In the fourth part of our Life Science Leaders series, Proclinical Staffing Associate Director, Precision Medicine, Niama Morys, chats to Helen Yuanyuan Cao, chief operating officer and chief innovation officer at Bioscience. They discuss how to make balanced decisions as a leader and the importance of communicating a clear vision.

Before joining Bioscience, Helen was a member of the EMEA Management Team at BD Biosciences, the immunology diagnostics part of Becton Dickinson, a fortune 500 global medical technology and diagnostics company. Helen built Advanced Analytics at McKesson and was in multiple roles in bioinformatics, innovation and strategy at Qiagen before embarking her career in management consulting at Bain & Company.

For years, Helen has been a mentor of various start-ups and has been on the board of the Make-A-Wish Foundation Germany and volunteered at future.coop, a social startup in the field of sustainability.

She is a lecturer at multiple universities on the topics of innovation & leadership and is on the advisory board of the MBA program Digital Management & Marketing at the University of Nürningen-Geislingen. A proven industry leader, Helen has been named “40 under 40” by Germany’s top business magazine Capital for three years and “Rising Talent” by the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society. She was also awarded “Manager of the Year” by GenerationCEO.

Topics covered:
• The transition from management to c suite
• Communicating as a leader
• Making decisions in leadership
• Why vision unites a team
• Being willing to learn
• Advice for future leaders