From the Bench to Program Management: Career Chat with Surina Sikka, Program Manager at Moderna

Have you ever considered a career as a program manager? Or maybe you're just curious what even a program manager does because you don't know. Today we are chatting with an amazing guest. Her name is Serena Sika and she is a program manager at Moderna. She had a really interesting career journey to get to this program management path and she's going to tell us all about that and she'll also give us some insight into what the job entails, what the day to day is like, and what the career path going forward looks like. She was also kind enough to share with us her unique path to getting a green card. And if you're on the green card trail, you definitely want to check this out because she had a really interesting experience and provides some nice actionable tips about how she did it. At the end of our live career chats, we have a Q and A with our community. We do cut those off for the podcast to protect the anonymity of our community members. But if you want to join that conversation, just jump into our free community. You can review the previous career chat recordings and you can be ready to participate in the next one with your great questions. All right, let's get to our interview with Sabrina. I know you'll enjoy this.

I'm Karina Klingman, scientist turned CEO of a talent strategy consulting firm. I've helped over 85 biotechs hire and develop thousands of amazing employees.

So I know what works and what.

Doesn'T work when it comes to landing a job and then excelling in it. I created the Biotech Career Coach Podcast to give you simple, actionable, step by step strategies to help you land your dream biotech job, then move up the career ladder. If you are exploring career paths paths looking to learn about biotech, or simply striving to be the type of person who makes an impact and gets promoted.

You'Re in the right place. First of all, thank you so much by just overwhelming request, people want to know about your career path. This is a very popular career path. People think being at the bench is great, but what's the next step and how might they evolve away from the bench? And so a lot of people think project management, program management, going in that direction. We had a lot of requests for somebody like yourself, so I'm so grateful to you. Can we start though with your early career? Before becoming a program manager, what did you how did you get your start and where did you come from?

Sure. And before I do that, I wanted to thank you also. It's a pretty great Platform and I'm happy if someone take few pointers from here and apply for more in this transitioning from bench to or out of lab to the management side. Yeah. So I started my professional career as a biochemist at a medical device company Covidian. So that was. I was looking for co ops from Northeastern and actually for my particular. So my master is in pharmaceutical sciences and drug delivery within. We were not part of the standard co op program from Northeastern. We could only do internship that I believe one we could do what like in summer typically. So I had this one year contract position which I got the offer from and I was like okay, I'm graduating in less than 6 months so how can I make this happen as a co op and then continue doing it? So I started there in biochemistry working on medical devices. So from there I just continued to be in biochemistry throughout my career, but always working on different technology. I started with medical devices. Then I went to a small company in Woburn which was doing like multiplex assay on a chip. So they had a device and we were optimizing assays for that when the antibody based assays. And then from there I moved to Immunogen where I have stayed the longest from staying at a company perspective. And then I worked on ADCs. I was working on making conjugates within drug discovery. So still on the research side and then moving from there I went to Casma which is we are working on small molecule. And there I was, I started as a biochemistry just doing the like plant based biochemical assays. But then I also learned SVR there and then I went on the other side of the drug discovery where also looking at the biophysical component and that was a pretty great learning experience. But then you start to get that like itch. And also from personal perspective we were actually thinking of having another kid early before Pandemic and it was like okay, it's going into Cambridge every day, it's a long commute and I wanted more flexibility. That's how the thought of doing something out of the lab came into my mind and to prepare for that. So Masspire has a fork biotechnology project management and actually at that time, at least if your company has less than 100 employees, that course is free. Like you're not paying for it at all. So my company was fully supportive of that. By the time that started we had gone into Pandemic. So it used to be like a six week in person session but then they had to do it virtually. It was a great course. It Gives you a whole picture of within biotechnology how the program management goes. They focus on certain sections also like typical sections within biotechnology. But it's a very great sort of intro to all things program project management. I did that and then the next step I was by that time because I had received my flexibility option because of Pandemic. We were doing all the essays CROs. I was like, my need is fulfilled. Do I do it? Do I not do it? And my manager actually was like, why don't you try it? Because I at that time I was thinking, would I lie? Not being a scientist, not doing this, what I was doing. Like the joy you get when you're working on a molecule and you see like how good it is performing. Like would I still not being like directly involved in that. So I started doing this within Kasma on a voluntary basis. We had a full time program management person at that time. So I was just supporting him at that time. That's how it started. Started. But to keep myself accountable and for the company also to take me seriously. I added that as part of my objective. So there was some like official component attached to it that I'm taking it seriously, they are taking it seriously. So that I think was a good move because then like we had a certain percentage of my time we would dedicate like I would dedicate to program management. But also depending on sometimes you're focusing more on lab, sometimes you're focusing more on depending on what it, what the needs are. So that was a great lesson to ease into it. I was not doing it full time. I was still the co lead program lead for my program. But then because depending on where you are, there are very highly transferable skills you can take when you're on bench to them. Right. So that doing it part time allowed me to do it little bit on my own pace without having this pressure of I'm now a program manager or project manager. So that's how I landed up until that time still being a scientist and the program. And then last year I made the switch to the full time role at Moderna.

Yeah. So I have a lot to dissect there. So I'm curious about that program at MassBio. So when you saw that program, did you go to your manager and propose that you take the course or how did that come about? How did you make that happen?

Yeah, so I had heard it from one of my colleagues who had done that. So she was also at Kasma, but she had done it and I think when she was doing it I had just Joined Kasma. So I didn't know about that and I didn't have interest so I didn't bother much. Things change in startup pretty quickly. So before I did that with my boss, I do like time to time with all my managers, how am I doing kind of thing. So I had done that intentionally so that I would get his direct feedback of I'm doing a great job in my whole then role. Right. That is critical. If you're going and proposing to do something else, you should be doing a pretty good job in your official role. So I got that feedback and then as part of my career development talk I talked about heinous. There is this course, someone from my company has already done it. There is no cost component to Kaasma and time wise it is with much commitment. So I had gathered all that information and I am lucky that I had a great supportive manager. So then he asked me to take it up with HR and then HR was really who I interacted with. And then we charted out okay, these are the timings. I will not be available during those timing. But it ended up being more like it was going to be in evenings anyways. But it's like you start at 4, sometimes there are meetings later. So we looked at all the logistics part and everyone agreed that yes, this works out. I think having a supportive team is critical but also researching ahead and anticipating what questions they might ask is important. So I had gathered all that information and gone there. So that was helpful.

I think that's a really critical point.

Yeah.

You didn't come to the meeting basically just saying I want to do this. It was I want to do this and here's how and here is my plan. And I think that's really important. Yeah, love that. And then you did it part time in addition to your lab work. What did that look like? I know it was pandemic. You did, you've mentioned you had some of the assays that you were doing were now not on your plate anymore. But what was that time commitment? Were you working more than full time at that point? What did that look like?

There were a few weeks. Yes. Where both the role demanded more work and also when I had moved, I started doing this. The full time person ended up leaving Casma. So then suddenly there was no one full time doing it. There were, there was, luckily for me there was another person who at that time wanted to try program management. So she ended up taking some of that. So I wasn't the only person left doing everything. So the workload was divided but there were definitely weeks when it was hard. So there are a few things which you can anticipate. Okay, next week looks crazy. This is how I can prioritize what I need to do where. But also with a startup life, there are many things unexpected which come up. You have no control over that. So you end up getting some data or you end up being in meetings where you were not planning on being third world. Definitely there were some times. So then you have to give yourself. So I had given myself that like a meeting happens, then within 24 hours I should draft up the draft meeting winners and send them to program lead for like approval. Like it looks good. So those time defining those timelines I think was helpful. But then also looking at everything which was happening that week and if it was like an ad hoc meeting, do I really need to spend the minutes when I have this critical essay? So you have to look at the prioritization. And my manager helped me a lot too. There was a time when everything was going at once, so it helped. Okay, I have all these things on my plate and where can I take a little bit backseat? But best is if you do that on your own because then you really know in detail what is happening with your projects. So yeah, there are times like that.

A little bit of a hustle time period in your life.

No going in, you are doing a full time role. On top of that you are adding something so you know that you might be spending spending more time or like for your knowledge purpose. You crawl, read up few things, you're learning few things you are setting up templates or anything. So that takes extra time. But that comes with a learning process which as scientists I think we are already pretty suited to. We already are used to that.

Definitely. Yeah, that kind of comes with the job description. So the reason I'm belaboring this point, we get a lot of folks that come into the community that want to make this shift. But the way they want to make it is that it is going to be a an immediate thing. Right. They're going to full time lab to now they want to be a full time project or program manager. Right. A complete shift. And that's really difficult to do because we're always in our job descriptions, they always want the experience. Right. And so then it's only transferable skills. So while there are a lot of transferable skills you were able to layer in actual hearts, skills that you were able then to leverage into being recruited away to Moderna. So tell us about that experience. Hey, I just want to cut in to say that if you are enjoying this podcast, you may enjoy the Building Biotechs podcast from our sister company Recruitomics Consulting, which is a talent acquisition strategy firm that specializes in helping small biotechs hire exceptional talent. In that podcast we interview amazing people who are building biotechs. They are industry leaders in all different verticals and it will allow you to explore career paths in biotech and to get to know companies that maybe you've never heard about. So if you are a biotech fan, you are exploring careers in biotech, I highly recommend the Building Biotechs podcast. We'll link that in the show notes or you can search for it on Apple Podcasts or anywhere else you get your podcasts. All right, back to our show.

Yeah, so I think having something on your resume in that particular capacity definitely helps. Because one major difference as just being a scientist to being a program manager is many times at scientists we are only looking at our essays, our studies, right? We have this laser focus with program management. You are rising above that. And it's not just one thing you're looking at, you're looking at the whole picture. Even before I started doing that on the program management side, I was co leading a program and then I was leading a program where I was still in the scientific capacity. But then I'm not looking just as at biochemistry, I'm looking at what biology group is doing and looking at what external partners are doing. So what chemistry is doing. So you are already doing that, right? In that capacity, even if you're not making Gantt charts, you are doing that. You're looking at, okay, it's not just what I'm doing, how if I'm delaying something or something is delayed or wherever our timelines land, how that affects the overall program and that is looking at the big picture is one of the critical part of being a program manager. And in some of the interviews when I was interviewing that was what they were grilling me on like how well can I look beyond what I have done as a scientist? So by doing that simultaneously wetting my feet a little bit in, that helped me to get that perspective, helped me appreciate more of why timelines matter. Even though I was at the startup. So timelines were not as critical as what they mean now working on the non clinical side at Moderna. But it still gives you that appreciation, it still gives you that insight of why this particular thing matter. Why a delay, what you think it's just a two week delay might mean some critical delay program wise. So it just Gives you that. And also on the other side, because you have worked in the lab as program manager you can appreciate you are not just giving random numbers. You appreciate when someone is telling you it's a cell based assay and it's cell and it will take time for this particular cell line to grow. You get that right. So you are actually in an advantageous position. But just showing that on your resume that yes you have done this, looking at bigger picture helps you immensely because then they're like okay, you have done something right.

Can you just in a nutshell tell us what a program manager is? What is the day to day of your job and why does it matter?

It isn't looking at the big picture, it is connecting the dots throughout all the cross functional teams your involved with within that program and then tying that up to for example in my case it's like IND is the target. If I integrate, what all will my group need to do? But then beyond what we need to do, how is that tying up to the other parts which we are not doing directly. So connecting the dots, they are looking at the big picture. A huge part of being a program manager is communicating. Whether it's communicating the risk, whether it's communicating the decisions, action items following up. So developing good relationships with your key stakeholder becomes very important because many times, many of us now are in hybrid or remote situation, we might never meet a person on a day to day basis in person. So that body language, all that will not show up in your IAMs and email, right? So taking a chance like some of my colleagues are remorse. So anytime they are on site I make it a point to meet with them to build that connection because communication and then you have to tailor your communication style Also as scientists we have one or two, I don't know communication style. But then when you're a program manager now you tailor your communication style to all the different stakeholders also whether you are communicating upwards or downwards. So that becomes a huge part of okay, this is the message I have and this is my goal, how this is what I want to communicate to this person. This person received best in this form, this person receives the message best in this form. So understanding that personality. So that's like the soft skill section. And then of course you're making timelines, you're attending meetings, you're facilitating decision making, you're setting up agenda. So if you don't know the big picture, these things you might have a little bit like you difficulty in understanding. Okay, I need to put together an agenda and Based on all the discussions so far and all the information I have from the other side, this is what should be put on there. Of course, you are still talking with your program lead. This is what should be brought up. So you are enabling them to move the program forward. Although you don't own anything, you're gonna make any decision, but you are enabling everyone to do their best and come together as a team to take the program forward.

What was the most surprising thing to you in this role? What was part of this role? You didn't know, but it really is.

Pivotal, I think just the communication, how you are sometimes saying something which in your mind makes perfect sense, but you don't know where the other person is coming from and they take it in a completely different manner. Oh no, that was not my message. I think in the very beginning that was what I saw. Little bit, okay, no, this person does not like IAMs or this person receives best if I just do a team score. So that was just like. Because in my mind I'm thinking in one way and then how they take that out. But also I really started appreciating why this connecting the big dots might remake as well. As compared to Kalma with Mortimer, timelines matter a lot more. What we are setting up and you start way ahead, right? You are not actually doing anything. You are building up your timeline. You haven't done any studies, you haven't received any data. And then making those pivots when the reality happens that we're also like practically seeing it at a much larger scale than Kasma was a little bit surprising, but then immediately made sense of what I had read in that course.

Yeah, definitely. Clinical stage programs are very expensive and there's a lot of. There's a lot riding on keeping that timeline on track. Like you said, what you think is just a two week delay, that can be very expensive. Hey friends, I just want to cut in one quick moment to tell you about a really exciting development in our community. For a long time we have housed our community in Slack, but that poses a lot of challenges. First of all, it separates everybody away from our course content and it doesn't allow us a really good platform to be able to search back through all of the great messages and threads that we've been curating. So to that end, we are moving our community into Kajabi, which has a really beautiful course platform that integrates well with the community platform. And we're going to be launching within the next few weeks an app in the App Store that is a totally branded app just for the biotech career coach community. So if you want access to all of that, please be sure that you're on our mailing list so that we can get you into that community and you can be a part of our really great journey. I've been working really hard on getting this community set up just for you. We are going to be doing monthly career chats with industry experts. We're going to be doing other live events. We're going to have exclusive Q and A sessions. It is something you definitely want to be a part of if you are a biotech professional. Whether you're on the job market or you're climbing the career ladder, I am really excited to help you out at any stage and to provide a really great place for you to connect with other peers. So be sure to be on the mailing list because we are adding everybody on the mailing list to this new community next week. I can't wait to see you in there. Now. Let's get back to the show. Love that. Okay, so I am really curious. You have, if you don't mind speaking to it, you have a really interesting journey to getting your green card. So I'm curious if you would share that. I know a lot of people are going through the process right now.

Yeah, sure. So I don't have a PhD. I have a master's. So from the beginning we keep hearing because you don't have a PhD, you are not eligible for the EB1 category, which is where you are usually. We don't like usually for the EB2 category where most of the master's people land, they have a long wait time if they come from India and China specifically. Right. You have your application will go in, but then you're waiting years and years before you are eligible to get your visa or like. So I had of course done that part by filing in EB2 category back when I was an immunogen. And then I was like, okay, we just wait, right? There's nothing else you can do. But then it's also every time you switch jobs you have to switch visa. You have to wait for that a certain part of the process to be completed before you can join your new employer. And it becomes extra difficult when they're like times like these, when hiring is difficult. Then companies also don't want to go through the extra step. Many times not all companies, but you have even fewer chances right. Of opportunities available to you. So then when I came to Kasma, someone who was from academics, so they have like Lots of publications usually as compared to people who have only worked in industry. And they were like, why don't you go for EB1? I was like, but I don't have a question. Like, but why are you deciding that? Like talk to lawyers, look at your. They will look at your profile. It seems like you have something concrete here. And I did not believe that at all. But then I sat down, read little bit on okay, what actually entails filing an EB1 application. And I'm like, okay, maybe it looked like I actually qualify. Because it's like they have six conditions and you have to meet at least two of them. Okay, looks like I qualified for at least five years. And then I talked with my HR and again here, the company you're working for really matter. Because I now know of many people who has PhDs but their companies still refuse to do EB1 because if I could go the other way. So one option was I could just independently hire a lawyer. So that is EB1A. I could file him back. But then also if your employer is filing it, that's like a plus point that your employer is like backing you. Right? So I wanted to try that for so because it's a huge money commitment also. So I talked with hr. I explained the benefits for me as well as for them. Like you don't have to file my green card, my H1 and the three years. And you don't have to like whenever I go to India because in the past I have been stuck because I'm in research. So sometimes I put you in this background check and then it's this indefinite timing. You don't know how long you're stuck there. But let's say you. Then I go to India, you're not worried that projects are delayed, but like showing them the benefit for me as well as for them. So then they agreed to it on the condition just to from money perspective that I will do all the paperwork which lawyer asked me. So I will essentially build my whole profile for that filing. And then lawyers would look at it and if they think based on their experience there is a 50% or greater chance of the application being approved, then they will go ahead with filing. And there's a lot of legwork you have to do. You have to get all these letter of recommendations from people you don't know directly. You have not worked with them. But it was a huge thing. It took me some time to do that. When I was making this, I was going through all my work at Immunogen and Then looking where those projects have landed. Like one project had auction destination, one was on expedited from ftm. Ooh, looks like I have some pretty impressive work. So I think that is one thing. If people are not doing that do that right. We just do and move on to the next thing. I'm like, okay, I don't know about the visa officers. If I read that I will approve my books because the category of like extraordinary ability as the researcher. So then they were like no, we absolutely confident that this will go through. So from that point on it became very easy. I would say somehow the timing were even shorter for approval at that time. So we only got one inquiry that was also on that. Something finance related for company. Nothing on my own profile. So lawyer said that's very encouraging. They didn't have any questions on your profile and it was approved pretty quickly. And from there I think it, I don't know, three or four months after that to get my green card. So that made. Because I had the green card now when switching to the program management side. When time came to that, I didn't have to think about that. Although there are many people who have done that because yes, if you stay within the research side, for example, if you have been assigned to some research side and you become a project manager or program manager within the research side, you can still show the connection. Some of the people I know have already done that because you're still connected to the sign. Like you have to tailor the job description in that way. But you can make the switch especially if you have something formal. Like many people are also pursuing MBA or some other form of some formal education on the management side. So it can be done. But for me, just because I had that available, I didn't have to think about that point.

Yeah, for people who are, are wondering what that means when you're on an H1B, it's. It's tied to employment obviously, but it also is tied to the function that you're in. And what she's saying is sometimes when you switch to another function, the company has to make a really strong case that you're still within the function your H1B was originally issued for, which is a pain. I've had to make those arguments many times. That is a really cool story and I just want people to hear that there's more ways to get there potentially than they know. I also love your point about looking back at your past body of work and not forgetting what you did. We talk a lot even just in the job seeking Piece of it. When you want to put your resume together, you want to have really impactful bullet points on your resume. And if you look back at your projects and see. Oh that one actually. Yeah, that one was. They filed an IND last year. That's really neat. I was part of that. You can pull that in because you were part of it. Even if you're no longer at that company, you still contributed. So I want people to hear that too. That's so impactful.

Yeah, no, that's a very great bond. Which again, while making my resume in earlier phases of my career, I wouldn't do that. But I'm like, okay, no, I should go back and I know this, you know, I need to add that as the impact I made.

A hundred percent. I love it. I love it. Thank you for sharing that. I think that's really cool. We have 20 minutes left. I'm going to ask you one or two more questions but then I want to open it up to folks in the audience. I'm sure they're going to have some questions for you too. If you have a question, go ahead and pop it into the chat and then we'll go in order from the chat. So while I'm asking the rest of my questions, you can be queuing up your questions in chat. Okay. I'm really curious about your the switch to Moderna. I know I've asked you a lot of questions here but going from a preclinical to a clinical stage company, we talked about the timelines, we talked about the budget. What else is different in a clinical stage biotech?

Yeah. So one thing, I'm not on the clinical side. I'm still on the re RN side because I had this opportunity also like to go on the CMC side. While I was interviewing. I did get an offer to go on the CMC side but then I looked at okay. All my experience has been in early research. That is what I understand. Going from that early research to now pre clinical or non clinical development, transition wise in the drug discovery setting, that is the next step. Right. So I was like, okay, I will. There will be lots of things which I can bring from my experience but also lots of new stuff. Like I didn't know in detail about what entailed in an int filing. I didn't know much about doc studies, DNPK studies. So all that was new to me. But the way I was looking at is that I should be able to bring something from my experience. At the same time I should have enough to learn. Yes, I had Lots to learn from program management perspective. But entering a new field you're looking at where you can just directly start your work. So versus if I was in the CMC setting, I might have been completely clueless for the first few months because everything would have been new to me. That was intentional of just moving in a progression but not doing something completely new in terms of understanding the science. So that was intentional but also as I mentioned like new things were like I didn't. Now I know, but it took me some time. Like I went through study protocol just for my own understanding. I didn't need to, but it was like, okay, that is what you normally do in a talk study. This is what normally happens in a DMPK study. So you're understanding that. So now I can, while I'm making those timelines, while I'm putting together something, I can ask the right questions to my stakeholders. Hey, when do you think we are going to get that? Or are you going to need this to do that? If I don't know anything about that, I cannot ask those questions. So then those checks and balances remain in good order. It's not just now the responsibility of the functional aid. I am also reminding them they might have forgotten a few things because they're working on multiple things. Hey, we need this for that or are we doing this for that? So that helps them in their job of that something I can help me like something. If we are coming from a completely non bio background, you're just sitting there. What is dmpk? I knew that.

That's really insightful too. You came from Northeastern, which honestly of all the schools I feel like sets people up really well to transition into biotech. But I can say that graduating from a very traditional PhD program had no idea how drugs were made. Like less than no idea. I knew my little corner of research and it's. Yeah the learning curve is a lot when you move into a new area. But like you said, we love to do that, we love to learn. So what is next for you do you think? What's your dream as you progress in your career?

Now I don't consider myself as a newbie. I. I consider myself as a program manager with quite a decent experience. Even though not in terms of years, but the way we are doing things that modern night, it just. You are doing a lot in a very short time. So now it's just working through this. I do want to understand a little bit more. Like I want to take a program through the whole cycle of development until like my Group is responsible for. Hopefully I will get to do that this year. So I want to do that whole. I want to finish that whole cycle and then I am talking like going to talk with my manager also like how we can progress next. One thing is like just vertically you go up program manager, senior, all that ad director. Other thing is there are other avenue within the program management. You can do alliance management, you can go towards portfolio management. So that is something. So I had a mentor last year and we are again going to start. We are going to launch fifth year's mentorship program within Varana. So I'm at this stage I'm gathering that information of okay, this is what they do in their job. What I did earlier, little bit wetting my feet. But practically I'm not doing anything there right now to give because at one point alliance management seemed very attractive to me and I did want to go into that because at Kaasma we were working with a potential deal with a big pharma. That would have become a natural step for me because I was working with that on that program. Now I'm not like no at this stage. So I'm more interested in portfolio management at this point because we are doing some work just looking even more from this level at the whole portfolio it seems very interesting. There are components to it which I don't understand yet. Like budgeting at that level, resource management. So that is something which I I'm planning to gain from this year's mentorship experience. So I like to jump into things. But the little breath. So this is my prep year and then I'll decide which direction I want to. I am leaning more towards.

That makes a lot of sense, just really high level. Can you tell people what those two tracks would be like? What is an alliance manager? What is a portfolio manager?

Yes. So alliance management is usually you. The company you're working with has partnerships, collaboration with external people, external companies. So then you're not just managing internally, you have these collaborative team meetings. Then you're also looking at okay, this remains confidential here, this gets shared. Then you're also working with two companies. So there are a little bit more complication to or there can be a little bit extra complications to that just because two different groups are coming together and personally post pandemic it has reduced a little bit but it might entail more travel and that is the only part right now because my kids are very young I'm not looking to traveling every other week to align wherever they are. Collaboration could be that has changed post Pandemic, but it's still there. And on the portfolio side, you are looking at strategically, like operations wise, you're looking at, okay, these are the programs, what each stage the program is at, what you can manage budget wise, where are the priorities as far as company's objectives lie, where you need to make the payway. So you're not looking at two or three programs. You're looking at everything. And you're looking at literally each and every function of the company of every program. So that's how much I understand so far. They're looking at budgeting, you're looking at resourcing. A new program is entering the pipeline, how you're going to resource that, how you're going to budget for that. And you're essentially gathering all the updates for each program and then making decisions. Okay, next quarter, what gets a priority, what gets departed.

Yeah, those are really good explanations. That was perfect. I would say for folks considering these career paths, a big distinction is that portfolio managers typically come up through the program management track. You don't get to be a portfolio manager, but haven't managed programs. That's really key because like you said, now you're managing a fleet of them. You have this bird's eye of all these different programs. There's an interesting career path that we see occasionally with companies that have a lot of academic partnerships for an alliance manager that is more straight out of academia because they really understand the academic partners. It's rare.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, it's rare. But we do see occasionally when especially earlier stage companies have a lot of academic collaborations or they're managing the basic research is coming out of labs. That's a really good entry point into program management for an academic. It's. But those jobs are really hard to get. They're coveted, so. But just food for thought for anyone listening and thinking, oh, these sound really interesting. They're all worth exploring. This was amazing. Thank you so much.

All right, thank you, everyone.

All right, that was our amazing interview with Serena. She is a program manager at Moderna and it was so great to have her come into the community and talk to us all about her experience. And I did cut off the Q and A that we had at the end. If you want to be in on the Q and A, you need to join the community so that you can be there live. You can ask your questions of our amazing guests and you can get your hands on all the replays of these career development chats. All of these career chats live in our community. So that you can review them at any point. Be sure to join us. It's totally free, it's totally painless, and you might even learn something. Thanks everyone and bye for now. Thanks so much for listening to the.

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