Lily Elsner is the Head of Strategy at Arctoris, a startup working on small molecule drug development. I interviewed her as the winner of SAMPS’s Young Person of the Year back in December.
After reviewing the transcript, it was easy to see why she is so suited for this job and won the award in what I am told was a very competitive field of nominees. She’s been strategizing since high school. We had a long conversation, the first half of which recounted her journey from high school to college and a number of internships before landing her current job. That will be a bonus episode published alongside this one.
In her current role, her job is split between internal and external aspects of a startup. What opportunities should they pursue? And how do they make sure everyone knows what they are doing? How should they build out this company in terms of product but also human capital?
It’s a lot of communicating internally while collaborating externally with other biotechs around Oxford.
So, yeah. That's basically what I do - internal and external company building.
We talked for a bit about mentors and mentoring. She mentioned several people who have been guides for her and she finds time to give back in multiple ways. I got a kick out of this:
My other hobby is, um, coaching rowing. I actually coach one of the Oxford colleges, in my spare time, which is always a great way to sort of get out of what I'm thinking about and go, you know, yell at some people, which is always great, but, but also think about the really core, core pieces of leadership of working together. Sort of wonderful example on a daily basis always helps me come back to work refreshed.
Going back to a strategy for your life as an individual, Lily described her efforts around the Oxford Character Project.
They developed a curriculum based on works of philosophy and even contemporary letters to look at ways of analyzing your life, what challenges have you had to contend with and how you handled them. For example,
We read Martin Luther King's letter from Birmingham jail, thinking about all of these sort of really important ways to analyze your life and how you're doing what you're doing.
And think through that process, an amazing opportunity to really think about what we wanted to achieve in the world. Not only professionally, but in terms of how we wanted to show up as leaders.
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Lily Elsner: SAMPS's Young Person of the Year