Hey, guys. Welcome to the podcast. My guest today is Beth Kupfer, and she's national director of women's health MSLs at AbbVie. And we talk about career satisfaction and growth and what factors must be considered. Awesome conversation. I know you guys are gonna love this. Don't forget to follow me on LinkedIn. Check us out on YouTube. We have videos up on YouTube, which are awesome. So check that out.
And join us for MSL talk live, which is the first Tuesday of every month at 1:30 PM EST, and it's on LinkedIn live. And it's great. We did our first one yesterday. We had a lot of people attend. It was really awesome. So I wanna invite everybody to please join next time. Thanks again. Welcome to MSL talk with Tom Caravella, a podcast specifically designed for MSLs and all things field medical. Hey, Beth. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me.
Hey. Good morning, Tom. It's great to see you. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to have you, and we've been planning this for a while. This is one of those took a while to kinda develop and Mhmm. You know, but you and I know each other for a long time, and I am so happy that we're finally doing this. And I think it's gonna be a real treat. For you guys listening, just get a pen, take notes, because anything this woman says is amazing. So you guys are definitely, definitely in for a treat.
So why don't we start with, an intro? Why don't you tell everybody who you are, where you're from, and all that good stuff? Great. So my name is Elizabeth Kupfer. I actually go by Beth. My friends call me Beth. And I live in Austin, Texas, and I'm currently the national director for women's health at AbbVie. Awesome. And real before we get into it, wanna give a quick shout out to our friends in Colombia. So are you guys know sometimes I give shout outs, and I look at the rankings every week.
And we have a I think we're number 4 in, like, podcast rankings in Columbia. So thank you everybody out there that's listening to us. So, Beth, let's get back to you. We're gonna talk about this, this idea of career satisfaction and growth. But I wanna hear from you what your career journey was and how it went and how you made some of the decisions that you did. I spent the first part of my career many years as a health care provider and really stumbled into my first MSL role.
And with that first role, it was my goal was to stay true to myself. So I'm a nurse by background, a nurse practitioner, and my passion, you know, for the patient is something that has been the core of all of my decisions throughout my career. And so being able to join as an MSL, I felt like I could take my career aspirations, my care for women, being able to have access for them to another level.
So that was my first kind of foray into the industry, and I've been, you know, in the industry pharma industry for now almost, 20 years. Throughout my career, whenever I looked at new opportunities or had to switch for various reasons in the life cycle of the product, I've always thought about what is it that I can make a difference for, that passion. So that's again, I think that's been just the one piece that has been the strength throughout all of my career progression.
Well, I think that's important. I think a lot of people get stuck because they don't they don't follow their passion. They don't know what it is that they really wanna do. And since they don't have a purpose and they're not following their passion, there becomes confusion. So I think that that's a great way to start this off is for anybody that's out there that's trying to make decisions on where to go with your career. What do you wanna do?
What do you what's your passion, and what's your what what do you feel your purpose is? I know it's really easy to say, but at least it'll give some indication of the direction that you should go. Yeah. But it's definitely a guiding principle. And I started out by saying that most of my career has been in women's health. But throughout this journey, there have been times when there wasn't an opportunity in women's health.
And I thought, well, maybe, you know, that's my passion, you know, taking care of women, making sure that they have access to treatment modalities. And then I realized that you can that passion can be shifted to other things as well. Just the care of patients, making sure I mean, that's really what we do with MSLs or in the pharma industry. We're in it for that patient to make sure there's options and availability. So that allowed me to be able to shift.
I went into ophthalmology for a while, and that shift was really important to me because that expertise that I carried in, from my career before had been a crutch. Being in ophthalmology, I was able to be open to new opportunities to hone in on my leadership skills, to lean in for other people. So it was a very good time of my career as well.
So I think you have to while it's a guiding principle throughout your career, you have to be able to adapt and see where again, what that what that string is and that that passion is the care for the patient that is, you know, the end user of our products. Yeah. Awesome advice. What so what other things do people need to know to determine what the next step should be in their career? Right. I guess I could give some examples from my career.
So in women's health, those the product life cycle is a little bit short. So and there's not always a deep pipeline. So when you're looking for different opportunities, I know you were looking for this stability perhaps as well. So you have to be able to be agile and be flexible. Right? Because those opportunities come up. You may need to shift to something new. And when you for me, throughout my career, I I have I think you and I have talked about this.
I have this kind of entrepreneur type style. So I like a lot of freedom in the choices that I make and being able to, be actively involved in strategy. So there's there's just so many different things that you can look at when you're looking for your next opportunity Besides just, you know, that kind of that guiding principle?
Yeah. Well, and it's, I think that it's important that we, you know, people take a step back and figure out, like we were talking about before, not only what's important, but where they see themselves. What type of organizations do they want to align themselves with? What the culture is like? There's so many factors that need to be taken into consideration. So it almost makes sense to kinda put together a checklist.
Mhmm. Because I feel like when you make a decision to go with the company, you wanna do it for the right reasons. And we hear this, and we talk about in the title, we talk about career satisfaction. We, I think, have a responsibility to ourselves to try to put ourselves in the right position to find career satisfaction. Do you agree with that? I do. Absolutely. What about leadership?
What about evaluating the leaders within an organization before you make that determination on whether or not you wanna align yourself with that company? How important is that factor? I I think it's extremely important. During the interview process, it's a reciprocal thing. You're looking to see if this is a good opportunity for you as well, how you're going to fit, how that is going to fill your, you know, career development as well.
So for me, I look for, leadership that is open and transparent. I look for signs that there is a culture where people have a sense of belonging, where everyone's voice is heard. I look for the when I interview when you're interviewing, you interview quite a few different people. So you look for kind of any signs of how they feel under the leadership too. So, again, I like to have, less directive. Someone that is someone who leads you, gives you an opportunity to grow.
So some of the questions you can ask when you're looking at those is, what are those development opportunities among the team? Where do you sit in the team? Where do you have these decision, making, opportunities? And and really understanding that role. And then if you're talking to peers, you know, do they feel like their voices are heard? Do they feel like there's a degree of transparency? I know that term is overused, but it's very important, and there needs to be some degree of transparency.
And that's, you know, kind of my personal preference. Well and it makes sense because the leaders of an organization dictate the culture of an organization. So if you don't have an understanding or you don't are not asking the right questions or know enough about the leaders within an organization, you may not get a good feel for what that culture might look like. And, obviously, there's more than just asking questions. There might be stuff on their website.
They're gonna evaluate people during the interview process. You'll get a good understanding of how you're treated in the interview process. So I I always tell people, you have to take everything into consideration. Yeah. But before we get to that, and and I maybe I jumped ahead in my questions, because I as you're as we're talking about this, like, how do you suggest people research companies before they join them or before they even consider interviewing? Oh, yeah. That's a great question.
So I I talked to quite a few aspiring MSLs and people that are early in their career, through a variety of venues. And one of the things that I always suggest is what we began with is is, you know, what do you want? Right? What is that passion? Maybe is there an area of expertise or that, you know, is that you can showcase, right, when they're they're looking to showcase themselves. And so through that, I asked them to research. So for me, it was women's health.
I would look at all of the companies that have some aspect of women's health and and, you know, start there. Then you're able to kind of research what that pipeline looks like. Look at some of the publications and what they're and the sense of those stakeholders feel about what's going on with the company. So that's one way to start. And then you're you're finding an area that you have interest in, and then you're able to kind of explore a little bit more from that perspective. Got you.
And then do you look at I mentioned, like, core values. I think I mentioned core values. I mentioned culture, but within culture's core values. Mhmm. So do you look at that? I mean, how important is it for people to find out what a company's core values are before they make a decision on whether they wanna join? Yeah. I think it's really important, and most of the companies will have, you know, their core values and about the company that you can read about.
But even more important that to see if those are values or something that are pulled through to those that you're interviewing with. So oftentimes, I may frame my questions around those core values. People talk a lot about, development. I think that's very important for people right now, being having an opportunity to grow within a company and development.
Something that I learned quite a bit about when I was in ophthalmology is where I put my focus now, not being the expert in women's health, being in ophthalmology and helping develop those experts. So asking questions about what opportunities for development that they have, what resources do they do. So if that is one of their core values is they care about, their associates, and they're giving them opportunities to grow. Let's see if they're pulling that through on the other end as well.
That's the that's really great advice because, you know, as as you're talking, I'm thinking we there are a lot of companies. Obviously, when you're in, you know, in the recruiting business, you you just deal with so many different players in different types of companies. And there's organizations that their core values, it's it's a slogan on a website. It's a sign on a door, but but you don't see it.
And and that you can almost or you can identify it or try to identify it in the interview process, which is really important, and maybe even ask people or talk about it. But you definitely, eventually, will see it. You'll you'll see if a company sticks to their core values and if it's really something that they live by or something that's just a slogan, a bumper sticker, so to speak. Right? You could feel it. You absolutely can feel it.
And I've talked to so many people who have had interviews and they thought, oh, this just felt so good. You know? I I I I love the people. I felt like a good fit. So, you know, you have to kind of sense that. Yeah. You gotta go with your gut on that.
And I think that's an that's an important lesson to people that are in the hiring capacity, whether you're a hiring manager or you're an HR person, is that it's it's really, really important to leave the right impression with all candidates and make them feel the love. Because if they don't, especially in this competitive market, it may make the difference between them selecting you as an organization or going to a competitor.
So, Beth, you have mentioned a couple of times questions to ask people. When interviewing, what questions do you recommend people coming prepared to ask? My experience throughout various organizations that I've worked for and my personal preference is we is you will have some behavioral type questions. Be prepared to have examples in ways in which you've worked with others. If we're talking about culture.
So a lot of companies, that I've worked for recently, culture is extremely important, and they actually officially build those into our interview process. So seeing if someone is actually being able to, exhibit or have these core values of the company. So I would say bring examples of where you've worked which you've handled difficult situations. And and having an example is great. Or if you don't have an example, maybe kind of creating a scenario what that might look like.
I think it's important as well. Yep. No. Those are great. You know, and and as I'm as I'm listening, we're talking a lot about what you need to do to determine whether or not you should go to a company. And now let's just say we get to that point, you're in an organization. So what advice do you have for people to ensure their career satisfaction? How do people maintain that fire and excitement that maybe they got when they joined? And how do they keep themselves motivated? Right.
Well, that's a that's a great question because as people progress along in their roles, we MSLs are bright, intelligent, ambitious, well educated, and so they're always looking for more. And so one of my suggestions and one of the things that I try to do with, my teams is back to that development. Right? So I think when you first join an organization, it is great to network, get to know people.
And for many people that are on the science side, maybe a little introverted, so it does take some effort. Make sure that you network, get to know people outside of your core team. Look for opportunities and mentors that are across the organization. And, you know, I know that's a kind of a slow process, but I think that's extremely important. And then don't be looking for someone to hand you something. Also, think about what you can do. Right? What are the opportunities?
What, you know, is there an opportunity that you see on the team? Maybe you can improve on something. Step up and offer or begin that process and offer it up. I think once you see someone is interested enough to kinda give back to the team, I think those opportunities will come. I think that's so important. I mean, I what you said right there is so it's so key. You have to raise your hand.
And and if you really want to stand out, get noticed, or or just be seen as a team player, you know, it's I think it's important to run your race, but I think more important than that and, you know, you wanna be excellent in everything you do, but to be able to go above and beyond, raise your hand, be a problem solver, get involved in special projects, show initiative. Those are the people that really establish their career. And, again, we're talking about career satisfaction.
I think that you'll be more satisfied by being more active, by contributing more. And these are resume builders. You can't lose by by doing these things. And it's not a competitive thing. I think some people are a little bit afraid of that. They're on a team and they feel like it's competitive. It's just what you mentioned. It's you're contributing to the team.
And so being a great team player player, contributing to the team, making things easier and sharing will definitely make you popular among the team. But it'll you know, it kinda shows those core values, and you'll be seen in the organization as someone who is, you know, ready to to kind of move up and have great opportunities because you're you're showcasing that. Yep. And you know it's not easy. I'm an introvert.
So it took me, you know, it took me a couple of years to get that kind of nuance, to get that business acumen that I didn't have. I'm always been the science nerd, and like to stay in my corner. But when I realized that people were passing me up or passing me by and had upper opportunities, I had a great mentor who, you know, told me you need to speak up. Yeah. Well and I've seen you present. So, and you crush it every time I see you present.
And it did take me 2 years to get you on this podcast. That's the introverted part. But you are here now. So and I'm and I am very grateful. And, you know, so let's talk about the growth part of this equation. You've done a lot. You've seen a lot. Mhmm. And when I think of the word growth, the first thing that comes to my mind is promotion and promote ability. But not everybody not everybody may wanna be promoted. Right.
So how does how do you look at that word growth, and what's your advice to people on how they can grow their career? Yeah. That's a great question. I've been personally in a national director role for quite a while, and I love it here. I love leading people. I love leading teams. And, for me, you know, the satisfaction and the growth comes from seeing the people that I've worked with move into, you know, move into other roles and being able to see a successful team, a successful launch.
So I think that is this you're right. There's some people feel like it's just like this quick promotion that they need to go from company to company or move up. But I think, you know, once you find, you know, what it is that you're interested in, what you're good at beyond what you're bringing into the company. So in the MSL role, maybe you're in that role and you love it and you there are many companies that have several different levels that the MSL can move through.
So maybe that's something you're interested in. But are you interested in in leading people? Are you more interested in the science, right, and being able to go into, you know, the medical director role or maybe even array into the medical marketing, things like that? So I think once you get into your first role, being able to assess and feel, you know, where where it feels good.
I think for MSLs to have some of them really some people really enjoy being in the MSL role and ways in which to keep that fresh again are the different levels. We talked about the projects. But growth doesn't always mean promotion into a different position if you are happy in the spot where you're at. I had I had, in my career, taken one role that was mostly headquarters, which I was great, but I lost the touch with the health care providers and with, the team.
And I missed that because I think that is something that I do well and I enjoy, and it gives me, you know, great, you know, career satisfaction. Yeah. Well and it's funny. It's like we came full circle to where we started at the beginning, which is you kinda really have to know what you want. You have to kinda have an I and I know a lot of people are like, oh, I'm not really sure. But you really kinda have to spend a little time with yourself to say, hey.
Let me write down and make a checklist of the pros and cons or the the must haves versus the I'm okay with in order to understand what what career satisfaction looks like for you, what's gonna make you happy, and then what the next step might be. And then that'll define what that growth might look like. Because if not, you're just you're just kinda going through the motions, and you're letting everybody else dictate what's gonna happen to you. Right. Right.
Yeah. You have that, you know, you as I say, you know, my my guiding principle and then being open to opportunities when they arise. Many people fear when they come into industry, oh, is it secure? Am I going to lose my job? How long will I be? And I think if you you need to take that out of the equation and have that flexibility and that open mindset.
Because as you know, Tom, we've known each other, like, that's almost 20 years, maybe, you know, 15 to 20 years, is that there's always another opportunity and there and that presents growth. So being open to it and that's where networking and and, being a, you know, a part of different groups, staying active, introducing yourself to people is is extremely important. Because those, for me every new opportunity has been a tremendous amount of growth.
And I've been and, you know, had never anticipated coming out of working in clinical practice for so long and thinking that I would retire there to coming into industry and having to be flexed to change. Companies get sold and, products, you know, get dropped. But each opportunity gave me a little bit more to enjoy and a way to grow. Well, it's a good point. Yeah. We're in the pharmaceutical industry, which is as a roller coaster at bat at at at the at the core of it.
And it's it's just always gonna be volatile. So there's growth just in being in the industry for a long period of time. I I think that that's really that's really insightful. I've had the opportunity to work for large companies and medium, small biotechs, and each one has just a a unique part of it that, has been a great value of my career.
And I think that's another thing that people can look at look at as they're going through their career is what type of organization and what does that mean to them. And I think depending on where you're at in your career, where you can take maybe a little bit more risk, in that volatility. But, in taking that risk, sometimes it's some of the greatest learnings.
Mine was when I went to a small diagnostics company, and it was the probably the pivotal part of my career being able to put so many different hats on, learn the organization. I gained skills that I never thought I would have and confidence in myself through a great leader that, was at that company that I would have never accept you know, never expected Yeah. Had I not been open. So you've obviously again, you've you've seen a lot, and we've been through a really interesting couple of years.
Where do you see the MSO role going? Yeah. That's a great question. And I and over the the many years I've been in the role, there has been quite a few changes in the sizes and the way that the teams are. What I'm seeing now is and we hear it's kind of an overused term, but a hybrid role. Currently, with my colleagues, at my current company and companies that I've worked for before, they're a little bit of the pendulum swinging back.
People are out, their live visits, and everyone's excited to see each other. They're at, meetings. But I think that, the MSL role, we're still looking to show value. So I think the changes are, ensuring that the MSL teams have clear objectives and they're feeding into the overall business objectives of the company. So I think some teams are coming leaner.
I think more companies are bringing MSLs on, but I think sometimes there are some companies are leaning down with getting a little bit more lean on their teams, more focused for the MSLs. There are teams that are entirely virtual, so I'm beginning to see that, come into fruition. So I think it's just only time will tell right now. I think that during the pandemic, we were virtual and that was fine, depending on maybe the therapeutic area people are getting back in.
And I think the face to face will always be important. I do believe that. I think that's that's key for the MSO role. But we also little bit more efficient when you're doing these virtual meetings. So I think that's that's some of it as well, is just working through this hybrid process and seeing how we're going to continue to deliver value. Yeah. It's it's interesting. And it's there's an evolution going on right now as we speak.
And it's I asked that question a lot because I really wanna get people's opinions because there was pre COVID, and now then there was COVID, and now there's post COVID. So there's there's these these and we don't know what's gonna happen because a lot of companies that I talk to and a lot of leaders I talk to are like, well, we're we're you know, our mandate is this, and we want, you know, our MSLs to get back out face to face. But the KOLs may not want that.
So if the KOLs like, no, we're gonna do this do this virtually, then they're really steering the ship. Right? Right. Right. Well, I think that's a that's a key point. Really, your thought leaders are steering the ship, and you have to adapt to what works for them. If you think about, the I'm in women's health, so you have OB GYNs who don't want people in their office at this point. And you have to find other ways to engage and be a little bit more efficient about it.
One thing with the return of live meetings, those have been and they always have been great meeting points and opportunities to meet your thought leaders. But I think they're becoming even more important in this post COVID era because this is the first time we've been able to kind of get hands on, get the chance to see people and people are enjoying and see each other as well. Oh, yeah. I I didn't realize how much I missed conferences until it was taken.
And now I'm back out there and and, you know me, I'm a hugger, man. I like to get my hands on you. You know, I like to get my paws on you. Exactly. I like the new meetings. You know, they have this. I was at a recent meeting. They have these little dots. Do you, you know, green dot if it's okay to hug you, red, stay away. And I'm like, give me all the green. Bring it in, man. Bring yeah. Well, at ASCO, they had buttons, these big buttons, green, red, yellow, whatever. And, yeah, I'm all green.
I'm all green. Bring it on. And, if you guys ever see me out at a conference, come up and say hello because I welcome any and all. And, and this is a good opportunity to say thank you, guys. I love you all for listening to this podcast. Everybody that came up to me at ASCO this past week, thank you. You guys are the best. And, Beth, this was awesome. I think you're the I think you're the greatest.
And for somebody who literally just told everybody that you're an introvert, you came in here and and you just shared some tremendous pearls, and you're awesome at everything you do, and I really appreciate you. Thank you. And I appreciate you being there for me throughout my career because we've had some great talks, where I was able to kinda use you as a sounding board, and I appreciate that too. So it's great great joining you. I was a little nervous, so I'm feeling better now.
No. You crushed it. You were great. And and I think people are gonna love this. And and what you just said is the favorite my most favorite part of the job is being able to be a sounding board and meet awesome folks like you and have conversations. And, Yeah. I'm I'm grateful. I'm blessed. Thank you, Tom. Thanks, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much for listening to the show.
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