‘Walking away from an amazing tech career in Silicon Valley is a scary thing’

Engineering leader Michelle Concannon describes how a career crack helped her locate her ft back in Ireland and choose on a new position with Signify Wellness.

Michelle Concannon is a tech and device learning professional with more than two a long time of experience across Ireland, Europe, the US and Asia. Soon after holding senior positions at Optum, Cisco and Avaya, she went on to participate in a international engineering and merchandise position in Microsoft’s cloud and AI organisation.

Concannon a short while ago returned to her native Galway, after pretty much a ten years residing in Silicon Valley and Dublin, to just take on a new job at Signify Wellness. She is now senior vice-president of engineering at the US health-tech company, which has set up a new base in Galway.

In this function, she will lead engineering groups in Eire and the US that are developing tech-enabled health care services. Signify Health’s system uses analytics and tech to produce price-dependent payment programmes connecting individuals and health care providers in the US.

‘As a technologist, it is a large privilege to be doing work with teams that make a authentic big difference to people’s lives’
^{– MICHELLE CONCANNON}

What are the biggest challenges going through your sector and how are you tackling them?

Fragmentation, complexity, price tag and accessibility to the US healthcare process are a number of of the greater issues dealing with the sector, as perfectly as a standard deficiency of executed benchmarks. Our groups at Signify Overall health are tackling these difficulties in a range of techniques for our community of burnt-out vendors and usually-overcome patients by connecting disparate info sets to create a longitudinal individual perspective.

We leverage that knowledge to build and integrate a portfolio of healthcare capabilities to forecast and get in advance of conditions before they are exacerbated, improving upon healthcare outcomes and decreasing the expense of the treatment.

We are setting up ordeals that allow companies and sufferers to improved navigate the healthcare system and take care of their care, making it easy and intuitive to do the appropriate factor and a lot more hard to do the incorrect point – anticipating the subsequent best action for a affected individual and guiding them to that action.

What are the essential sector prospects you are capitalising on?

Signify Health’s mission is to renovate how care is paid for and sent so that people can delight in more balanced, satisfied times at property.

Our teams are uniquely positioned to leverage the home as a key place of care deploying scalable technology-primarily based capabilities that support authentic-time administration of top quality and cost.

What set you on the road to the place you are now?

Professionally, it was a conversation with a mentor and sponsor nearly 10 many years back about what I desired my prolonged-phrase career to glimpse like. I was fortunate plenty of at that juncture to be inspired to consider a stage back and think about what I appreciated, didn’t delight in or preferred to do extra of, and I went by way of an training of creating down what my best part would search like.

That mentor also gave me some wonderful advice about the benefit of assisting and supporting other people today by way of my individual job. I feel very privileged that my new position at Signify Wellbeing involves all the aspects of what I transcribed all through that workout and our mission could not be additional aligned with encouraging other individuals. As a technologist, it is a substantial privilege to be doing the job with teams that make a actual distinction to people’s lives.

Personally, the pandemic has made available us all enormous point of view on what’s significant in life. Being close to family and mates is extra crucial to me than ever and relocating to Galway soon after 10 excellent many years of experience could not appear at a far more great time.

What is the largest danger you have ever taken?

Picking to go away a great job and crew at Cisco right after nine decades – and Silicon Valley a lot more broadly talking – in 2016 to take a yr out of my vocation and journey with my husband or wife.

Picking to wander away (having said that non permanent) from an incredible technological know-how job at an wonderful corporation in an amazing element of the globe is a frightening point to do when you’ve identified with your experienced self for so many several years. I expended the to start with a few months asking yourself if I’d at any time get rehired, frantically studying tech traits for concern of not remaining relevant!

Turns out it was also a person of the most personally and professionally fulfilling decisions I’ve at any time designed. It established me on my route again to Ireland and new career possibilities with increased life viewpoint, exposure to diverse cultures, adaptability and hunger for understanding, unlearning and relearning.

What a single perform ability do you would like you had?

Only a person? Masterful storytelling.

How do you get the very best out of your workforce?

By listening. Listening to what’s heading on for them individually as well as skillfully and getting as supportive as feasible.

Knowledge long-time period profession aims and featuring coaching specifically and indirectly to support my teams move closer to those plans or make connections that may possibly accelerate them.

Adopting a men and women-1st strategy, developing and communicating our collective function and possessing enjoyment has been the foundation for any workforce successes to date.

Have you seen a variety issue in your sector?

Indeed. Inspite of ongoing media attention and some real efforts to strengthen the predicament, there is a good deal of function however to do. For me, there is a big difference between using the services of various candidates and selling an surroundings of inclusivity in the workplace, so I personally compartmentalise the two.

I imagine fundamentally that training lies at the heart of beating bias inherent in all using the services of managers so expenditure in meaningful instruction programmes is crucial. Using the services of procedures require to have the suitable checks and balances in area to complement the training and companies require to get more involved in group-dependent programmes that are in direct aid of pipelining assorted talent from non-classic backgrounds. Hybrid doing the job arrangements and presenting additional versatility are also critical to attracting extra varied expertise.

Fostering an inclusive natural environment where by each staff feels like they certainly belong and can clearly show up as by themselves is extra onerous. This only occurs as a consequence of investment staying made in tradition, allyship education, resources and methods all over assembly etiquette as very well as standard sentiment surveys and many others. It also relies upon on how a company’s leadership is modelling that inclusivity.

How small business outcomes are realized is as significant as what is obtained and setting up actual management accountability all over that at just about every degree in an organisation is crucial.

What’s the greatest piece of vocation assistance you have ever been given?

‘You’re not the initially human being to have professional this concern!’

Google, husband or wife, collaborate, discuss up – do your exploration before setting about to fix a issue that someone else might have by now solved and be keen to aid you with. Build on what now exists or make a aware preference to go ahead with an unbiased answer acquiring done the price-reward assessment, but make investments some time in the study – it usually pays off.

What textbooks have you read through that you would suggest?

• The Brain: The Tale of You by David Eagleman – a great reminder of why we don’t all see issues the very same way!
• Dare to Direct (or something) by Brené Brown

What are the vital tools and methods that get you by way of the doing work week?

Respiration, fresh new air and snooze! Yoga, meditation and getting outdoors to work out are my get the job done (and daily life) ‘tools’ of decision to continue to keep me in stability.

With hybrid functioning arrangements, it is a lot more crucial than at any time to handle calendars in these a way that there are regular breaks built in and to model that for teams. To do otherwise inevitably results in a absence of productiveness, having said that counter-intuitive.

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