Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech: Priya Abani of AliveCor On The 5 Leadership Lessons She Learned From Her Experience

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Don’t be afraid to lead with empathy. Women often try to hide their empathy because we fear it will be perceived as weakness. But being able to understand and connect with others, adapt to their specific needs, and support and bolster their strengths is an incredibly powerful leadership tool.

As a part of my series about “Lessons from Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Priya Abani. Priya brings more than 20 years of experience in building high-performing organizations, launching innovative products on a global scale, and leading cross-industry strategic alliances.

As CEO of AliveCor, Priya is leading the drive to patient-centric remote cardiological care. Under Priya’s leadership, the company has built the largest AI-driven consumer subscription service in the world for cardiovascular care. Prior to joining AliveCor, Priya served as the General Manager at Alexa Voice Service (AVS) at Amazon, where she led the expansion of Alexa technology into partner products.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I’ve been on this path since childhood. I had a real passion for math and logic from the time I was 12 years old, learning BASIC from my father, who taught computer science classes at a local college. Learning code and designing algorithms was exciting to me, and I realized it was where my brain did its best work.

Then, fast-forward to my MBA in Entrepreneurship, which led to a number of jobs that allowed me to build different muscles in different disciplines: from engineering, to product management, to product marketing, to running innovation labs. All these skills eventually converged in my role as the general manager of Alexa Voice Service at Amazon where I had the opportunity to lead the expansion of one of the most groundbreaking and innovative products at that point in tech.

But then I lost my father due to a serious illness. This was a profound loss for my entire family, and for me, it illuminated the fact that irrespective of who you are, we all have far too little control when it comes to saving the lives of those we love. That feeling of helplessness changed me, but it also motivated me to consider a career in healthcare.

That’s precisely why I was so excited to have the opportunity to join AliveCor as CEO. We help give more control, more freedom, and better care to patients and their families. We help save lives. With reliable and affordable EKGs, we give patients the confidence to return to their lives with the power and knowledge that comes with being able to monitor their own health and connect to clinicians whenever they need. For clinicians, our real-time data monitoring and access allows them to understand and diagnose conditions, as well as deliver lifesaving care, more easily.

I was thrilled to have the chance to take the skills that I had acquired over the course of my career and help lead this company to its next frontier, and more importantly, to help this incredible team continue to fulfill its mission of saving lives and delivering quality care to all those who need it.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began at your company?

There are so many stories, it’s hard to pinpoint just one. But there’s one that’s kind of funny: I was on a flight and sitting next to a celebrity — I won’t name them, since this involves medical information — but I was excited to have the opportunity to chat with this person. Over the course of our conversation they started asking about what I do. At first I was a little vague, but I told them that I was CEO of a medical technology startup that makes a remote EKG device. And then they told me that their wife uses something called Kardia, and that it’s really helped them as a family. I was stunned, so I just listened while they told me more about the positive impact Kardia has had on their lives. And when I eventually told them it was our device, they were stunned too.

But this wasn’t an isolated incident. The impact of our technology is so widespread, I am constantly meeting people who remind me of why I joined this incredible company.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Getting a start-up off the ground requires so much dedication and often, fervor. Working from home during the quarantine stages of the pandemic, sometimes I would pace back and forth in my living room so much, my kids would joke that I needed to check my EKG and take a breath.

What do you think makes your company stand out?

AliveCor’s cutting-edge technology is unparalleled because we are singularly focused on heart health. Other personal ECGs are fitness trackers and tech gadgets that have added the ability to take a single lead ECG. As a 6-lead personal ECG that can detect up to six of the most common arrhythmias, our KardiaMobile 6L device is revolutionary. And by modernizing and streamlining the transmission of critical cardiac data from remote patients to clinicians in real-time, we have removed barriers to lifesaving treatments. That is precisely why AliveCor has grown so rapidly — because of our commitment to prioritizing patients.

Two years ago, we were primarily operating as the manufacturer of a best-selling, portable medical device that allows patients to monitor their own ECG rhythms. Today we are integrating devices and services across the healthcare delivery continuum. During the COVID-19 pandemic we launched KardiaCare, a subscription service pioneering direct-to-consumer heart health services. AliveCor has now received regulatory clearance in 42 markets, significantly grown in new disciplines, closed several strategic partnerships, and now has a network that could reach nearly 70 percent of the global population. These are remarkable achievements in cardiac care.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Imagine a world where any person, regardless of their location, can access critical information about their heart health in real time, and transmit that data to healthcare professionals within moments of a cardiac event. That is the world AliveCor is building.

We recently announced our Series F Financing led by GE Healthcare, an industry leader we are very proud to partner with. This funding will not only enable us to grow into new markets and expand the reach of our lifesaving services, but also advance our cutting-edge AI roadmap and groundbreaking design.

And speaking of groundbreaking design, we just introduced the world’s only credit-card-sized personal ECG. There’s no other device on the market like it. Slim and light as a credit card, it fits right into your wallet. What’s more, we’re the only ones who deliver FDA-cleared determinations of six of the most common arrhythmias. We are already paving the way for remote cardiological care, and we are so excited to continue innovating and introducing even more comprehensive cardiac detection services in the years to come.

Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the focus of our interview. Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in STEM? What specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?

While we’ve certainly made some progress, there are still great strides to make to ensure equity for women in STEM, and indeed women in all professions. Women continue to face stereotyping, wage gaps, fewer promotions, and a lack of flexibility to accommodate their specific needs.

I’ve been very fortunate in my career to explore a range of positions and the opportunity to grow into leadership roles. But many women don’t get those opportunities. It’s incumbent on all of us in leadership roles to ask how we can be the best employers for women and people of color coming into STEM.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women in STEM or Tech that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts? What would you suggest to address this?

It’s systemic. Mothers, especially, struggle to take time off work and subsequently return to their positions or levels of professional standing. As an industry, we must do a better job of understanding the variety of career pathways and adapt our processes to encourage and support them. It’s a gradual process — of increasing visibility into STEM opportunities and providing constant encouragement — and has to be a focus for CEOs, boards, and STEM leaders.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a woman in STEM or Tech. Can you explain what you mean?

Often when women or people of color are successful in STEM positions, they get siloed as being good at that one and only thing. Once this happens, there is a misconception that they are not suited for other disciplines, and whether it’s implicit or explicit, often women and people of color are instructed to “please stay in your box.” So, it’s not only a matter of giving women and people of color more opportunities in STEM, but also recognizing their potential and unique perspectives in a number of spheres.

What are your “5 Leadership Lessons I Learned from My Experience as a Woman in STEM or Tech” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

• Leaders joining new companies should begin by acknowledging what made the company successful in the first place. AliveCor built a revolutionary product in the early days of digital health by offering the most clinically validated personal EKG solution in the world. I joined because I saw remarkable opportunity to create new services and maximize the lifesaving impact of our technology globally.
• Build a team that shares your vision. Our extraordinary team is AliveCor’s number one asset. Strategic hiring has had a huge impact on our success. It’s also critical to invest time in developing new hires, so that we are all operating with a shared vision and company ethos.
• Lift up others to advance not only your company, but your entire industry. For me, this means guiding others in pursuit of their own successful careers in healthcare tech. I want to help create future leaders who will continue to innovate, push the industry forward, and put patients first, so that together we can improve the lives of as many people as possible.
• Be intentional about innovations and investments. We need to be clear about the specific products, partnerships, and investments that will bring our vision to life — and even clearer about projects that distract us from that vision. Every improvement we make in the healthcare system requires intentionality and a patient-first mentality.
• Remember that each day matters. I wake up every single morning and review AliveCor’s progress: How many patients have we impacted? How many new users now have access to our lifesaving devices? Then I go back to the long-term vision: How many people can we impact moving forward? What might our products look like in five years, or ten years? How many lives can we save? That’s the beauty of the job.

What advice would you give to other women leaders to help their team to thrive?

Don’t be afraid to lead with empathy. Women often try to hide their empathy because we fear it will be perceived as weakness. But being able to understand and connect with others, adapt to their specific needs, and support and bolster their strengths is an incredibly powerful leadership tool.

What advice would you give to other women leaders about the best way to manage a large team?

The most valuable thing all leaders can do is hire people with more specialized expertise than themselves. Those people, in turn, will hire strong talent and develop effective, innovative teams. That’s how we’ve built AliveCor, and that’s why we are a world-class leader in healthcare technology.

None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I’m most grateful for my parents. Every single time I’ve taken a risk — which I’ve done often in my career — I had my parents’ unwavering support. My mom and dad instilled in me the belief that if you’re excited about something new, you should go for it. My bold and entrepreneurial spirit is something I owe to my parents.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I have the honor of leading a company that provides affordable and accessible, intelligent, highly personalized heart data to clinicians and patients remotely and in real-time, improving countless lives each and every day. I can’t think of a better way to bring goodness to the world than to help people have more control over their health and precious time with their loved ones.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Health equity. Barriers to healthcare can take many forms — including lack of access to physicians and personal health data, especially in a crisis. Lifesaving healthcare should be within reach of anyone, anywhere. And together with AliveCor, I am working hard to create a world where that’s possible.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“The future depends on what we do in the present.” — Mahatma Gandhi. Innovation builds upon itself. As we strive to expand our healthcare technology at AliveCor, who knows how many people we will impact and save from devastating heart conditions? And who knows what those people will achieve with newfound control over their health and lives? In any case, I’m certain that the work we do in the present is helping build a brighter future.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)

Living, I would say President Obama. And otherwise, I would have to say my dad. He would get a kick out of what I’m doing in healthcare.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.