Tim Slevin
Title: Senior VP, OpenData Global
Company: Veeva Systems
Education: MBA, BBA, University of Missouri-Kansas City
Family: Wife, Susan; children, Ben and Grace; dog, Lucy
Hobbies: Golfing, cycling
Bucket List: Play golf at Pebble Beach with Huey Lewis; perform a three-minute stand-up comedy set; play drums in front of an audience; attend Coachella and Burning Man
Awards/Honors: Three-time INC5000 Honoree; two-Time Deloitte Fast 500; two-time Concur Partner of the Year
Associations: Entrepreneur’s Organization; PDMA Professionals
Data Management Pioneer
Tim Slevin looks like the Mayhem actor in the Allstate Insurance commercials (he actually won a contest based on this resemblance) and whether that is directly connected to his being hit by a bus — twice — we can’t say, but we do know that he has truly transformed how the industry manages prescriber information.
Mr. Slevin assisted in the design of the first evidence-based data model at his own company, Healthcare Data Solutions, which he founded in 2006, and pioneered a unique process for a proprietary master database creation, validation, and delivery. With his keen vision, talent, and leadership, he provided prescriber data products and services to hundreds of life-science companies allowing a much-needed and powerful solution for sales, marketing, and compliance challenges. While at HDS, Mr. Slevin was the first Concur connect partner for open payments reporting, providing relief for the life-sciences industry resulting in the Concur Partner of the Year award for three years running. Mr. Slevin was the first to leverage Web services to deliver ongoing data updates in real time, solving data latency challenges that had plagued the industry for years. He also applied his vast knowledge of data management to bring the best of evidence-based practices and validation models to the life-sciences industry. Now, companies would have an audit trail, too, improving compliance. He set into motion remarkable growth, leading HDS to national prominence, attracting Fortune 500 clients, being named to the INC 5000 three consecutive years, and ranking among Deloitte’s Fast 500. Under Mr. Slevin’s leadership, the business grew to 100 employees in seven years.
One of the biggest challenges in his career was leaving the firm he founded and grew to join Veeva last year. It required completely shifting mindsets and becoming “the new guy" instead of “THE guy." However, Mr. Slevin adapted well and has set his sights on developing and delivering the global standard of healthcare data to the top 100 pharmaceutical companies by Nov. 19, 2018, his four-year anniversary at Veeva.
The new senior VP of OpenData Global has already set about transforming Veeva OpenData data business to one that will shift the way that life-science companies leverage healthcare provider, organizational, and their affiliation relationship data. By launching Veeva OpenData he is leading a new approach to customer data that is being welcomed by the industry. His leadership has brought into focus what Veeva’s customers need to be successful while creating key tenants for our offerings that resonate with the industry, making data open, easy, and global. Mr. Slevin is also leading the creation of a robust Partner Program, which will allow Veeva OpenData to be shared with partners without numerous third-party agreements.
“There’s tremendous satisfaction that comes from really being an expert at something, and learning every nook and cranny of a product," he says. “Developing that deep subject matter expertise also helps you to better understand your customer’s perspective." That, and avoiding busses.
Dr. Lihua Yu
Title: VP, Data Science and Information Technology
Company: H3 Biomedicine Inc.
Education: Ph.D., Biomedical Engineering, Boston University; M.E., Biomedical Engineering, Tsinghua University
Family: Husband, Wei Hua; son Eric, 14; daughter Sophie, 11
Hobbies: Zumba, running, gardening, cooking, and baking
Bucket List: Travel to Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica in a single long trip
Awards/Honors: Global Scientific and Technical Achievement Award, AstraZeneca — 2003 and 2010
Association: American Association of Cancer Research
Computing Biology
In her position as VP, data science and information technology, at H3 Biomedicine, Lihua Yu, Ph.D., is driving the expanded use of data and technology by developing a leading data science, cancer genomics, and information sharing engine.
Dr. Yu has spent more than 16 years in computational biology and bioinformatics, and has deep experience in the area of cancer genomics and predictive biomarkers. Her expertise and keen interest in addressing problems — be it a drug target or an operational challenge — with computational means, has enabled her to integrate the bioinformatics discipline into drug discovery and translational science continuums.
Before coming to H3 Biomedicine, Dr. Yu spent 12 years with AstraZeneca’s research and development unit, helping to build and deliver the multinational pharmaceutical company’s oncology bioinformatics capabilities. During her time there, she provided bioinformatics support to key areas of oncology drug discovery programs, including target identification and patient selection initiatives.
She also led efforts to leverage public cancer genomic initiatives, such as The Cancer Genome Atlas, to facilitate genetic target identification.
When she joined H3 she devoted her efforts at building a data science team and cancer genomics platform.
According to colleagues, Dr. Yu embraces a clear vision and a democratization of data throughout the entire H3 organization. She is equal parts mentor, leader, and coach. She brings a strong blend of innovation, excitement, and humanity to H3’s science and her informatics group.
She inspires and motivates by setting high and achievable standards. She leads by example at developing her team into data scientists who possess not only computer and statistics skills, but most importantly curiosity to go beneath the surface of the problem, ability to form well-articulated hypothesis, and skills to communicate both verbally and visually. She, in particular, emphasizes the importance of data integration and visualization for big data.
For her, to be able to interact and visualize data by domain experts are equally important as computational data mining for scientific hypothesis generation. She led her team into developing a cancer genomics platform where diverse genomics and pharmacogenomics data can be used by all members of H3 live during project discussions and scientific conferences. At H3, IT is combined with informatics, something that is not usually done within the industry. Dr. Yu views this as a rare opportunity to leverage innovations in data science and technologies. One such example is H3’s adoption of Amazon Web Services, initially to support next-generation sequencing pipelines, now into other areas, such as adoption of Amazon Redshift, to support their cancer genomics data mining and integration. Dr. Yu’s innovative spirit and vision within her data science and IT organization will not only continue to impact H3’s success, but will also provide meaningful leaps in new cancer treatments.(PV)
