Ma Carmella Cadusale

I attribute my success to having the audacity to take space and being brave through fear - being afraid but doing it anyways. There's strength and bravery in doing things scared. Even though I listened to a podcast about imposter syndrome and heard that it doesn't go away even for people older than me, I felt secure rather than discouraged. I realized that even though this feeling isn't going away, I have proven in the past 10 or so years that I can do things scared and I can still find success within it. I can still be proud of the work that I provide and the impact that I can do, despite being afraid. I've proven to myself that yeah, I may have had doubts and questions, but I still did it, and look at what I was able to accomplish from that. It's about persevering and having courage.

The best advice I ever received was to do work that when you're on the first day of your retirement, you are so proud of it - proud of the whole portfolio of your work. There might be times where you'll make mistakes, but give yourself the grace to make those mistakes and learn from them. But know that everything that you're doing as you're building your career all leads to that moment of saying that you're proud of what you've done, you're proud of the impact that you created. For me, it's all the patients and all the doctors that may not know your name or may not even know you exist, but you have made their life better, whether it's an orthopedic surgery or a retinal tear. You help move that type of patient care forward for them. It's invisible work, but invisible work is still work, and it can be good, impactful, purposeful work.

I would tell young women to do it scared, do it nervous. If you look into the field and think it may not be a space that is meant for you, or that you don't see a lot of people like you in it, be the first example. You do not have to fit a specific stereotype to lead effectively or provide impact in these types of technical industries. I genuinely believe that some of the most impactful careers and impactful work are built by following your curiosity, your purpose, even if it's not the most perfectly linear path. Always find what it is that drives the mission and purpose that drives you, and know that even though there's nobody taking that space, you can take that space in this specific field, in that specific industry, no matter what the specialty is. When young women tell me they connected with me specifically because I'm a woman in that field, I tell them all it takes is really taking up that space and saying, okay, I'm here, and I'm willing to learn, and I'm willing to really take in everything that the industry has to give. Know your worth and believe in yourself.

The biggest challenges facing young women in my field are thinking that there's no space for you, or that you are not meant to be in that room, because historically there hasn't been somebody in that room that is like you. I think selling ourselves short is one that hurts us a lot, and listening to that noise. Not being afraid - being afraid to be too loud in comparison to others that are either veterans or look like they should be in the room. There is that fear and intimidation, and it is real, and it is something that I myself have seen just last week. When young women tell me there's not a lot of women in healthcare sales, I tell them that's true, you're not wrong, there is not a lot of women, and there are a lot of roadblocks with that. But the women are there, and I will connect you with them, and it is something that you can help create more space for. There might not be a chair for you at the table, but you're more than capable of driving a chair to the table. There is space for all of us.

Integrity is so important to me, and finding work and living life that is mission-driven. People often think that marketing is just social media or creating a flyer or marketing collateral, but it's so much more than that. I mentioned the work in Ghana where all I did in the beginning was try to find doctors or connect doctors to this program, but those doctors ended up doing cataract surgeries for 8,000 patients in Ghana that had no access to optic care. Even though all I did was the logistics and create the marketing collateral, ensuring that devices were sent at the right place, I was still a part of that. Marketing might be sales-driven and revenue-driven, and I might have to meet numbers, but especially in my field, there are patients at the end of everything that I do. The clinical trials are important because this is gonna end up in a patient's body, used on a patient's eyesight, used on a total knee surgery. Even though I'm not the doctor myself, I know that every single part of my go-to-market plan, every single part of the clinical trial that I am doing, is connected to the bigger picture. Even though it is not directly from my hand to that patient, we are still moving the needle, and moving the needle means you're closer to that end goal. Some days, that is your best work. I'm hoping that at the end of my career, I'm looking at the culmination of it and can say it wasn't a big, giant tsunami of a wave, but it was a ripple that led to things that I am proud of.