Redefining leadership through vulnerability: How curiosity, empathy, and connection drive organizational performance in high-stakes industries, transforming SOS moments into opportunities for growth and innovation.
Her Story
About Jenny
She is a distinguished health tech innovation leader and entrepreneur with deep expertise in biomedical engineering, medtech commercialization, and organizational growth, currently serving as President of NEMIC (New England Medical Innovation Center), a nonprofit that provides expert education, connections to funding, and specialized expertise to innovators in the MedTech and healthcare space. She is also Founder and CEO of Sure Footing Consulting, providing boutique consulting services to growing businesses. She serves as a Board Member for the University of Virginia Department of Biomedical Engineering and is a member of Chief, a private network for women executives, and WBL (Women Business Leaders of the US Health Care Industry Foundation). She holds a PhD in Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering from Rice University and a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia, where she also earned an Engineering Business Minor. She is recognized as a visionary, collaborative, and mission-driven leader who is deeply committed to advancing medtech innovation, supporting women leaders, and building bridges between research, entrepreneurship, and clinical impact.
Her Content Hub
Articles by Jenny
Why Vulnerability Is the Leadership Advantage We’ve Been Avoiding
How Curiosity, Empathy, and Connection Outperform Control and Certainty Under Pressure
Strength Looks Different Now
For decades, leadership, especially in high-pressure, highly regulated industries, has been defined by composure, certainty, and control. The ideal leader was expected to be polished, decisive, and unshakeable. Vulnerability was viewed as a liability, something to manage privately so it wouldn't interfere with performance.
That model is not only outdated; it is actively holding organizations back.
I've spent my career as a bioengineer, MedTech executive, and CEO working in environments where mistakes are costly, and decisions affect real lives. I've also experienced those systems from the inside as a patient navigating life-threatening health complications. Those experiences fundamentally reshaped how I think about leadership. They taught me something that contradicts much of what we've been taught: perfection doesn't build trust. Vulnerability does.
SOS Moments
Every leader eventually encounters what I call an "SOS moment"—a point of distress when the path forward isn't clear. These moments occur during product development when data doesn't behave as expected, timelines slip, or regulatory hurdles arise late in the process. They also show up personally, when confidence collides with uncertainty and the answers aren't obvious.
Too often, leaders respond to these moments by tightening control. They project certainty. They push harder. They communicate outcomes without context and expect teams to follow.
The unintended result is fear, silence, and missed opportunities.
There is a better way.
The CEC Framework
Leading through SOS moments requires three skills: Curiosity, Empathy, and Connection—what I refer to as the CEC framework.
Curiosity allows leaders to ask better questions instead of rushing to answers. Empathy creates psychological safety, allowing risks to surface early rather than late. Connection aligns people with purpose, especially when pressure is high and the trade-offs are real.
This is not soft leadership. It is effective leadership.
CEC Comes to Life
One of the most instructive leadership moments of my career didn't happen in a boardroom or during a product review. It happened in my office during a lunch break.
My office happened to be closest to the employee lunchroom. One afternoon, a colleague knocked on my door. She wasn't coming to me with a work problem. She wanted to know whether one of our company's products could help her husband.
He was suffering from advanced liver failure, which had caused a debilitating condition resulting in liters of fluid accumulating in his abdominal cavity. Every week, he had to go to a hospital or clinic to have the fluid drained. She described how uncomfortable it was, how he looked perpetually nine months pregnant, and how demoralizing it was to watch four milk jugs' worth of fluid removed week after week while they waited—potentially for years—for a liver transplant.
I'm not a physician, but as a PhD-trained bioengineer, I sit at the intersection of clinical need, patient experience, and product design. I told her I couldn't give medical advice, but I could listen—and I could help her understand whether a conversation with her doctor might be worth having.
As she spoke, I realized something unsettling: there was a real possibility that one of our products could help her husband, yet she had no idea it existed.
She took the information to her physician. Her husband turned out to be an excellent candidate. He received the therapy and avoided further ascites while awaiting his transplant.
That outcome mattered deeply for one family, but it also exposed a leadership failure.
This is where CEC comes to life.
First, curiosity. I had to ask why an employee at our own company, who was familiar with our products, didn't know this option existed. If she didn't know, how many other patients didn't? How many clinicians weren't fully aware of the tools available to them?
Second, empathy. Not just for her and her husband, but for the referring physicians trying to manage incredibly complex patients while navigating fragmented systems and incomplete information. Empathy widened the lens. It moved the problem from an individual story to a systemic one.
Third, connection. We strengthened relationships between referring physicians and implanting physicians. We focused on ensuring shared awareness, clearer communication, and better alignment around patient pathways. Patients benefited when people had access to accurate information.
The Return on Vulnerability
That's the return on vulnerability.
This wasn't about oversharing personal feelings. It was about being open enough to listen, curious enough to question assumptions, and connected enough to act across silos. The result wasn't just a better experience for one patient—it was a better system.
In innovation-driven industries, our work ultimately serves people during their most vulnerable moments. If leaders cannot model openness internally, we shouldn't be surprised when innovation stalls, teams disengage, or risks surface too late.
I often think about leadership lessons learned from horses, prey animals wired to detect incongruence. They don't respond to authority or force. They respond to authenticity. When a leader is tense, guarded, or internally misaligned, the horse resists. When the leader is present, calm, and open, the horse follows.
Teams are no different.
As artificial intelligence accelerates technical workflows, the human side of leadership becomes more valuable, not less. Empathy, curiosity, and connection cannot be automated. They are the differentiators that determine whether organizations merely execute or truly adapt.
The ROI of vulnerability is measurable: stronger teams, earlier risk detection, higher-quality products, better retention, and resilience through the messy middle of growth.
The future doesn't need louder leaders.
It needs more open ones—leaders willing to be human first, so their organizations can perform at their best.
Strength looks different now.
Join Influential Women and start making an impact. Register now.