There’s an old saying I’m sure you are familiar with… the cobbler’s children have no shoes. Many entrepreneurs can relate to that sentiment.
Now, after 20+ years at The NemetzGroup, guiding biopharma teams through the hard parts of commercialization — aligning on a strategy, developing the plan, building capabilities, and getting people behind it — we are doing that work on ourselves.
In mid-October, we announced that The NemetzGroup and Corval combined. Now, using our internal capability, CorLab, we can pair our advisory expertise with an experienced team to create novel software and secure AI-assisted tools. It’s a natural evolution in how we help clients reach patients, and it’s an exciting change for us. The math of 1+1 being far more than 2 is on our side.
What I Have Learned So Far
Focus on our own shoes.
In our world, every client engagement starts with clarity of purpose (a scope of work), an owner, a plan, and protected time. Internal work rarely gets any of that because client work is urgent and billable. So, we’re giving ourselves what we’d insist on for you: a charter, named owners, and milestones.
Everything takes longer than the CEO thinks it will (I am so guilty of this). We tell clients they need to balance patience and urgency when humans are involved — now, I am living this in real time. Because while we began our strategic planning effort in mid-2025, life and work meant we didn’t start the bigger implementation until a year later.
Build the leadership team and prioritize critical capabilities.
We consistently advise biopharma companies to build leadership first, then add essential capabilities. Some of those capabilities can be outsourced, but the leadership cannot.
Although I always knew a distributed leadership model was optimal so the team could problem-solve more effectively together, it takes time and resources to invest in that build. Finding the right talent and developing the internal leaders cannot be rushed.
Work remotely, but together.
We work from home offices in different time zones. That makes a change like this harder to feel through a screen.
So, we brought the entire team together in person (unfortunately, at the same time as the recent nor’easter), with colleagues traveling from 10 states and two other countries.
Miranda was so committed to making it to the meeting that she traveled 11 hours on Amtrak after her flight was canceled. Nothing replaces being in a room together, but a meeting alone doesn’t build alignment. What we do in the weeks after matters just as much.
Interpret different languages.
We now have commercialization consultants, software engineers, marketing, design, and finance colleagues in one company. Often, it sounds like we’re speaking different languages. Words like “launch,” “roadmap,” or “done” can mean very different things depending on who is speaking. Learning each other’s lingo, agreeing on a shared lexicon, and defining a shared sense of urgency takes time.
It reminds me of those familiar meetings when clinical development and commercial teams sit down to build a TPP together. Both bring essential perspectives, and yet they often define the asset opportunity differently. They need to align before they can develop something — so do we.
What I Need to Do as We Step Forward in Our New Shoes
Let go of what I built.
This is the hardest part, and isn’t meant to be self-aggrandizing. I built The NemetzGroup into a consulting practice with some of the industry’s most experienced strategists — people who speak the language of life sciences and are used to the long horizon of commercial development. We evolved as client needs changed. We built a culture that allowed professionals to do great work and still have a life.
I then built Corval as a tech startup and launched our first product during COVID. It had a proprietary commercialization roadmap ahead of its time, and its own amazing team; one that created a collaborative, iterative culture.
They are so different… yet I love both! The intellectual stimulation, the people, and what we have built and continue to build in each. I have imprinted my own values and style on both company cultures, which is a founder’s privilege.
But to serve the market we’re in now, which keeps changing, I have to let go of how I built each of them, so something new can work. That doesn’t mean losing what matters. It means trusting that the values will carry on in the people, and that the team will build this better than I could alone.
Believe.
If you’ve watched Ted Lasso, you know the sign above the locker room door. The believing isn’t the strategy. It’s what makes a team willing to run the strategy together through the long middle, when nothing looks finished.
I believe in the vision of our combined companies under The NemetzGroup umbrella. I believe in our team. I believe in our clients. And, after all these years, I believe in myself, too. How lucky am I to do this again at this stage in my career?
I can’t wait for us to show up for the companies, leaders, and industry that see the value of a nimble, experienced, tech-savvy, problem-solving team in The NemetzGroup.
To our clients: if you’d like to talk about leading a team through change like this, you know where to find us. We’re experiencing what you are experiencing, and we will share what we learn.
