Essential Communication Skills in the World of Biotech Venture Capital

Susanna Harris is the senior manager for engagement and communications at Xontogeny, a biotech aggregator supporting the accelerated development of life science technologies in the pursuit of helping patients with serious diseases.

…our job is to help launch biotech companies. We're working with really, really early stage, oftentimes this is one to two to three founders. They have some cool piece of technology that maybe is a drug, a device a diagnostic, something that is going to help humans be healthier.

Her role is a mix that requires the ability to talk to a few different audiences for different purposes.

She is communicating the value of Xontogeny to scientists that want to start a company. Once onboard, she also helps those same scientists think about how they communicate to their customers.

…One of the ways that I've described it in the past is sort of like being the wedding planner for all these different companies where some of the things I can run around, help them with… We just put out an announcement that we invested in a new Series A company. And so helping them write that press release, but also ultimately working with the media companies that are going to be doing the bulk of the work. I just need to make sure that all the trains regarding communications are leaving the station.

And beyond all that, she acts as a “translator” of sorts to help both scientists and investors communicate their ideas back and forth in a way that acknowledges what is important to the other. We talked a lot about the importance of understanding your audience and spending some time discovering what they care about so you can tailor your presentation to their interest.

Susanna has a Ph.D. in microbiology. I asked if this job was what she imagined when she started graduate school. She liked the idea of getting paid to learn about something she was interested in but soon figured out that academia would not be her path.

Since then she has been open to trying a lot of things and says that the secret to her success “has been figuring out and being honest with myself very quickly about what I don't like to do… What's been really important for me is to just try stuff out.”