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Sarah Herrmann has always been passionate about partnering with startups, particulary ones that are local to her hometown of Philadelphia, which is where Proscia, a growing digital pathology company, comes in. After reading about the innovative work Proscia was doing and seeing they had some vacancies, she reached out to introduce herself to Mary Monzo, Head of People at Proscia. What began was a partnership that has been ongoing for the last 2+ years.
Having successfully built out their Life-Sciences sales team, they were ready to build their clinical commercial segment and were in need of a leader to come in and grow not only that business but build a team. Finding experienced sales talent within the digital pathology space is very challenging due to high demand and low supply. Candidates must possess a rare blend of deep technical, clinical, and complex sales expertise. The market is shifting from early adoption to enterprise-wide implementation, and the need for leaders who can navigate complex, long-cycle hospital sales is critical, yet difficult to fulfill.
After meeting with Arun Ananthapadmanabhan, Chief Commercial Officer of Proscia, and Mary Monzo, Head of People, it was clear they needed someone who knew the digital pathology space well. They also needed someone who would be able to “fly the plane while building it” as they say. The candidate they were looking for was someone who could thread the needle of being strategic while executing and driving results. Sarah began first reaching out to her pipeline of candidates coming out of the digital health space and proactively targeted candidates working at other organizations within the industry.
After talking to many viable candidates, the initial slate of presentable candidates landed at 8 VP level Sales candidates, which took about 2 –3 weeks to finalize. Of those 8 sales leaders, 4 candidates were moved forward in the interview process. Of those 4, 2 were determined to be finalists. The entire process took about 2 weeks to complete and involved the Chief Commercial Officer, Chief Operations Officer, Chief Strategy Officer, and the CEO. Once they identified which candidate they wanted to hire, Sarah had to help with negotiations around compensation which included many variables such as salary, commission, and equity. In the end, she was able to help them come to an offer that felt good on both sides. The entire process from launch call to start date took 60 days. Once the candidate was started in the role, it was time to build his team. Sarah was able to help secure additional sales talent within the clinical segment.
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