Hey, guys. Welcome to the podcast. My guest today is Tara Gonzalez. She is a VP of medical affairs, and we talk about how to start a diversity, equity, and inclusion program, a DEI program within pharma. And I hope you guys enjoy this conversation. Don't forget to follow me on LinkedIn. Check out our videos on YouTube and join us for MSL talk live, which is typically the 1st Tuesday of every month at 1:30 PM EST, and that all happens on LinkedIn live. So thanks for joining us today.
Welcome to MSL talk with Tom Caravella, a podcast specifically designed for MSLs and all things field medical. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me, Tom. So exciting. So we had gotten together recently, had a conversation. It led to this. I think this is a very important topic. You're you obviously are an expert in your experience having done this. So I wanna pick your brain and talk about that.
But before we get there, if you could introduce yourself, briefly, that'd be great. Just tell everybody who you are, where you're from, and all that good stuff. Alright. Well, my name is Tara Gonzales. I am a general pediatrician by training. I practice clinically for about 18 years before I crossed over into Biotech Pharma.
So I've been in Biotech Pharma for 14 years, and my most recent role was vice president of medical affairs at Veru Inc. I live in sunny Florida in the Panhandle in in Pensacola. So I'm absolutely happy to come in and have this conversation with you. You asked me about one of my highlights of my career when we first met. And so I mentioned to you, DEI is a passion of mine, and I was able to stand up a DEI function at my previous company.
And so that's kinda where the evolution of all this came from. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny how things work out. I think timing was really good. Yeah. And I'm I'm excited to talk to you about this. So let's jump right into it. Let's get into it, and let's start. I'm curious to know the story. So how were you first approached to build this diversity, equity, and inclusion program at your prior company? How did it all what was the scenario, and how did it all go down?
So, actually, it was it was just, an aligning of stars and events. Okay. As you can see, I'm a black woman. I'm a black woman. I've got 6 black sons. I'm a black woman physician, a black woman who's been in industry. So I have been impacted on multiple levels, in situations where diversity, equity, equity, and inclusion were not a priority. So this actually started, in about 20 19 when I realized when I went to my new company that it was a small company. The culture was great.
Everybody was wonderful, but there was no true diversity, equity, and inclusion function. I had just come from a very large pharma company that had a strong DEI function with multiple employee resource groups. I was a member of of many of the employ employee resource groups. So I just thought that that would be something that would be interesting to do. So over the course of time, every time I would bring it up, people would say, yeah. That's a really good idea.
But right now, we're in the midst of doing this, that, and the other. The company was rapidly growing. But the reality was, as the company was growing, more and more people were coming into the company from other companies who actually did have DEI functions, and their past experience was similar to mine. So the need was there. The want was there. The desire was there. But, again, there were priorities that competed at the time. Yep. So fast forward to 2020. I thought about it.
It came time for us to do our objectives. Right? So I go to my boss who, again, stars aligning, happened to be the president of the company at the time. And I said to her, hey. For development, I would like to really dig into how we can set up some sort of a DEI function or at least one employee resource group here. She said that is awesome. Let me put you in contact with the VP of HR, and let's see where we can go from there. Well, then COVID hit. Bam. We all got sent home.
Then it was the summer of 2020 when we all witnessed the incidents with George Floyd, Amari Maury, just just all of those really horrific things. And my manager called me and said, Tara, we need to do something, and we need to do it now. Mhmm. So I was approached by the president of of the company as well as the VP of, of HR, and they said, are you would you be willing to stand this up? And so, of course, I said, yeah. That the saying yes was not hard.
But after I said yes, I immediately said to them and that's the beauty of of being at a company where you have a culture where it's already a safe environment. I said, I don't wanna do anything that's gonna be flash in the pan. If this is something that is reactionary and is not gonna stick, I don't really wanna do that. And so they both said to me, no. That's the reason we're coming to you. We know this has been something that has been your desire, so let's get behind it and let's do it.
So that was how everything got started. Also, at the same time, the company had just hired someone in HR who was also, very strong in learning and development who ended up being actually one of my favorite people in the world and one of my really, really good friends, she also had the desire to stand up in, an ERG or or DEI function. And she kinda had the expertise because she'd been living in HR. She had you know, she's trained in in in setting up programs for learning and development.
I just had a dream. I just didn't know how. Right. So the 2 of us met. Her name is Frannie Levine. Shout out to Frannie because I wouldn't be anywhere without her. And, we we just kinda jumped into it. And it was, I think the way that we went about it probably wasn't the best way, but I know you've got questions. Well, yeah, let let me let me jump in for a second because I wanna unpack a little bit of that before we we get because I wanna hear what happens next.
But just to clarify, so what you're saying is so this you were you you kinda raised your hand, but you were kinda tapped on the shoulder at the same time to an extent. A lot of things came together as far as timing and and the need for for this initiative within your organization and just the the realization that, hey. We really wanna do this, and we need to do this. But this this actually is a is a what would be a function of HR. Correct?
So no. Actually, there was no it it it just lived on its own. And that's why I'm saying the way we went about doing it was was, I would say, nonstandard, but I don't know what standard is. Right. And that's one of the points that I I kinda wanna bring out. This what I'm telling you is our journey. This is one company's journey.
I do have some best practices lessons learned along the way that I would advise, you know, that I would and can advise people to do to make their journey a little bit smoother. But if this is not it's not cookie cutter. It can't be cookie cutter because each company, their people, and their culture are specific. Yep. Again, there's some foundational things that need to be done, but you can't it's it's hard to just overlay. You should be now because Yeah. Yeah. You can't. You can't assume.
You can't say, okay. This is a part of HR, and it sits in HR. It may very well be the stand alone committee or initiative or program that works cross functionally throughout the organization and maybe has someone like yourself who's spearheading the program and then other folks that are helping to support the pull through and implementation of the program. Does that make sense? And there are companies that does make sense.
And there are companies that have a stand alone diversity program, period. K. They work closely with HR. They work closely with legal, but they are their own absolute function with their own budget, with their own set of officers and, staff. Okay. Well, then let's go back to I wanna go back to where, you know, you getting back to that point in your journey where you got the buy in and you started to get things set up. What were some of the things that you did initially, maybe at the start?
And and what are some of the things that you may you would advise people not to do at the start or or how how they should kinda learn from what your experience was? So, because in we were in the midst of a very hot time in the world, a lot of what we did was absolutely reactionary. Okay. People everybody wanted to do something right here and now. Don't ever do that. Don't ever do that. That is just not wise.
And even as a physician, I can say you you wanna have things as controlled as you possibly can if you can. But we felt like we wanted to do something. So we started out with a workshop that was endorsed by leadership. It was endorsed by HR. We had the backing for it. We had the funds for it. And it was a workshop that we, listening to the echo chamber of our own mind, thought was gonna be a great thing, and it wasn't a great thing for everyone.
We did the workshop at a virtual national meeting without really letting the company know and things kinda fell apart. I do let me let me back up a little bit though. Let me back up. So this goes to actually some of the best practices. One of the good things that happened was when I agreed to do it, and Frannie and I agreed that we would start working on it, the president wrote out sent out a email to the whole company talking about the commitment to DEI.
And then she introduced me as the person that was gonna be heading up the development of it. I immediately followed that up with an email out to the whole company asking if people were interested in helping and if they were, what previous experience would they have? Could they please let me know? Well, this is how I knew the culture was right. I got inundated. When I say, I mean, it was insane. We probably had 250, employees.
I got a 100 emails, texts, phone calls, and every single there wasn't an email that was like, yes, I'd like to do it or a text that was, yes, I'd like to do it. I mean, everybody had a story. Everybody had a passion. Everybody had a reason. Everybody had a why. And by the second day, I was I was physically and emotionally exhausted. I'm sure. Because it was people were pouring their hearts out. It was a lot.
So, you know, we so that was like I said, almost half of the company raised their hand immediately to jump in. So that was great. So then that was also what fueled the fire. They're like, okay, we've got we've got company buy in. Let's go ahead and have this workshop. Well, the reality was there were also a good number of people who weren't interested at the time. Mhmm. And remember where when we what I'm talking about, we're talking about 2020. It was a potential political football.
Yeah. And, it did not there were some people who were not ready for it. Yep. And people let it be known because, again, the environment is that it's just it was a safe environment. People could speak their mind. But I it just I'm I'm the kind of person that I want. I don't want anybody to ever feel uncomfortable. Mhmm. Sometimes you gotta feel uncomfortable, but I'm not gonna purposefully put somebody in the situation to make them feel that way.
But what I will say is the leadership and, HR said, no, we're committed to this. We are committed to this. And, and, we may not have gone about it with the, with the right tactic, but we're not stepping back. We're not stepping back. If anyone was felt if anybody felt uncomfortable, yes, that was a misstep. We are sorry for that. But this company remains committed to this. Right.
So you got the buy in, but you also had you know, there was, you know, there definitely was momentum, but then there were some some things that, you know, maybe some hesitancies, whatever. There's always that the pros and cons. So how did you go how did you handle that as far as because I know there's a lot of people listening that are like, well, what how do I how would I fit into this, number 1? But, also, what if I were the one that were creating it?
So my question becomes, how did you structure this? How did you organize it? How did you put the pieces together? And then what what were the expectations of the organization and people, whether they wanted to contribute or not? Exactly. So because that did happen, it really did make us take a pause. We had to we just had to physically take a pause and then go back and say, okay.
Now that we've stumbled and we're gonna pick ourselves up and brush ourselves off, how can we do this in a more controlled fashion? The first thing we did was we were able to get buy in from, leadership again to pay for an external consultant to come in and do a needs do a formal needs assessment, do listening tours, set up different groups to find out where how people felt, what people needed, what people wanted. They did an entire report.
They came back, with that report, presented it to the North American leadership team, as well as they gave recommendations on what next steps needed to be in a basic high level 18 month road map. So that was like, okay. Great. This is wonderful. Out of that came the fact that you need an advisory council. You need a DEI advisory council because this is too big of a deal to put on 1 or 2 people's shoulders. There needs to be people that can help carry that load.
We also felt because we had so much buy in from people who raise their hands immediately that we also needed an operations group because people were looking for stuff to do. And so the advisory panel I think we we started with about 14 people, but they came from various functions within the company, different representations from the different brands. We had medical affairs, commercial market access, patient advocacy. You name it. Every function was in there.
We also had absolute, without a doubt, buy in from every single member of the North American leadership team. They were active members of either an advisory council or the operations team or they even set up the set they they even championed and set up ERGs by the time every you know, by the time I left. So clear, I I am no longer at that company, but it but it's still up and running. Everything is still up and running, and it's it's running very, very smoothly and very, very well.
But it was the the needs assessment that we were able to use to get things going. And we're Now something else happened oh, for sure. For sure. You there's there are just too many. Again, like I said, you there has to be some there has to be some foundational things that you have to have.
And so, there are companies there are so many companies out there and and it can be done in an affordable manner or it can be done top flight grade, triple a that's in the not so affordable manner depending on, you know, your company, what your company wants to do, how large your company is, and the rest of the buy in. But without a doubt, you have to have that because there are experts who know how to do it. And so But I think that's good advice because in Azure so you said, okay.
I was spearheading, standing up this this program. And one of the key steps after the buy in was to get a consultant to come in, a professional, to do a needs analysis and assessment and set up the road map for the program with advisory board and all these other councils and everything else. So now you have the road map, and you have, basically, an implementation plan, I would imagine, from the road map. Yeah. Exactly.
It sounds like that's that to me makes a lot of sense, and and it's it's bringing things to life. So what challenges did you start to face? So this is what, I believe that is good advice for anybody at any time for anything. Where one person is on their journey is highly it is highly unlikely that somebody else is at the exact same place as you are. So there were some people who you know, and and our journeys are based on our individual life experiences.
So there were some people who were at a journey that was, I'm gonna say, let's say an activist mindset. Other people were at an area where I just wanna watch and see. Other people were at another extreme. I don't need this. Why do we need this? This is a waste of time. And then there were others who were like, okay. Let's we we need to move this along to bring people where they are.
So, I would say if someone is considering wanting to spearhead this, there is a lot of introspection that has to occur. Literally, where are you on your own life journey as it relates to this? So for me, like I said, those when those people first started calling me, I was like, that was that was my wake up call that, oh, wow. Everybody has an individual journey. Right. So I had to do this. I had to say, okay. What are the commonalities that we have? What do we have in common?
What does diversity actually truly mean to me? What does inclusion mean to me? And what does equity mean to me? And am I okay if those definitions are not the definitions that other people want? And if I'm the person that's spearheading this, I have to be respectful to everyone else's where every person is at the journey at that time. It took me probably a good 2 to 3 weeks to try to figure that stuff out within myself.
I think for me, what helped me ground me in it goes back to the fact that, I'm a healthcare provider. I don't care about your race, your nationality, your gender, your your, your sexual preference, your your gender identity, your age, your ability status. I don't care with any care about any of that. You are someone who's a human being that has come to me, so I need to do what is best for your health. So that was my commonality. Mhmm. So and and the other thing too is I love people.
I am such a people person. I've always been a people person. I love people. So it wasn't a hard reach for me. But there are experiences that I've had that other people haven't had. Right. And I have to be able to, in a respectful manner, articulate that and be able to get people to understand that.
And, again, as a pediatrician, that's helpful because you have to be able to explain to the parent what's going on with the child so that the parent will you will have the parents buy in to work in the best interest of the child. So Right. So it's the same thing with the program. You have to keep in you really have to keep all of these people, personalities, understanding of what their needs are in check, understanding where they may or may not be on their journey.
Right. And then I would think, you know, accept those that are willing to contribute, but also accept those that may not be willing to contribute in some way. And and I and I had conversations with people who said, I don't I don't understand how this is for me. And, and and I'm gonna be very frank. A lot of my white male counterparts said, I'm a 50 year old white male. What is what do I have to do with any of this? Yeah. And my answer was divert if we are being diverse, that includes all of us.
We have to have everybody represented. Otherwise, it's not diverse. Right. You're a part of it whether you you think it or not. Right? Exactly. If you think it or not, you're a part of it. And inclusivity means everyone. It means absolutely everyone. Everyone counts. And then the other thing that I also picked up along the way Mhmm. Everyone counts.
The something else I picked up along the way is we are not defined by our race or our gender of any of the other characteristics that I that I ran through. Mhmm. We really are it's diversity of experiences and exposures that really matters. So if I can have 2 white male 50 year old standing right next to each other and they literally could have completely different life experiences. So what you bring to the culture of this company is based on your experiences.
So by the time I left the company, we had about 80% of the company who were actively involved. Right. Because people felt that it was a safe space. Now I will also say the employee resource groups that we that that were established really also helped to bring people in because people were able to go to their common groups and be able to to gain strength from that. Right. We had a news leadership group that was awesome. I mean, it's just it was I could talk forever about this stuff.
Well, let me ask you, getting back to I just wanna get back to this idea of if somebody's setting up one of these programs, real quick, what else do they need to include? Like, what else needs to happen? You talk about best practices. So other than the stuff that we already covered, what are other critical pieces that or advice that you might give to those folks? So it is so crucial to get buy in from leadership off the top before you even step into it.
The best way to go about doing that is identify a committed champion within the executive leadership team. And these people are pretty easy to identify. They probably have self identified by other things that they've said or done within the company. There's no harm in approaching them because they're probably also very, very approachable, and there's no harm in having more than one champion. So if you get that buy in, that's great.
What these people have to do is they have to make sure that DEI is on the agenda at their executive meetings, number 1. And then number 2, you can ask for tangible buy in. Meaning, something as simple as saying, we need to talk about DEI at every town hall, every national meeting. Every time we talk about our initiatives, it can be also rolled into their value statement. It can also be as something as significant as having a dedicated head count to represent DEI.
Now if you do that, you said you bought you literally have bought into it. You get a dedicated person, a full time one FTE at least DEI, then they have bought into it. So, Tara, why is it important to have these types of programs? And what gaps still exist? So, you know, inequities still exist, and I really think that they're gonna they're gonna always exist as long as you have, one group or another. Inequities are gonna always exist.
So as long as there are inequities, there's always good work to be done. And, we we have broken some glass ceilings. Some things have changed, but there's there's still plenty of work to be done. There are also people in as we talk about diversity. Diversity is an ever evolving process, just like I said. Life experiences continue to evolve. So as I have different life experiences, I have something new to bring to the table.
As you have different life experiences, you have something else to bring to the table. So, there's gonna always be a role for it. The the need for it is the fact that the younger generation, they they want diversity. They want experiences. They want inclusion. I've got kids who are in their twenties thirties. And to be honest with you, of all of the things that I've ever done, including being their mothers, they were so proud of me with this because they see a need.
So if companies want to bring in top talent and they wanna retain top talent, this is something that they're gonna have to commit to and they're gonna have to do. They're gonna have to buy in and they're gonna have to, it just gonna have to make it work. You know, you you just made me think of something. Obviously, being in the recruiting business, I always try to relate everything back to hiring.
So when when you when you implemented this program, were there pieces of it that that affected the hiring process? Yep. Absolutely. So one of the things that we we were able to do is to get a talent acquisition specialist who, you know, she knew all the she she knew and had access to all the data. She was able to, be able to increase our diverse diverse talent pool by leaps and bounds. That's what I'm saying. We there are experts out there. This has been diversity, equity, inclusion is not new.
This is something that's been in effect for the past 25, 30 years. It's just now becoming popular. Mhmm. So there there are so many people who are professionals in this that this wasn't what we went to school for. There are some there are also some very great, diversity, equity, and inclusion, certification programs. And I took the one at Cornell and it's awesome.
So actually, I would tell people ask your company if you they can either do tuition reimbursement for it or, professional development. It's it's I think they're they're less than $2,000 of course and they are so well worth it. So well worth it. So, so yeah. And where do you and and I because I I think that that again, that brings in another piece of it that I think is really important. And then where where do you see things going in the future? The future's bright.
The future is very, very bright. We we're even seeing companies that have entire roles that are based on health equity. We are seeing the importance of a diverse candidate pool when we talk about, enrolling subjects into clinical trials. We know very well that there are certain phenotypes that do better with certain drugs and worse with certain drugs. The only way that we'll know what drug works best with whom is if we increase that diversity in the in in the pool.
So, there's just a world of opportunity out there and it's important, and I think people are now recognizing it. The other thing is, again, in terms of having the people that work for you and your company happy, a happy mind is an innovative mind. If someone feels safe and they're able to bring them their whole self to work and they have commonalities and they like being at work, they're gonna do a really good job.
They're gonna come up with some some outside of the box thinking because they're not feeling like they're boxed in. There's a freedom that comes with this. Got you. Awesome. So what final pieces of advice do you have for folks, whether it's, you know, someone who's in the leadership side of the equation or whether it's somebody that works in an organization? What advice would you have for those? Well, first, I would say don't be afraid to raise your hand.
Don't be afraid to or don't think that your opinion doesn't matter because it absolutely does. And don't think that you're out here on an island by yourself. There are plenty of people who are out here that, would back you. I do need to can I just say one more thing? I gotta give a shout out. Yeah. Go for it. This by no means was something that I did on my own.
I had support all along the way from my good work friends to the to our leaders, to the people who man the ERGs, the advisory council, the the operations team, so many good people. And and the other thing is, remember, this is not about one person, this is about the ripple effect and something that is gonna take root in the company. I don't work for that company anymore.
Several people who were with it with me in 2020 don't work for that company anymore, but the program still exists, the ERGs still exist, the leadership is still bought into it, and now it's even gone to our global partners and so our global partners now are mimicking the same program. So, you can do it. If if it's a passion, then I would suggest, again, do some introspection to make sure that you're up for the challenge. But it's not for you to go alone.
You have to you have to have everybody along with you. Great advice. Well, let's leave it there. Tara, thank you so much. This was a great conversation. I really appreciate you. And, we will, we'll certainly keep in touch. Thank you everyone for listening to this important topic, and thanks for joining me every week. And, we'll see you guys again soon. So thanks again, Tara. Thanks. Thank you so much for listening to the show.
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