Jennifer M. Policastro

I think one thing is that I'm a little bit of a perfectionist, and I think in this industry, you have to be. You have to be able to multitask and juggle a lot of balls. I've got a million fires going out all the time. I think that my ability to be super organized, to keep things organized, has helped. I think not overreacting to things is important, because the last thing you want to do is sound the fire alarm, and then find out it wasn't necessary. Once you put it out there, you can't put that cat back in the bag after it's out. So I think keeping a level head, being transparent, being honest about how things are, being approachable. I would rather people come to me directly and tell me the unpleasant thing, rather than a week goes by and I find out about it through some other means, because now it's like, okay, we could have done something if I knew about this when it happened. I always want them to know, like, you can come to me with whatever, I'll be honest, I will work, I mean, I'll sit there, and I'll roll up my sleeves, and I'll get right down in the sand with you, and I'll work with you side by side to work through the challenges. I'm not that person that thinks that's beneath me. I only got here because I did that work. So, it only makes sense that I take what I've already learned and experienced and share it with the next person below me that's at that level, working through the turmoil.

When I was on the first aid squad, probably about 21 years old at the time, one of the former captains who was much older, already in his 50s, told me something that has stuck with me. He said, believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see. Because even if you see something, you don't know the context of what you're seeing, so don't just make an assumption about it. I think it's always important to go do your own investigation, go to the source before you form an opinion. I don't like when people knee-jerk about things. My boss was doing that all the time, she would get wind of something and would be absolutely frantic, and I'm like, okay, it's taken care of, relax. Some people just need to keep their composure about things.

If I could talk to myself 20, 30 years ago, I would probably say it is a very large industry, but it's also very small. It's amazing how many people I worked with over the years that circle back around, and then you find yourselves working together again. So, as big as it is, it's a very small industry, so don't burn bridges. Even though you might work with somebody that you don't care for, you don't get along with, you keep that to yourself, because you never know where they're going to pop up down the road. I think to try to do the best to keep things in perspective and to not overreact to things. At the end of the day, we work to live. We don't live to work. I work to live my life, and so I just try to keep it that way. Work has its place, my family has its place. And yes, I mean, there's nights that I have a meeting I gotta get on at 7 o'clock at night, and I'll do that with no problem. But I don't let it overspill into my personal life, because it's got its place, and that's where it needs to stay. I think a lot of women feel more pressure because they have a family, and they feel like they have to prove themselves so that people don't just target them like, oh, she's a new mom, she doesn't have time to commit to work, she's not going to do as good of a job because her attention is split. That's not true. But you also have to set your boundaries, and stick to your boundaries.

I think AI presents both challenges and opportunities. If you're very fluent in understanding all the different things in AI, all the automation, and the different agents, and how they can kind of be integrated with each other, I think that right now gives you a significant upper hand over people my age that grew up in the age where we didn't have cell phones and computers when we were kids. The industry is definitely going that direction. I think the world is going in that direction. The more you stay engaged with all that changing technology, the better off you are. I think it's one of those things, it's like the evil you just can't avoid. You have to just embrace it, and make the best of it, and understand it, because that's the way the world is going. We're starting to use AI in the industry as a tool to help identify patients. We use a lot of electronic software for electronic consent forms, electronic patient diaries. We give patients their own little cell phones or tablets where they keep track of their daily progress while they're at home, and each night that information is transmitted to a server that we collect all that information, and then that goes into the clinical study report that ends up going to the FDA. The digital landscape is becoming more prominent in my industry as it probably is in a lot of other industries as well, so we're just starting to leverage how we can use that to our advantage.

I believe in transparency, especially within my career. I don't try to oversell something that I truly don't feel I can deliver on. I know that we're pushed to do that all the time, but I've had very high-level people in an organization sit at a table and completely BS a client about what we can or cannot do, and I'm sitting at the table like, we don't even have that capability. What are you doing? And then, down the road, when they expect you to do that thing that you promised you were doing, and now I'm the one that's got to say, well, we can't really do that the way you want that done. I don't think that's the way to build any level of trust. That moment right there in the room, you might make a bunch of people smile, but when you are intentionally misleading people, that is such bad karma. That's one thing you will never see me do. I am very much a straight shooter. I tell you the way it is. I don't write these long, flowery emails because I'm trying to blow smoke up your skirt. I'm short, I'm to the point. And that's it with my team. I'm very direct. If something's a problem, I say it. I'll be that person that'll, in front of the group, say, I don't think that's the best idea, I think we should go a different way, and even if it's not the most popular opinion, don't care. That's what I genuinely feel to be true. My people that report directly into me say that that's one of the things they like the best. They always know where they stand with me. They know that they can come to me with anything, and I will help them work through a problem. But I'm not going to misrepresent myself, or how things are going. I don't see any benefit in doing that. There's no point in lying. I get absolutely livid when I catch my kids lying to me. I don't do that to other people. I just don't think it's a good way to be. So it's probably one of the biggest things for me. With me, what you see is what you get.