4 days ago
The Future Of Leadership: Agility In The Age Of AI
Chris Venezia is CEO of ProofPilot, with 15+ years of leadership in product commercialization, patient recruitment and sales & marketing.
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We're operating in a world where everything—technology, regulation, innovation and customer expectations—is changing rapidly. As the CEO of a clinical trial technology company, I see this firsthand. Our field faces long development timelines, tight regulation and increasing pressure to innovate, which makes being an agile company essential.
You have to anticipate what's coming and build a foundation that enables you to easily pivot and adapt. Above all, you have to be willing to constantly keep a pulse of the actual problems your end users are facing. The result of constantly feeling the pain and pressure of your end users: better products and a better approach to solving their challenges.
To create truly adaptable strategies, you have to hammer out the core problems and explore multiple solutions. The process requires constant iteration and ruthless prioritization. It also means resisting the temptation to throw AI at everything. And yet we often see the reverse: elaborate tools built to solve flashy problems that don't actually exist. In clinical trials, there's a rush to build next-generation platforms, but we forget to ask whether they help the people on the ground. Asking 'why' repeatedly ensures you're solving a real need.
AI has massive potential in clinical trials, but its application isn't straightforward. While drug design has already benefited from AI, applying the technology to clinical operations, which involves people, introduces new and real challenges.
Once AI has to directly interact with human participants or site staff, issues like safety, trust and regulatory compliance rise to the forefront. This is a major challenge when trying to provide AI solutions, as there are expectations people bring from the technology they use in their everyday lives that often cannot be applied to the demands of clinical operations.
Too many solutions are dreamed up in boardrooms without talking to the people doing the day-to-day work. In our industry, that means clinical researchers, trial coordinators and participants. That's why it's important to spend time on the ground—in our case, at trial sites—to learn what's working and what isn't.
Sometimes the right solution is simple and targeted. For example, a surprising number of issues, from patient qualification criteria to data quality, are rooted in things as basic as the organization of information in a document. Participants and researchers shouldn't have to navigate 200-page PDFs. Making these materials easier to read and use can make all the difference. That only becomes clear when you're listening closely.
There's something to learn from heavily regulated industries. Regulation forces us to slow down, ask more questions and validate assumptions. In fast-moving sectors, there's often a race from idea to prototype to launch. But without the discipline to ask 'why,' you may miss what really matters. You might launch quickly, but the solution won't stick—or worse, it'll solve the wrong problem. On the other hand, leaders who stay curious, listen closely to their customers and stay open to change are more likely to hit what they're aiming for.
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