"I never underestimate the power of my network." [@]Kwamane Liddell is using AI to help families access healthcare, but he isn’t doing it in a vacuum. He uses LinkedIn to stay connected to the audiences he serves and the partners—like [@]Reckitt Catalyst—who help him scale. Growth is a team sport. Whether it’s through your feed or a formal mentorship program, the right ecosystem is everything. What’s one connection you made on LinkedIn that changed your business trajectory?

🧬 Researching clinical trials? You are likely spending 80% of your time preparing data and 20% making key decisions. Most teams researching life sciences are experiencing one of two bad options. Schedule expert calls and wait three weeks. Or ask generic AI and get hallucinated citations. The true unlock is going from question to conviction in one click by combining proprietary expert commentary with regulatory and commercial data for full therapeutic area analysis. Instead of reacting to change, you can operate with intelligence that updates continuously. Instead of rebuilding analysis, you walk in ready to defend it, that's the value of AlphaSense for Life Sciences: https://lnkd.in/eWNkRxTG

Three things we learned from Gavin's webinar on Founder-led Marketing for Deep Tech founders 👀 🚦 You are the signal. Pre-Series A, 73% of angel investors say the founding team is their #1 investment criteria, not the product. Making your expertise visible publicly builds commercial credibility for your business, not just a personal brand. 🏃♀️ Consistency beats virality. One post a month means 6 pieces of content in 6 months. A competitor who isn't posting has zero. It compounds slowly, but it compounds, and in deep tech, that long game is exactly what you need. 🏗️ Build before you need it. The founders seeing results today started 6–12 months before their launch. By the time they were ready to sell, their audience already trusted them. Dig the well before you're thirsty. Thanks to Gavin Heaton from Disruptors Co for sharing your insights with CSIRO's Lindfield Collaboration Hub community. 🙌 Please find the link to the recording in the comments. #FounderLedMarketing #DeepTech #StartupMarketing #Lindfield

Does Quality Matter? (Spoiler alert! Yes) As scientists, we always need to apply a sanity check to our data: does what we’re seeing actually make sense? That’s especially important with medical data, where data quality can have a major impact on analysis and outcomes. Next Tuesday, Julia Kurps from The Hyve will present an overview of data quality in OMOP and why it matters for reliable research and evidence generation. Please register here to get the link: https://lnkd.in/dv4mwfNN  

I have spent the last decade building connective tissue in tech. Whether it’s an internal community of 3,000 people at Microsoft or an external ecosystem for Bing, I have learned one universal truth: Building coalitions is the ultimate multiplier. In my experience, whether hosting a high-production executive event for thousands or negotiating a technical roadmap with external partners, the fundamental skills remain the same: - Shared North Stars: Advocacy cannot be forced. It is essential to find the intersection where the product’s success aligns with the community’s success. When we grew Bing daily usage by +980%, it was not just marketing; it was because we treated our v-teams and external partners as co-creators. - Operationalizing Trust: Hosting an event for 3,000 people, leading an intimate SLT fireside, or collaborating with external partners goes beyond logistics; it’s about creating a safe space for feedback. Trust is the infrastructure that allows a partner ecosystem to scale during periods of change. - The "Translator" Advantage: To build a coalition, fluency in three languages is necessary: Engineering, Legal, and User Value. My favorite grey space is transforming a complex technical requirement into a narrative that a global field team or an external partner can rally behind. Ultimately, the ecosystem isn't just a list of stakeholders, it’s the collective power of people moving in the same direction.

Adding friction on purpose can actually help build community. I know that sounds counterintuitive. At CMX Summit this year, one of the things that landed hardest was this: the communities producing the strongest advocacy outcomes aren't always the easiest to join. Application requirements, participation commitments, story-sharing as part of onboarding... Santiago E. said it plainly: "Commitment creates belonging." I saw this play out firsthand with our CustomerX Community roadshow this year. The theme was AI in CMA workflows, and registration included three open-ended questions: What AI tools are you using, how are you using them, what challenge do you wish you could solve. Nothing aggressive. Just three questions that asked people to think before they walked in the door. The sessions in Austin and Chicago were some of the most engaged in-person conversations I've been part of in years. People came in with opinions. Real ones. They weren't waiting to be convinced of something, they were ready to compare notes. The questions didn't screen people out, they primed them! That's what intentional friction does. It converts passive attendees into active participants before the event even starts! The same principle applies to communities, advocate programs, and pretty much any experience where you want people to show up invested rather than just present. Executives push for scale because they've been measuring engagement. But a room of 30 people who thought hard about the topic before arriving will out-perform a room of 300 who just registered! tldr; Depth beats scale. Have you noticed/applied this in your own programs that a little friction upfront changes the quality of what happens after?

Had some time to reflect on last week's #MirrenLive My colleagues have done a great job insightfully recapping the major themes. I don't have much to add there. But I keep coming back to the two things that ran through all of it for me -- Inspiration & Community: 1. Inspiration. 💡 Not manufactured. The kind that hits when you hear the truth bomb, or mid-conversation by the cookies, and reminds you why we all love new business. You walk away not just with ideas, but with renewed energy and tips you want to try the next morning. 2. Community. 👯 This event has almost turned into group therapy. Radical oversharing. Agencies helping each other; sharing what worked, what didn't, what the ROI was, which vendor actually delivered. Openly. Candidly. Dare I say even a little vulnerably? Just people trying to figure it out together. AI. Economics. Positioning. Pipeline. It was all there. But underneath it all the heart of Mirren, for me, was the inspiration and the community around it.

Six weeks ago I stepped away from my last role to do three things deliberately: codify what I've learned, build something I wanted but couldn't find, and go deep on AI before re-entering the market. Here's where that landed. 1. A Leadership Operating System. Fifteen years of work — Fortune 1000 enterprise, climate-tech startup, independent advisory — distilled into four connected frameworks that move a technology and product function from business understanding to investment alignment to operating discipline to team design. The thesis underneath it: most tech organizations don't fail on engineering. They fail because they're structured by convention instead of by value and risk. The OS is how I'd fix that on day one in any seat. 2. MyFamSite.com. A product I wanted and couldn't find — a private digital home for family history, culture, health records, and the stories that get lost between generations. In active beta. Building it solo has sharpened the product muscle that complements the technology side of a CTO+CPO seat. 3. AI immersion — leader's view, not practitioner's view. The interesting question is no longer whether AI gets adopted. It's who builds the operating model around it: how AI investment is governed, where it gets applied (efficiency, augmentation, transformation, risk reduction), and how leaders make those calls defensible to a board before a dollar is spent. That's executive work, and it's where I want to spend the next era of my career. What I'm looking for: A CTO+CPO, SVP Technology & Product, or Head of Technology & Product role at a mid-size organization — Charlotte-based or remote — where technology and product need to operate as one system, not two. Two asks: 1. If you're an operator, board member, recruiter, or founder working with a company at that inflection point, I'd value the introduction. 2. And if you've recently been through a CTO+CPO search — from either side of the table — I'd welcome fifteen minutes to learn what worked.

Networking is dead. Too many “networking” events are just crowded rooms, terrible wine, and everyone waiting for their turn to pitch. AI, Linkedin, etc have made finding people easy. Building trust is still hard. That’s why the best founders are moving away from networking and towards smaller, trusted peer groups where real conversations happen. Exactly why what we do at Helm is so valuable. I shared more thoughts on this in my latest article for Elite Business. 👉 Read it here: https://lnkd.in/eV_AUTb8

Tomorrow, our CEO Roshini K sits on an AI panel session with small and mid-sized business owners, nonprofit leaders, government officials, and community stakeholders. This audience matters to us. These are the people who show up every day to serve their communities, build something from nothing, and keep their teams moving forward even when resources are tight. What Roshini hopes to share: AI can sound overwhelming, especially for small and mid-sized business owners. But here is what she has learned working with businesses like yours. You do not need to be a tech expert. You do not need a huge budget. Do not think of AI as a tech project. Think of it as a business growth and efficiency tool. You just need to start small. Solve one real problem. What Roshini hopes to learn: She is not walking in as the expert. She is walking in as a fellow builder. Every conversation with a business owner teaches her something new about what actually works, what frustrates teams, and where technology can make a real difference. If you are attending, please come say hello. She would love to hear what keeps you up at night. Event Details: Event: Genesis Catalyst Business Expo Date: Thursday, April 30, 2026 Time: 2:55 – 3:15 PM (20 minutes) Location: The Courtyard at Genesis Bank HQ | 4675 MacArthur Court, Newport Beach, CA 92660 📅 Want to learn how AI can solve one real problem in your business? Visit virstack.ai #BusinessLeadership #SmallBusiness #CommunityLeaders #Panelist #AIforBusiness #Virstack #VirstackAI