on reality from visually attractive and distracting screens on our tv, on out laptops and our smart phones.

We have seen this kind of a shift with automated technologies and processes which has led to reduced laborious work, eďŹƒciency increased and averted accidents. Smart phones brought technologies closer to the end user. So, I took side with ArtiďŹ cial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies, that will aid seamlessly while co-existing in our realities. And impact is not just on us in our personal capacity but for businesses too and professionals who spend endless nights collating data and make pretty ppts to show to the bosses.

I believe that spreading the word on changing technological demography is not our responsibility or our burden. But you know why I make it my purpose??

Because it is a major step in evolution of technology and I know we need to harness it, shape it now, before someone else does it for you.

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JUNE 2020 | 19

Benedikt Brueckle Synchronizing Healthcare

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n an Interview with Insights Success, Benedikt Brueckle, CEO of CompuGroup Medical, Inc. (CGM Inc.) shares his journey and about his contribution in the healthcare industry through CompuGroup Medical, Inc. (CGM Inc.). Benedikt is a top performing management executive in e-Health and digital healthcare with expertise in building and optimizing organizational processes, measurement systems, and infrastructure to maximize business results. He is expert in running software operations throughout the United States and Europe, including restructuring, opening new markets and expanding market share. His focus is on developing strategic plans into workable solutions and bench-marking performance against key operational targets and goals. He is a strategic leader, driven to grow and expand business organically and inorganically (acquisitions) and to explore new markets and drive efficiency.

Below are the highlights of the interview between Benedikt Brueckle and Insights Success: As best known as a strategic leader, what are some of your key leadership traits that drive both your personal and organizational success?

First of all it is about our vision and mission, that no one should suffer or even die just because medical information is missing somewhere at some point. That is what drives me and our whole team. Then it’s about honesty, integrity paired with passion and enthusiasm to get us where our mission needs us. Large parts of the healthcare sector rely on us doing our 20 | JUNE 2020

job and drive synchronization and digitalization in healthcare.

That is what we are currently working on.

What does your typical day look like?

Usually I start the day very early at around 5 Am with about 30 minutes of swimming and then taking care of our animals.

Most of the time I take an Uber to work, so I can already use the commute to read the latest Blogs and articles to get me up to speed.

As an eHealth provider with a comprehensive portfolio of cutting edge healthcare IT solutions, how does CGM Inc. stay ahead of the competition curve?

Our differentiator is our staff. We try to employ the brightest and most innovative minds in the industry; to be sure we develop cutting edge solutions for our customers and the benefit of their patients.

The first hour in the office is reserved for emails and notes, whereas the rest of the day usually is taken by phone calls and meetings with employees, customers and stakeholders.

This lead to a series of unique and patented technologies, like one of the most secure data encryption algorithms on the market, that make our offerings so unique and outstanding.

What according to you are some of the challenges that exist in the current healthcare technology sector?

The biggest challenge in healthcare technology currently is interoperability.

There are more than 1,000 vendors that could each have a small piece of someone’s medical history and the challenge is to bring this all together to one Personal Health Record.

Share with us the key benefits of CGM Inc. portfolio.

CompuGroup Medical delivers important software and services to improve health and the quality of life.

We encourage communication in the healthcare sector and ensure that costs are kept low. We build bridges between physicians, pharmacies, health insurances, laboratories, rehab & care facilities and hospitals and help them to optimally treat people.

“There is no success without failure. Failing is a substantial ingredient on the pathway to success.”

Our goal is to introduce our tele-heath solution to immobilized patients and those in rural areas so they get access to the best possible healthcare available. We will work with the providers to get patients involved and provide them with their personal medical data electronically, both in a holistic and secure manner. The future of healthcare is a patient that is aware and takes care of himself before getting www.insightssuccess.com

The 10 Most Inspiring CEOs to Look at in 2020

About the Company CompuGroup Medical is a global eHealth provider with a comprehensive portfolio of cutting-edge IT solutions for the healthcare industry. It connects doctors, hospitals, community health facilities, dentists, pharmacists, health insurers and other service providers to create an integrated network of all healthcare stakeholders. As a result, CompuGroup Medical is able to help these organizations improve efciency, optimize care and increase patient satisfaction while also improving protability.

ill – so preventive care using predictive technology will be the buzzword in the future. A person’s health is their most valuable possession. With intelligent IT, we help preserve it.

Could you share with us one of your memorable moments of success?

My most memorable moments of success in my professional life are any and each interaction with our customers that ends with them being happy.

Benedikt Brueckle CEO

From your experience, how do you think leaders can overcome the fear of failure?

I mentor my young managers always with the saying, “there is no success without failure”. Failing is a substantial ingredient on the pathway to success. I only see a manager as complete, if on his path to the top he also made the experience of failure and then excelled in finding a way out of it.

As a visionary leader, what advice would you like to give to start-ups and booming entrepreneurs?

Know your customer and be persistent. I cannot remember a single company that was not successful when living by those two principles.

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JUNE 2020 | 21

Industry Insider

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www.insightssuccess.com

WHY

Entrepreneurial

Leadership IS DISTINCTIVE?

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eadership is a process through which, one person provides guidelines derive path for an individual or group and influence them to achieve individual or organizational objectives and goals through executing the activities effectively and efficiently. Leaders carry out this process through their leadership style, knowledge, skills, abilities,

www.insightssuccess.com

JUNE 2020 | 25

and characteristics that help to achieve predefined individual objectives and goals or common goals. Skills, attitudes, beliefs, values, ethics, character, bits of knowledge are the critical success factors and part of leadership. There are four crucial factors of leadership: leader, followers, communication, and situation. Leaders use the leadership style to achieve overall success to get individual, group, or organizational goals. The concept of follower describes the style of leadership that leaders used for corporate functions: planning, staffing, organizing, executing, and managing. Communication is a factor that helps to create, maintain, and retain the relationship in the organization. Situation defines the approach and expresses the trait leadership of leaders.

Social entrepreneurship is a term in search of a good definition. Leadership and entrepreneurship create critical concepts in research and sources. This may affect business performance, and transformational leadership creates a more significant contribution to production.

Today is the world of entrepreneurship, and this helps to meet with the concept of organization-level entrepreneurship.

Every entrepreneur has this quality and possesses a strong sense of opportunity. Thus, they also help with a higher possibility of achieving financial rewards so as provides the high capability to meet with the total operation and goals of the business. They also create a more significant opportunity for the contribution of the person, and this helps them to bring with innovation strategies. Many leaders in the world are entrepreneurs who started their business on a small scale and worked smartly and made a fortune through this strategy.

There are many factors of entrepreneurship, and this creates the essential ways of uniqueness so as differentiation. The successful entrepreneurship creates new ways of differentiation, innovation, as well as a niche market. In countries like fewer developing countries, change is created in the developed countries.

Entrepreneurship must focus on effective communication, and they should directly communicate

26 | JUNE 2020

with the suppliers, distributors, customers, and other vital resources. Entrepreneurship provides information about websites and other critical reliable resources.

Entrepreneurs are also well known and highly aware of all the issues and risks in the business, and they also try to reduce them, which becomes possible from the help of the business plan. This helps them to provide highquality products to their customers who are very important for a successful business. Entrepreneurs also offer a wide variety and quality, which allows them to generate high demand for price and loyalty. They are very responsive, which helps the customer to get a quick and easy response, and they do not have to wait in a queue. This will also help to develop new ideas with the help of a group of people. Strong management skills are also required to make the business successful. Also, there is a requirement of proper and robust marketing skills, which will help the company to benefit the experience and to start the new business. Thus by determining the competitor's value, the industry also can differentiate and provide high value to its customers.

An idealistic leader recognizes challenges and growth possibilities before they happen, placing people to produce remarkable results that make contributions to life. Leaders should also focus their attention on introducing further research questions that are meaningful to the different domains that intersect with social entrepreneurship, including social innovation and the management of non-profit organizations. Leaders used these leadership styles, traits to execute the activities and managerial functions effectively and efficiently to achieve the individuals' and group's goals and objectives and directly and indirectly achieve the organization or one common goal. Leadership is various, but entrepreneurship is a clear case of administration. To conclude, Entrepreneurial leaders can create vision, express vision, passionately possess vision, and persistently drive it to accomplishment.

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Berry Hendriks Redening the Construction Industry

‘‘Have fun, Be Amazing, Stay happy, and Live Long.

28 | JUNE 2020

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The 10 Most Inspiring CEOs to Look at in 2020

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aised as the fourth generation in a large construction company, Berry Hendriks, the Founder & CEO of CyBe, grew up at the construction site. Fascinated by building, he has worked in various segments of the industry. Responsible for his own construction projects at the family-owned company Hendriks Bouw en Ontwikkeling – existing since 1922 -, he started experimenting changing processes from design to the way projects are built. Every day he was more curious why the construction industry didn’t change to automated processes while other industries had changed decades ago.

He decided to not only dream about it and started CyBe to redefine the construction industry.

In an interview with Insights Success, Berry unveils his fascination for the construction industry. He also shares his key insights on how he is solving social and economic problems using less raw material and transportation for a more sustainable planet through CyBe. Berry states, what started as an ambition to simplify the complex conventional processes in the construction industry has grown to an independent company. CyBe develops technology and creates solutions to enable 3D concrete printing accessible to all clients throughout the industry: solutions to simplify the complex processes and to work together more efficiently. “In construction, ‘we’ work together,” he adds.

When creating solutions, CyBe always keeps the future in mind. It automates heavy labor to cover the increasing shortage of co-workers around the world. The team at CyBe works hard with a lot of creativity and fun, as its slogan says it all: Have fun, Be amazing, Stay happy and Live long!

Below are the highlights of the interview: How do you diversify your organization's solutions that appeal to your target audience?

Within our team, we ensure that we can do all elements of construction and manufacturing the 3Dprinters with related software. One team one task – in the fragmented and regional construction industry most companies specialize.

We believe in a holistic view about projects – it's design and structural principle we make and how we make them.

What is your thought process behind leading the organization effectively?

I'm aware of my exemplary role as CEO – I'm trying to behave in a way which I would like my team to act similar.

We create common goals – a common mission. We gain new experiences in weekly loops in which communication is key. Development is running fast while learning by doing next to the procedures which are simple and clear, and the trainings we provide. Furthermore, we've created a divers www.insightssuccess.com

and balanced team in which each person uses their strengths. By using their qualities and being responsible the team stays motivated and is eager to develop themselves and the products they deliver. That's why we search for the passion of each employee so they can excel and bring added value to the organization growth.

Describe some of the vital attributes that every best performing CEO should possess. Ÿ Listen to your organization/team – empower people Ÿ Carry out a clear vision. Ÿ Be able to switch fast between operational, tactical and strategic level within company processes and activities.

What are the experiences and lessons that you’ve learned across your journey? Ÿ Together with a motivated team you will be able to overcome even the hardest Ÿ challenges. There is always a way – just think and plan before you act. Ÿ Take care of your team, the team will take care of the organization. At CyBe, we took this into practice by monthly 1 on 1 meetings with all team members. The goal of this meeting is to learn and improve the individual and the organization.

Explain how your strategies are helping employees to bridge the gap between idea and execution.

Within every project, we push to improve the way of working and technology itself. This way we grow step by step with the aim to the long-term mission – building faster cheaper and more sustainable – within every project we push the boundaries and gain new knowledge and experiences, weekly loops, learning by doing.

Where does CyBe Construction sees itself in the near future and how do you plan to sustain its competency?

Currently, the fundament is laid out and credibility gained regarding the technology and what can be built with it. By entering new geographical markets, we need to push to reduce cost and time even further. By solving this economic puzzle, we keep ahead of the competition. Also, since we build ourselves using the technology. Based on these experiences we can support our partners even better and create a learning community around our technology with these international partners focusing on building faster, cheaper and more sustainable.

At this moment we started CyBe Academy and focus on continuous learning and education- a lifelong continuous learning!

What advice would you like to give to the young minds?

Start thinking about your ambition at a young age – involve coaches and surround yourself with a team that supports you and the organization its ambition.

JUNE 2020 | 29

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ust today I had a young and enthusiastic women call me up asking for advice and maybe some pointers on how to bring her vision to life. During the call I could almost see her deflating while I piled up the list of challenges that came with fundraising, developing tech products and gathering the right team. I know exactly what that feels like because I, myself, have experienced it many times before. The mountain of work that faces an entrepreneur is sheer unfathomable, and that’s probably a good thing: who knows how many companies would still be out there if the founders had known what awaited them!?

That feeling in mind, I did leave the call on an uplifting note (I hope), but what I also did was send her a list of female founder groups as well.

Having a female led and populated ecosystem that can absorb some of the pains any female entrepreneur has to face can be the difference between succeeding and giving up. I choose the words ‘giving up’ on purpose, because we can all fail, but it should be for technicalities all start-ups face, and not because we are lonely, overwhelmed and unsupported women.

From experience I have recognized three sorts of female ecosystems that are important for different challenges within the journey, each adding their own individual value, and I am grateful for each and every one of them: The Community: these groups are more motivational and empowering than having an actual impact on your business.

Especially at the beginning of founding a company they are important. You get to meet other women, hear their stories, recognized that it’s not only you and make friends along the way. I think these groups are very important for your mental health, especially when your new company also means a change of lifestyle. You can meet other women and have a tea or a drink without feeling like you should be working because you ARE. Panels with talks, meetups and even workspaces distinguish these groups from strictly social events. My favourite one: Blooming Founders.

The Educators: these groups offer talks, workshops and one-on-one’s with highly successful men and women in the start-up world. Here you need to bring your pen or laptop and stay on top of what is being said because the lecturer/guest speaker will dump large amounts of wisdom on you. Sometimes there are drinks afterwards, but the emphasis is on learning from and networking with the speakers. I have made the best out of them by targeting 30 | JUNE 2020

events with speakers that could be important for my business and that I would otherwise have difficulties accessing. To my greatest sorrow many events are early morning breakfast meetings at 7 or 8, where I pretend that it’s a normal hour to be about for me. My favourite one: SheWorx The Platformers: These groups offer mostly awards and events. While on the surface you often don’t win anything tangible like prize money, the award itself ads huge value because it is highly respected in the field and opens doors.

During the events you get to network from a privileged position which is invaluable for companies that are fundraising. It is also one of the few visible social markers that all your hard work, blood, sweat and tears has been acknowledged and rewarded - something you can show to your painfully neglected friends and family. My favourite one: TechWomen100 During the development, the fundraising and the pivot of my digital mental health company with our emotional fitness game, eQuoo, there have been multiple times that these groups were there at the right time and place, offering me support, information and a platform. Women are still vastly underrepresented in the tech world, and while the #MeToo movement has unearthed many of the people abusing their power against women, it can still be a hostile environment if you’re unlucky. And statistically speaking you will be unlucky a few times.

The VC world is slowly starting to understand that a mentally health founder is a productive one and having communities that support us is a vital ingredient to our wellbeing.

It takes a village to raise a child? Well, it takes a city to build a start-up.

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Leader’s Desk

About the Author Silja Litvin is the Psychologist, Founder and CEO of PsycApps Digital Mental Health, a company that uses AI, gamication and psychology to help people help themselves. She is a developer of the multi-award winning eQuoo – the Emotional Fitness Game.

Silja was born in Germany but moved to southern California early in her life. Exposed to many diverse cultures early in life, she developed an insatiable curiosity for the human condition leading to her pursuing a degree in psychology. During her 17 years of international modelling she began her Masters at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, graduating in Clinical Psychology and Systemic Family Therapy in 2013. Alongside her education as a Systemic Family Therapist in 2015, she began her PhD in Clinical Psychology.

A child of the digital generation, Silja was looking for ways to use apps and social media to help people suffering from mental issues. She went on to create a psychological mobile app that helps users identify and self-manage depression. With this idea, she undertook her PhD thesis, thus ensuring it to be evidence based and ethically sound.

Now she is venturing into the world of AI, gamication and chatbots to nd a way to be able to help people help themselves, launching her emotional tness game eQuoo in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia. The game has been featured in major news outlets such as Forbes and TechCrunch and she won multiple prizes with PsycApps such as THE EUROPAS Pitch Awards and Pitch@Palace on Tour. www.insightssuccess.com

Silja Litvin Founder & CEO PsycApps Digital Mental Health

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Michael Greene Being Genuine and Leading with Passion

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n an interview with Insights Success, Michael Greene, CEO of Enzoic, shares his journey and experiences in leading multiple organizations as a CEO. He reveals the essential traits of being a great leader and leading the organization with collaboration. He is a firm believer in the thought, “Leadership is not about always being right, leadership is about being genuine when you are wrong.”

Below are the highlights of the interview between Michael Greene and Insights Success: Give a brief overview of your background and your role in Enzoic: I am a growth-oriented CEO and General Manager with extensive experience across the organization from product and operations to sales and marketing, in a variety of international high growth companies. I am currently the CEO of Enzoic (formerly PasswordPing), a cybersecurity company that helps organizations detect compromised credentials. Prior to joining Enzoic in 2018, I was the CEO of ID Watchdog, an identity theft protection company that was sold to Equifax in 2017.

Before IDWatchdog, I held senior management positions at Symantec, Webroot, Thompson Micromedix, Raindance and Baxter. I graduated with an MBA from the University of Colorado in 2000 and I have a BA in

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Biology. I live in beautiful Boulder, Colorado with my wife and 2 sons.

Their success is the company’s success.

How do you diversify your organization’s solutions that appeal to your target audience?

Enzoic has certain core capabilities around dark web research, compromised credentials, and high transaction architecture while maintaining high levels of security.

When clients come to us expressing a need for our services and we see a common set of needs forming around a certain group of clients, we work hard to define, differentiate, and produce a unique product offering. One key example of that process is our active directory product. We heard our customer’s challenges with employee account vulnerability and their struggles complying with the new NIST 800-63b password guidelines.

Then, we worked with them to craft a solution and then we built it. Now it is the only fully compliant NIST 800-63b Active Directory plugin on the market.

Describe some of the vital attributes that every best performing CEO should possess. Ÿ Passion- If you are not passionate about what you do, how can you expect others to be “all-in?” Ÿ Market Knowledge- If you don't already know it, you learn it fast and then work to help define the market Ÿ Emotional intelligence- This is key for leadership. You have to listen, have empathy and create understanding. Without it, you will not have the trust of your team. Ÿ Adaptability- Sometimes you head the wrong direction or the market changes, you need to be flexible and adaptable. Companies that don't respond well to change will lose. Ÿ Grit and resilience- Mental toughness, grit and resilience gives you the courage and resolve to not only recover, but thrive in the face of adversity. The ability to overcome doubts and circumstances that prevent you from reaching your objective is one of the largest challenges a leader can face. Ÿ Decisiveness – This is the ability to make firm decision with full commitment. At the speed in which markets evolve, especially the fast paced cyber security market,

What is your thought process behind leading the organization effectively?

The key to effective leadership is to define common goals, inspire open communication, and create an environment for mutual success. You cannot play the game for yourself alone; you have to be in the game with the whole team- which includes your employees, partners and customers.

www.insightssuccess.com

The 10 Most Inspiring CEOs to Look at in 2020

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If your action inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.

Michael Greene CEO leaders who are indecisive will inhibit their organization from keeping up with the market and hinder growth. Ÿ Ability to align key stakeholders to achieve business success – Alignment and consensus among the leadership team is one of the highest priorities of a CEO. Successful companies do not have stakeholders moving in opposite directions. Ÿ Focus on Execution and delivering results – This one seems like a “no brainer” but if you just strategize without having defined plans to execute, you have nothing to deliver customer value. And if you keep investing in things that are not delivering results, there is a high opportunity cost that will hurt your business in the long run. Ÿ Being Genuine – Being genuine and authentic builds trust. Genuine people can admit their faults. Don’t try to be someone else at work, everyone in the organization will see through that. No one likes to work with someone who is fake. Ÿ

What are the experiences and lessons that you've learned across your journey?

The lessons are numerous and the key is to be open minded.

Recognize that challenges and obstacles are just another way to label opportunities. Embrace people and their different backgrounds, skills, and styles. Be genuine.

Embrace your passion.

www.insightssuccess.com

Explain how your strategies are helping employees to bridge the gap between idea and execution.

When our organization is mapping out our business strategy, we meet as a team to outline all of the factors that must be weighed and together we outline the steps to put our strategy into action. We all commit we all execute. This collaborative approach also ensures everyone is “bought-in” and keeps us all aligned on the objective.

Where does Enzoic sees itself in the near future and how do you plan to sustain its competency?

Enzoic will continue to be a growing leader in the cybersecurity arena. We start by attracting and retaining outstanding talent. Then we place our trust in them, we listen to their perspectives, and we partner as a team, which provides them with a great environment to pursue their passion. With this approach, we will continue to grow the product, service our customers and be a leader in our market.

What advice would you like to give to the young minds?

Embrace the world, enjoy your life, and welcome the boundless opportunities around you. You are in one of the best market expansion periods the world has ever seen. You are in one of the most innovative business environments in history. Embrace it!

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