Hallway Interviews with Pharma Learning Leaders

Hello there, and welcome to Pharma Sessions. This is a little bit of a different episode. As many of I recently started working with a new company called ACTO which does all sorts of learning and development and cool AI things for pharma field organizations, commercial and medical. Joined there at the beginning of June, and just last week we had our client summit.

So we had, gosh, I don't know, maybe 80 people from 30 or 40 different companies that made a trek to Boston, spent a few days with us talked about obviously product roadmap, but also just a lot of sort of thought leadership stuff around learning and development. I was thinking about what I could do to make the most of my time and came up with this idea of hallway interviews. So the theory was, hey, we're around all these great people with all sorts of expertise around field teams and their behaviors and training them and driving the right behaviors.

Why not just ask little two or three question short interviews of five or six people? So that's what I did, right? And that's what this episode is today. So I think I have I wanna say six different people from various pharma companies, some big, some small, some on the biotech side, talking about what they think of the world of commercial excellence these days, or field excellence, I should say, and how that's, how that has changed and how that's likely to change.

I hope you enjoy. You are? Hi, I'm Andrea Penn and I'm with Audilis. Awesome, and what do you do there?

I'm the Senior Director of Field Training and Customer Training. Okay, wonderful. Normally I start these with an icebreaker. What was the last concert you've seen or the next one you're going to?

I saw J. Cole, actually, on Saturday. Oh, wow. You asked me the right question.

There you go. I think the next one I think I'm going to see Jay-Z in LA. No way. Yeah.

So didn't he just do something where he performed- In New York till 4:00 AM or something like that? Yeah. It was... unfortunately, they had a breach of security, so they had to delay.

Okay. Yeah. Hopefully we'll be fine in LA. Amazing.

Amazing. So a lot of what we're talking about at the summit today, and in general what's being talked about, is AI. How has AI impacted your role and what you're trying to do to date? Yeah I think that it's, so far it's helped us with, certain customer emails.

Also maybe formatting and helping us with PowerPoints. But we're also looking to use it a little bit further in creating tools for our internal training. We have the Viva integration, and I know that, that's a capability that they have at Acto. And then also being able to summarize- the different materials we have.

Because we have so many materials maybe about a certain topic. And just to give a brief summary, for someone that's inquiring how do we integrate all those tools and consolidate those. So more of an integrative experience- Yeah across different tools. Yeah.

Which is I'm sure, I know Viva has an AI, right? All these tools have AI themselves, but you're trying to think, how can we tie it together a little bit?" 'Cause we have, like right now we have different tip sheets. We have FAQs.

We also have learning modules. But how can we summarize and pull all those things together, like you said, to give a sort of a concise answer- Yeah if one of our teammates is looking up, a specific topic. Yeah. I love that.

So then when you think about some of the traditional tasks of training, say a, a national sales meeting- Yeah or something like that- Do you see that being different, how that's being conducted or run or the follow-up now versus how it might have been a couple years ago before we were in this space? Or is it still largely the same? I, I think at least at my company, they want a lot of co-creation and collaboration and I think what we can use AI for is when we're in these sessions where there is col- collaboration, we can use AI to kinda sum up all the different thoughts and comments from people.

Before we would have to have a note-taker. Yes. So I think that's very helpful where we can take back all of these feedback- Yes and then review it later, and then create more training. I find that in my day-to-day to be one of the most helpful things, 'cause it's almost like it helps you be more present in the meeting.

Yeah. And you can really be focused, and you're not thinking about "Oh, I gotta make sure I don't miss anything"- "or I'm not leaving here missing anything." What about post-NSF, right? 'Cause there's always like everybody gets fired up, they've just seen, a patient share their experience, and they leave with all these good fee- feelings and good intentions.

And then the fear is always that two or three months later they're back to doing what they were doing before. Do you see tech helping at all with that pull-through stuff? Yeah. So basically, like I said if we're able to capture what topics are coming up, what maybe people...

what are they missing in some of our workshopping- Yeah To get those comments, then we can use that to have suggestions, okay, to look over our materials that we already have and maybe where there's gaps. Yeah. And then reinforce that. We also use Acto to create little quizzes- and our team really liked that.

We did that at our last national meeting. We had like quick little questions throughout using the app. And it was a way to keep the engagement. So we...

they want that pulse also through the year. Yeah. And then perfect world scenario, like- It's... I think I ought to ask this, but basically, do you think that learning and development and training, they seem so fundamental to the health of any organization.

Do you think there's an opportunity for L&D to be, like, more strategic- even more strategically important going forward in this new role to help people adopt- this stuff? Yeah, that's that's definitely my goal. I really believe in s- in strategy. So we're constantly looking at ways where we can...

how can we streamline things, where our, field can focus more on their customer. Yeah. How can we measure that they understand the topics and give them ways, to practice the information? Because we all know they all hate role play.

Yeah. How can we make the discussions more meaningful and sa- and just save time? It's a lot of things that we do that, like I said, we can augment- Yeah with AI. Totally.

Yeah, the role play, the o- what we always hear is especially from more senior, more experienced reps, is like, "Oh we don't want Big Brother." "We don't-" ..."I don't wanna feel like I'm under a microscope." And it's so frustrating 'cause it's like the things that everybody needs to pract- we can all get better at the things we do.

Oh, so true. The things that we need to practice are the things we're worst at, which are the things that we're, like, least, we least want to expose ourselves- Right to being bad at to people. And so it's this weird catch-22 of like- how do you help them feel comfortable without either thinking they're not gonna be seen or being vulnerable to, to do that without repercussions, right? Yeah.

Yeah. So what we're working on now is more probing questions. Like, how do you induce a conversation? Because we deal with hematologists that are to me on a little bit higher level of education.

And it is hard because they, they have short time. They're very intelligent. There's really nothing we can teach them about the disease. But how do we get them to come along to make that decision for themself- Oh, I love that on what the best treatment is for the patient?

Like truly conversational- active listening, really engaging with them to bring them through the journey. Yes. Very cool. Thank you for doing this.

Thank you. Welcome, and you are? I'm Sarah Barrett. Okay.

I'm Associate Director of Medical Affairs Training at Adnylym Pharmaceuticals. Absolutely, and the views here are yours, not those of your company- That's correct as with me. That's correct. I'm only speaking for myself and not for the company where I work.

Perfect. So before we get into the questions, I like to do a little icebreaker. Great. Are you more of a music or food person?

Probably food. Okay. I think probably food. I have a partner who is very generous with their cooking abilities, which are considerable.

And so I have very good f- food at home all the time. Okay. So this might be a challenging question, although I know it's not 'cause we actually talked about this last night, but d- do you have... What's your go-to recipe, something you can cook without even looking, just whip something up?

I'm very good with tofu. I would say we talked about gochujang tofu last night, but I have to consult the recipe to make sure that I don't blow the gochujang out of the recipe. I would say probably the tofu banh mi. Perfect.

Yeah, probably tofu banh mi. Everybody learn how to make a vegan tofu banh mi and your life will thank you. Yeah, I agree. Excellent.

So we'll talk a little bit just forward-looking on- Great learning and development, but I'm actually curious with all the noise and buzz about AI and- Yeah and whatnot, how have you seen the role change to date over the last couple of years, if at all? So my role, I think I'm expected to be more familiar with AI than I was a couple years ago, and this change has swept across the industry relatively quickly. I feel like- It's not necessarily an enforced standard from leadership.

It's more there's an industry expectation that I know the basics of AI, how to talk about it, and how it will impact my work. And then with the AI governance structure at my particular company, we're now expected to engage with it compliantly and safely. So you need... It's expected you'll have a point of view, basically.

Yes, I- yes. Yeah. And are you seeing this trickle through to the field, or do you expect even looking higher level do you expect that the field managers, the MSLs themselves are- should have this understanding, or is it still at the stage right now across the industry where it's more at the more senior strategic thought, thought leadership? Yeah.

I don't know that I can speak for the industry right now- Yeah because I'm still speaking with a lot of contacts across industry. But I would say at my company, down to the MSLs, they are using AI in the field, and they are following compliance and legal and regulatory guardrails, and they are not necessarily expected to use it, but it is coming soon. Yeah. So everybody is expected to have a point of view and be able to interact safely and knowledgeably with basic AI an in-house LLM model.

Interesting. Sorry, that's like ATM machine, an in-house LLM. Yeah. No it's fantastic.

So then when you think about some of the standard events that that learning and development might do, like a nat- a national meeting- Are those currently being done differently than they were, or do you see them being done differently, or even the pull through post- post-event happening differently than it would've in this pre-AI world? I think we're in the midst of changing that. Currently, I don't think we have any plans to change that with regards to AI, either pre-work or pull through after the meeting.

But I could see that happening. Maybe you do an AI role play or you have a quick chat with an AI agent- and speak about the topic or topics that you have a workshop for that you're doing the prep for, and then you use the feedback from that. It's almost like a, a pre-learning survey or a needs assessment, and then you use that during the workshop, and then you might have pull through. We're not currently doing that, but I could see that happening in the next year or two.

Yeah. I guess the other question I have for people in learning and development is do you think there's an oppor- it's fundamental to the success of a company, right? How their employees perform and are upskilling and continuing. Do you see it as an opportunity for L&D to become even more strategically important?

Because what I'm seeing, anyway, is that sometimes AI is like everybody knows it's a thing, but nobody... Is IT? Is it operations? Is it L&D?

It's not super clear who is meant to be ultimately responsible for this. So do you think that there's an opportunity for L&D to raise their hand and be, like, we're the people that are gonna take this forward and make themselves more important to the company? A long question. It's a good question.

We're gonna start in about two minutes. Okay. Thank you. I would say that it's not necessarily a situation in which L&D can make themselves more important.

I think people need to realize the strategic partnership with which they can engage with L&D. So maybe that's another- Yeah jargony way of saying- Yeah, what do you mean? the same thing. But I would say in order to roll out change management with new software, you need to partner with L&D.

Yes. And it's not that L&D is necessarily setting the AI governance or regulation from the company or from the country or region- Sure depending on where your company is located, but L&D can help communicate those topics and pull them through. And solve that bottleneck of human adoption. Yeah.

But I feel like I have more to say- You want more, Sarah? but I can't quite put words to it. It's a good question. It's kind of a thinker.

It is a little bit of an unfair thing to spring on somebody- I pulled out of the hallway 30 seconds ago. So- We're good thank you for joining me, Sarah. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

All right. Good morning. You are? I'm Brian McCann.

Nice to meet you. Nice- Doing this over a coffee. Coffee. Cheers.

Here. What is your role, Brian? So I am, I work for Regeneron. I'm part of the d- Dupixent Market Access Training team.

Okay. Excellent. So part of the Mar- Market Access Training team, and what's your specific focus? Yeah.

Good- good question. So there's two of us on the team. We share responsibilities. We take point on some.

But we work with our market access leaders. And we have deliverables that we're working on throughout the year to provide to them. Excellent. And high level, does the job, with all the tech changes in AI, et cetera, et cetera, does the job look different today than it did a year or two ago?

It looks brand new to me 'cause I've been in role for seven months- eight months. So it's- it's, I'm still learning. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And where are you seeing the impact of tech, innovation, new strategies? So you heard our leader, Commercial Training, Kevin Cutler, speak on stage- when he came on board for Regeneron, and kind of files here, there, different- different locations, how to bring, in my words Shalom to chaos. I see a platform like ACTO and Kevin's vision help- helping me organize all of my deliverables.

Yeah, I think a lot of what he was talking about was trying to combine systems from multiple systems into one system of record, right? Have a single point of truth that people know how to get to and what they're supposed to do next. Out- outside of ACTO is that a general, that consolidation, is that a general theme you're seeing in the space? So for me, what I'm seeing in the space is, I've been new to role, learning how to work with my internal customers, learning how to manage all the deliverables we work with daily.

It's gonna give me a tool to organize all of my resources and help me manage and create future training. Gotcha. Yeah. Event-based training, sustainment training, new hire training- resources for current FRNs, resources for trainers- resources for leadership.

And it'll give me a way that I can organize all those resources- and, impact everybody in the field. Int- that's awesome. And so then what else- Without, disclosing anything that you shouldn't be disclosing, like how... I'm gonna ask this question broadly.

How do you think pharma, particularly people in your space, should be looking at the, at agentic work these days and the opportunities to, move faster, move further, or change the way they're doing things? Ha, so my experience with large language models you have to trust but verify. And I think they're really great at certain things and really poor at other things. Yeah.

I think that's been a lot of pe- that's been my personal experience where it's like, this is what Parr said, our CEO, yesterday, was like, "They can be both so smart and so dumb at the same time." Yeah. And s- at my... The things that I've found work well consistently, reliably is like when you can hone the focus To a very specific repeatable set of tasks.

So for example, like I am I'm in sales, right? And one of the things that happens is people come in off the website, there's a million pharma companies out there with a million drugs, and you can't possibly know them all. So it's like I'm meeting with this person from this... I built a little bot where it's like, "I'm meeting with this person from this account, give me a one-page brief on what's likely happening."

And so the thing will go and it'll comb publicly inf- facing information. It's like they have a drug, they did this last year, it's doing this year. It combs the job boards, like they're hiring in field sales, they're not hiring in medicals. And it just gives a little bit of that pre-call research and context that I would've had to do anyway.

But by doing that and tweaking it, like the first six times, it sucked, and then eventually you got- Yeah to the point where you could... where it was good enough to be like directional and you could trust it. Just curious if you've had any other ex- any examples of where you've seen it actually working well. No.

We have, we have business rules in place, how we can and cannot use. Yeah. For me, for training, it's really not a tool that I use for training. It's more of a use to, "Hey, summarize this document," or check my inbox.

Yeah. If I use it to look at some training- it's something I still want to trust and verify what it's doing. Yeah. Yeah.

I will say I do have it do summaries, but maybe I'm just like a snob or something, but I hate the... I really don't care for the particular AI style output of writing- Yeah where it's like quietly it was doing this or like- Yeah not X period Y. Yeah. And I feel like those tells have changed.

It used to be the long em dashes that really bothered me, and now I find myself really bothered by the other stuff when I'm... I never do these videos. This is - I'm gonna keep this in. You never realize how much you gesture until you see yourself videoed from two feet away.

But anyway so let me just ask one last question. Okay. So coming out of this conference we've talked about all sorts of stuff. Are you...

do you see anything happening differently- Yeah, for me- immediately? again, just for me, just being newer to the role- Yeah and learning how to use the Acto platform, for me, the beginning part of Acto is, again, this is a tool I can use to manage, help me manage my deliverables. Yeah. It's a tool where I can store resources.

It's a tool I can use for new hire training. It's a tool I can use for sustainment training. Yeah. It's a tool I can use for a, a repository of my training for my training, our training team.

Yeah. So whenever myself and/or my coworker move on to a different role in the organization- Yeah the next person can step in. It's all organized right there for them. Perfect.

Perfect. So that's what I'm doing now. Long term, once I learn to use the platform- i'm sure there's more, much more benefit I'll get from it. Awesome.

Thank you so much, Brian. All right. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Welcome. All right, you ready? I'm ready. Good morning.

Morning. And you are? Nicole Payne. Nicole, nice to meet you.

Where do you work, Nicole? BioMarin. Awesome, and what do you do there? I am a director of global commercial learning and development.

Perfect. Perfect. So before we get into all the questions and everything, I always like to do a little icebreaker. If somebody's coming to your house, you need to throw something together, what do you make them?

I am Italian- Okay and I make a mean eggplant Parmesan. Love it. Love it. Mine is Italian, too.

I'm not Italian, but I make pasta puttanesca- Ooh just right out of the cabinet. So good. So good. All right, great.

So you're in L&D. There's a lot of stuff happening right out there, AI, tech, et cetera. How does your role look different now than it might have a year or two ago? We have been using Acto.

Okay. And we've just started to implement some role-based coaching scenarios through CX Zone. Oh, awesome. So we piloted the first two groups- Okay and we're getting some really nice feedback.

Nice. How did you decide who was gonna be involved in the pilot? We decided to go by interest first. Okay.

We figured it would be an easier nut to crack to go for those that wanted it. Yes. So that was not the sales team. Okay.

It was some other roles, like the MSL team and our patient support team. But the sales team is getting it very soon. Okay. And so what's been the feedback from the sales team?

And you can be totally honest. I decided to loop them in very early on- and let them name their geneticist, their HCP. Yes. And they came up with a really fun Dr.

Amino Acid. So I feel like even though they were resistant, they've really they're getting- they're buying into the excitement. Yeah. It's so funny, like the change management aspect of things is so challenging, where it's like almost it doesn't matter what technology.

You're- whatever you're doing, you're asking people to do things a little bit differently. And here I go with the hands again. Yeah even, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do the rest of the interview with my hands behind my back. But even, especially with something like a role play agent, sometimes they're a little bit scared about oh, am I gonna be under a microscope?

Is that, this, that, the other thing? But have you come up into that, that as resistance specifically? I have, and I come from the field. Yes.

So I wanted to play along. Yes. And even myself- Yes playing along with the scenario, the first couple goes is awkward. Yes.

But once you get into it, we've had feedback that they almost forget that it's an AI simulation. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. That's so cool.

And I feel like it's something that- To me, it's almost like it is... it does feel weird the first time you do it, but then once you do it, it almost gives you an extra little bit of confidence when you're like, "Okay I've handled this specific thing five times this morning. I'm feeling ready." Yeah.

So- Totally it, that to me is exciting. What else are you seeing as changes now in... let's say you're doing an NSM or so- or something like that. Are you doing that differently?

Do you expect in the next 12 to 18 months you're gonna be doing things differently because of AI, because of tech? I expect I will. Yeah. I'm definitely leveraging AI to help with starting training presentations.

Getting a good start to something, I think, is very helpful. So yeah, we'll see. Last year was not much AI use- Yep in the national sales meeting. Yeah.

This year I imagine it will be a different ballgame. Yeah. Or even the pull through afterwards, right? Totally.

Yeah. Yeah, it's all very exciting. So I guess the one question I have is you think of learning and development as fundamental to a company's growth, right? You're upskilling people, you're training them, they're getting better at their jobs.

Do you think there's an opportunity for L&D to take a more strategically important role in the implementation of AI? Where it's like a lot of times it falls to commercial ops. IT, maybe IT funds it, commercial ops is driving it, but the challenge really is that bottleneck of adoption and stuff. So do you think that it's a chance for L&D to get even more important than they are right now?

I would love to see that. Yeah. And, with our time being freed up more- Yes by AI, taking less time on the mundane tasks I totally believe we can focus more on strategy in the future. Yeah.

Very good. All right. Thank you so much, Nicole. All right.

Thank you. That's it. Short and sweet. Yay.

Okay, welcome. And you are? I'm Erin Giello with Accord Biopharma. Excellent.

Thank you for joining. Thanks for having me. What is your role there? I am the senior product owner and project manager in learning and development.

Perfect. Okay. So before we get started, we can do a little icebreaker. Okay.

Oh, gosh. The... I was... This was not part of the prep deck No, we didn't...

Yeah. This is, this is- Okay we're jazz riffing here. If somebody comes in, long lost cousin knocks on the door, you gotta whip something up. You have all the ingredients.

What do you make? Ooh. Long lost cousin, they might be more Italian. Yeah.

And so probably I have a very easy burst cherry tomato shrimp linguine. That sounds amazing. I would just- All right. Love.

I will see you in Breckenridge- I think it would be delicious and you can even make that for me. Yes, come to Breckenridge. I'll make you some pasta. Yeah.

Excellent. Perfect. All right. Belly's full.

So we're here in, the end of July 2026. Has been, all the news for the last two years at this point, essentially, has been AI tech. Really AI. Are you seeing that percolate through and impact the way you're doing your job differently now than you might have done a year or two ago?

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I would say that the way that I do my job, it's- Like having a little bit of a helper. Having, h- with AI.

Yeah. But then also, how do we make other people's jobs easier so that they have that sort of support as well with AI? There were, been a lot of themes this week as far as, how do we prepare sales reps or MSLs- before they go into a call- and see how we can set people up for that. So I do see that AI is everywhere.

I think right now it's hard to cut through the noise of- Totally what are people actually going to use? What are people going to enjoy using? Because a lot of what people like in their jobs, especially as salespeople and MSLs, they like talking to people. They like interacting with people.

So making sure that we preserve those interactions- but also make sure that the right facts are in the top of mind- Yes and that it's not too cluttered. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? So you said two things.

One is how you're using it, and then it sounds- how you're looking at having your field teams- Yes use it. Yeah. And are you seeing Th- the, what you had said was as a helper- for yourself, right? Which to me, it sounds like if you could- enable that for your field teams too, that would meet the needs of what you're talking about, which is like- Yes let them focus on what they're meant to be focused on with some help.

Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think at a high level that all makes sense.

And that feels like a slam dunk. I think on the reality level though, it's also breaking up information in pieces that people can absorb. Right now, focus I feel like is a high commodity. And we have to still be cognizant that people don't wanna read pages and pages- Yes before going into a call.

Yes. And that, with TikTok and social media, people's attention spans are what, 10 seconds? Sure. 20 seconds?

Yeah. So I spend a lot of time thinking how we can make information that digestible, dynamic, and hold people's attention long enough in order for information to stick in people's brains. Yeah. It was like there's that famous quote that's been attributed to a million people where it's like, "I'm sorry for the length of the letter.

If I had more time, I would've made it shorter." Yes. And- Exactly like that is a forever- Yeah problem, really. Yeah.

And I think that's... So my own use of AI from a helper standpoint, I think about it the same way, honestly, where it's like I am not looking for it to communicate for me. I feel like that is m- the most fun thing, the most- the part where I bring things to the table. But there are times, like for example, AI note taker, right?

Have... You have a million Zoom calls- and it's if you can trust it and rely on that to take the notes, to capture the action items, you can almost be more present in those calls- Yeah You're operating at the highest part of your pay grade, basically, versus trying to do that plus- Yes capture all the notes. I completely- agree. I would love to see a study on how much people would pay to just have time back.

Yeah. And so we really have to be cognizant of how people wanna spend their time, and how can we just drill down? I feel like with AI, I spend a lot of time saying, "Okay, but really, like what do I- Yes really need to know?" Yes.

Make it shorter. What do I really- Make it shorter need to know? Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. So then just to make it nuts and bolts, let's say you're doing an NSM, you're thinking about pull through, right? You're trying to avoid a situation of everybody leads, leaves all fired up- and then they do things a bit differently, and then four weeks later they're back to the old habits. Yeah.

Yes. Do you think that, and no is an okay answer, but do you think that tech has an opportunity to help with that? Or are you approaching that differently with some of the tools that might now be available? I do.

Yes. I agree, and I think learning and development does have a very specific part to play, because I think that we're the- artists- as far as transforming behaviors and transforming information- to become more palatable, to become stickier. We wanna create sticky information. So to follow up a national sales meeting, it's a great opportunity to find those little bullets that are really important that you want people to do, and- Yeah continue to explain the why, and again- make it really easy to digest.

Yeah. And fun. Yeah. It would be great...

I try to think about how we can make training entertaining and fun. I love that. It's a tall order when a lot of what we talk about is data-driven and heavy and- that sort of thing. But we try.

Yeah. That's very cool. So all right, so last question I've been asking everybody. Okay.

We're at this tren- moment, I guess maybe we'll always be at a moment of change, right? Yeah. But we certainly at one now. Yeah.

And a lot of times with AI, CommOps is driving the strategy- IT is owning the budget, but it it will all fail if people don't adopt it, right? That is- Yeah that, the adoption challenge is real, and the bottleneck is real. So do you think there's an opportunity for L&D, not that they're not already seen as a strategic partner, but to even raise their visibility and grab a seat at the table and be true, strategic drivers of these companies? Yeah, absolutely.

I think that's where the, the artistry comes from. Comes back into play of okay, how do we- add that character to it? How do we make it more fun and dynamic? And also it's a value proposition of okay, here's one way to do things, but if you adapt this change, here's the benefit.

And there really should be very clear benefits to new AI and things like that, which again, comes back to time typically, or efficacy, the ability to close more sales, things like that. We're constantly thinking of "Okay, what are we doing to drive more sales performance?" Because at the end of the day, that's what leadership, that's what- the people who, the finance teams, like that's what they really- That's the so what of it are looking for- are the results. And so I feel like L&D tends to be the, the drivers in between- connecting all of those dots.

Which is a really fun place to be. Absolutely. Fun, fun place to play. Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah. It is a very fun group. I will say, when I...

So I'm relatively new to ACTO, but when I was talking with former colleague who had worked with L&D people I'd been talking to commercial people, medical people, clinical. And not that they're not all great, they are, but he's like, "You're gonna love the learning and development- Yeah world." Yeah. It was like everybody I talk to is like, "Oh, I used to work at Second City.

I'm an ex-actor. I'm..." They're so creative, and what you're talking about, making it entertaining, right? It's a very different and creative challenge to make this stuff palatable, and it helps with adherence if people like it and they see the results.

Welcome, Chris. How are you? Thanks, John. I'm good.

And you, your full name and title and who you're working for? Sure. My name is Chris Richards, and I lead the commercial learning and development team at Nuvasion Bio. Wonderful.

Wonderful. So we'll get started with our icebreaker. A long-lost cousin shows up at your doorstep. They're hungry.

What are you making? What can you whip up without even thinking and feed them? Honestly, even though I love to be in the kitchen, if it's a long-lost cousin- Yeah that means I haven't chatted very much. Yeah.

And I wanna spend time with them, so I'm gonna say, "What's your favorite food?" And then we're gonna go out. That's a very thoughtful answer. And that way I can be focused on them- and not on not cutting my finger off.

That's, oh, that's a very good learning and development answer, too, because you have to be focused- on the needs of another party- maybe that- For much of your day maybe that means I'm in the right job. That's good. That's good. So what have you seen, there's so much talk about AI, about tech changing over the last year or so.

Are you, in your day-to-day, doing things differently than you would've, say, this time last year or this time two years ago? Yes. Okay. I'm definitely doing things differently.

From a big picture standpoint, we're engaged with you at Acto in a pilot on CX Zone and looking at some other potential longer term opportunities. Yeah. And really from my day-to-day standpoint the organization has given some of us access to Claude or to ChatGPT- to figure out how to use that in our workday. Yeah.

So little things like, "Hey, I'm not sure that this email sounds very good. Can you offer suggestions to make it better?" Or and I'm trying to figure out how to build skills within Claude to help me think through strategies. So- So yeah go ahead.

I'm doing some things. Can I ask on the pilot standpoint, 'cause that really is- Yeah the way that things naturally roll out is we have an idea, we want to test, adjust, learn before we implement. How are you determining who's involved in the pilot and who you're pulling into a pilot first for something like this? Great question.

So for us it's easy because we have built in what we call our FAST team. Field Area Sales Trainers. Okay. So we have one individual that is from each of our six regions across the country.

Yes. And they serve as our liaison- Yes between, learning and development and then the field. And so our intention is to pull them in on the pilot- pull in one or two regional business directors- Perfect That can then go through the simulations and give us feedback. And- is, A, is this something that you found useful?

If it was, then how can we make it better? Is it worth going to the whole team, the broader team? If it wasn't useful, why wasn't it? Is it something that we can tweak or make better?

Or not something that this particular team thinks- is gonna move the needle? That's and so and it sounds like you're thinking about the implementation and the adoption from the beginning because it, like you're, I'm assuming you're picking trusted people that their opinion matters to the field, right? So if you go behind it and it's this person or that person, it's almost vouching for it, right? I've been through this and I think it's useful.

We've made our tweaks, assuming there- there's nothing fundamentally- unworkable- with this solution, and you go to, to adopt it. One idea, just to throw this out there, somebody mentioned this at a conference I was at a couple months ago, and they were saying when they do pilots, it's like the traditional thing is to, you get your A players and you bring them in, and you get... And it's like that's, those often aren't, those often aren't places where we have trouble with adoption.

It's more of like middle of the bell curve, right? Like the, the big majority. So he's, he- they're saying that they've actually started taking more of a mix of their different like decile performers in their pilots. Have you ever thought about something like that?

Actually, I have. It's really fascinating that you bring that up, John, because the way we're doing the pilot, we have access to more opportunities or more people- than just those six to eight that I referred to a minute ago. Yeah. And I've been thinking about that, and that maybe the smart thing to do- would be to pick potential naysayers.

Or people that have in the past said, "Oh, I don't wanna try that," or, I don't really think that would be very good" or- Yeah "don't waste your time, Chris, on that." Yeah. And just say, "This is only a pilot." Yeah.

And I have already told the team that if this doesn't work, if we don't feel like it's the right move for us, then we're not gonna do it, period. Full stop. There needs to be buy-in and- yeah. And so I appreciate you bringing that up.

It's a good reminder to me to not forget to find a handful of people that may not be so excited about it. 'Cause even if they say, like if you can dig down a couple layers deep where it's like if somebody's just "No, I'm not gonna use it," that's not super helpful. But if the why of that, right? What are your concerns?

And usually it comes down to either I'm scared of something- or I don't see how this is... I'm not convinced on that this is actually gonna help me. And we- I mean, you must see this all... I'm not, Let me make this in a way that isn't potentially insulting to some people, but like I've managed salespeople for a number of years.

I'm not currently managing anybody now, and it's oftentimes the successful ones that are like, "I got this." Yeah. I don't need the training," right? Yeah.

That's a different challenge than somebody who's new and green and fresh and just wants to soak up everything like a sponge. Anyway let me ask you, 'cause this is meant to be a quick hallway interview. What do you see as the opportunity for L&D specifically going forward to... Whether it's ACTO, whether it's some other thing, there's gonna be technology implementations, there's gonna be AI, and user adoption is always gonna be the challenge.

So do you see this as an opportunity for L&D to level up their importance within an organization as the final gatekeepers of that unlock to any type of big innovation that, that they're trying to do? Absolutely. It's important for us to have a seat at the table, but I believe we have to earn that seat- at the table- in, in order to become a trusted business partner. Yeah.

And one of the ways that we can do that is summits just this- Yeah where we learn from you all, the experts that are leading the field, and we also learn and form a network within our L&D community- Love that so that, we can phone a friend- if we're stuck or- Yes "Ooh, I've got this issue. Have you dealt with this?" Yes. "Do you have any thoughts about it?"

Yeah. Because we have to stay a few steps ahead- Yeah of our team. Not not in any kind of competitive way, but if we wanna lead the charge, we need to bring something to lead with- Love that and about. Yes.

And so this is an opportunity for us to do that, I believe. Perfect. Thank you so much, Chris. Okay.

Thanks for your time. I appreciate you. Okay.