Marissa Fayer | CEO of HERhealthEQ | Women’s Healthcare Accessibility, Aerospace Engineering, & Philanthropy

The Leading Difference

Marissa Fayer is a 20-plus-year medtech executive, innovator, entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. In this episode, Marissa discusses her deep passion for furthering women's healthcare, the trip to Costa Rica that changed the course of her career trajectory, and the fact that before she was recruited into healthcare, she was on track to become an aerospace engineer.

Guest links: http://www.marissafayer.com/ | https://www.herhealtheq.org/ | https://www.ggventures.co.uk/

Charity supported: Feeding America

Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at [e-mail].

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Host: Lindsey Dinneen
Editor: Tim Oliphant
Producer: Velentium

SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Episode 004 - Marissa Fayer

Lindsey Dinneen: Hi, I'm Lindsey with Velentium and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world.

Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them.

Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives.

Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives.

Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives.

Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference.

Hello and welcome to the Leading Difference Podcast. I'm your host Lindsey, and I am excited to introduce you to my guest today, Marissa Fayer. Marissa is a 20 plus MedTech executive, innovator, entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. She is the CEO and founder of nonprofit, HERhealthEQ, the CEO of DeepLook Medical, VP of Operations at Ultrasound AI, and the US Partner at Goddess Gaia Ventures. Her mission is to move innovation and the health of women forward throughout the world. Okay, obviously an amazing person. Marissa, thank you so much for joining us today.

Marissa Fayer: My pleasure, thanks so much for having me.

Lindsey Dinneen: I literally read your bio and thought, "Oh my goodness. Do you sleep?"

Marissa Fayer: Unfortunately, not very much, but it's not as a result of work probably. My brain never shuts down. There's a lot to do in women's health, so gotta keep going.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. I would love to learn a little bit about your background, how you first got intrigued in this field. Just tell me a little bit of your backstory, if you don't mind.

Marissa Fayer: Yeah, for sure. I wish I can say that it was interesting, but unfortunately it's not. I didn't really have any intentions in going into healthcare. I was luckily recruited into it straight out of university. I originally wanted to go into aerospace, but when I was graduating from BU, from the engineering school, it was a downturn in aerospace, and thankfully a healthcare company offered me an amazing position. So, I went straight into healthcare and as the saying goes, "once you go into healthcare, you never leave."

Thank God, because I realized it was my mission, my passion. And then thankfully I also joined the largest women's health company in the world and really realized that was my mission and my passion. So it was all meant to be, but my career was 15 years in corporate, working for large medical device companies, developing new products, working in operations and manufacturing, and handling a lot of mergers and acquisitions. And after 15 years, just decided to make a change and I think it was probably as a result of some burnout. And for the last nine years, I've been consulting and built a very successful consulting practice helping small to mid-size companies scale and grow and figure out their operations and their manufacturing, but especially their business strategy and what is interesting to them. And I've been very strategically focusing on companies that are affecting women and women's health.

And I've been in the women's health space really before people honestly knew what it was. And so, it was always my passion. I was always really interested in women in STEM and as a woman in STEM, that was super interesting to me. But I also realized after living abroad in Latin America that having schools wasn't the issue. It was ensuring that girls going to school was the issue, and girls weren't going to school because their mothers and their grandmothers and their aunts were not healthy. And that was a problem as an engineer that I could fix. And so, it's been quite the journey. And MedTech and healthcare-- I'm biased, I feel like it's the best industry to be in. You're doing something great, you're giving back to society. And it's also, let's be clear, lucrative, this is not a nonprofit industry. This is a lucrative industry. Lots of innovation happening, lots of exciting news happening. And so I think it's the best place to be, but you know, obviously I'm biased because it's been 23 years.

Lindsey Dinneen: Sure. Well, I think you've earned the bias, right? So you mentioned, having had a passion for women's healthcare for a very long time, and thank goodness for you because we need way more of that. Thank you for being that advocate and being on the forefront of that. I am curious-- you mentioned a couple different things playing into that passion when you were growing up. Was that something that you were aware of maybe even before college as being a need or an interest of yours?

Marissa Fayer: Yeah. I grew up in a fabulous house and a fabulous family and we were always supported in whatever we wanted to do. I went to space camp twice, like I was training to become an astronaut and an aerospace engineer. There was no limit to a girl in our family. There was no limit to anybody. And we were in a position to be lucky, and I'm very cognizant of that to be fortunate, to be able to have those opportunities. But I went to space camp twice as a kid. I studied math and science. That was my pathway even in elementary school and middle school and high school. That was my pathway. I went to engineering school. That was not incredibly common 25 years ago especially from a girl from New York. And so again I'm incredibly lucky and I know that most people don't have all of this opportunity. But I did not grow up in a society or in a family that said you can't do that. So I didn't grow up with those misconceptions. And so when I go somewhere and they're like, well, this girl can't go to school. To me, that's not acceptable because that was never acceptable to me. I mean, what kid literally goes to college still thinking they're gonna be potentially an astronaut. I mean, there's very few. I literally enrolled in aerospace engineering. And graduated with a different engineering degree, But that was the path I was pursuing. And, and it was supported the entire time and, and trust me, I've put my deposits down. I'm hopefully still going, but, but in a different capacity.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yes. That's amazing. What a story! Do you think that your interest in aerospace engineering and your, education in that field-- has that played a particular role? Has it carried over in any way to the medtech side of things?

Marissa Fayer: Listen, going down a semi nontraditional pathway, so as an engineer you're always curious, I always had that curiosity mind. So, whether you're an engineer or an astronaut or any of those, I was very curious about how things worked or how to make it better and how to make it efficient and things like that. So, that plays into all of it. There was also a societal element. I like to explore. Part of exploration is making things better and bringing things back to make things better here. So my intent with healthcare is to make things better. I think that's most everybody's intent with healthcare, at least the good people. So certainly I think it does play over. I was curious, I wanted to explore and I wanted to make things better. And so I think that played a significant role in staying in healthcare as well. And listen, I always wanted to do something for society. I thought it was gonna be through space exploration. And it turned into, it's actually through improving women's lives and health throughout the world.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. And I love that you highlight that because that, I think that's a really important thing that doesn't get talked about enough-- that it is okay to pivot and to change what you originally expected to do. Because sometimes those non-traditional pathways do, like you said, give you a different perspective and different insight than maybe somebody who has always been on that path. So, yeah, there's a lot of value to that.

Marissa Fayer: We're not in a society anymore, that you have to do the same thing for 50 years. And there's so much interconnectivity and there is so much learning that happens cross industry that is so helpful and applicable to help each other industry. So let's just take, cuz we're talking about health and health tech. The tech industry, in so many ways is ahead of the health industry. But to apply some of the tech learnings into the health industry to help accelerate health tech, that's important. So that's just like one singular example of how industries can cross over and how it's gonna benefit us in multiple ways.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yes. Absolutely. Is there a particular moment that stands out to you because it clearly confirmed that this was the right career for you or any sort of defining catalyst moment where you thought, "Yes, this is it?"

Marissa Fayer: that's a great question. When I think back to it, I think it was when I formed HERhealthEQ and realized that I could help women and women's lives very specifically using the knowledge that I gained through industry and applying it on a global perspective. And the fact that it doesn't even matter how much we scale. And while I have a grand ambition by the end of 2025 for us as an organization to impact the lives of a million women-- and we are on track to do that-- but that almost doesn't matter because it matters to the one person, the one woman that we have impacted and improved her life because it matters to her family, it matters to her. And I sometimes have to think about it.

So when I started the organization, I didn't have those lofty goals. I just wanted to do something good and wanted to help because I saw that there was a gap, and repurposing medical equipment that is completely usable and getting it to regions and doctors and clinics that need it. That is important and that saves lives. And so for me, every time we hear a story or every time, we get our impact numbers back or anytime I think about that one woman being able to go home because potentially a cancer was caught really early as opposed to it being caught at stage four where it's non-treatable, she's able to walk back into her house and do whatever she wants to do because it was caught early and it was able to be treated. Every time it happens, that's when I realize, that is probably the moment. And I guess they just keep on coming, but the first time that hit me --that was, that was the moment.

Lindsey Dinneen: That's really powerful. Thank you for sharing that. And in your role now, I know it is one of leadership, and I am curious how you would personally define leadership or what does leadership mean to you?

Marissa Fayer: I'm more of a "lead by example," and a "walk the walk," "do the do" kind of, leader. I, I trust people who I work with. And I don't think that any leader should work with people they don't trust. And listen, there's always instances where things have to be worked on. And I'm not naive, certainly, and I have plenty of my own instances that have to be worked through, but it's more-- you have to work with people and assume that they're going to do the job, and you have to assume that they want to, and they have to be incentivized to be doing that. So, I lead by example. I work hard. I meet my commitments. I do what I say and people see that. If I wasn't meeting any of my deadlines or I wasn't doing what I was saying, then everyone would understand that's acceptable. And I also have to hold people accountable to their actions as well.

So from my perspective, it's very much a lead by example mentality. And that's far more effective than the" iron rule", the very micromanage, tell me exactly every minute what you're doing. And listen, people have different ways of working as well and different needs and styles of working. And I was always one of those. And so I'm very cognizant that people have different work speeds. Listen, there has to be deadlines that are set and deadlines that are achieved and things like that. But you also have to let people work when it is the best time to get their genius. Not everybody's a morning person. Some people are evening people, some people work better on a weekend. You have to be flexible enough within the timeframe that you have to be able to work within each person's level of genius and zone of genius. Because it differs for everybody and, and also people have life. And life happens. And I think being a human is really helpful. And it's so basic, honestly, but like really just being a normal, nice human is really genuinely helpful. And I think people just need to remember that.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, great advice. And speaking of advice, what is your best piece of advice for someone interested in obtaining a leadership role within the medtech industry? And I'm specifically interested because of your focus on women and women's healthcare. What about a woman who is particularly interested but might feel daunted by that?

Marissa Fayer: Yeah, ask for it. Actually, demand it, but ask for it. Because if you don't ask, you're never gonna get it. So ask. People aren't gonna know that you want it, it's not ESP. They're not gonna read your mind. Ask them, talk to them about it. Tell people that you want a leadership position. Go after it! There is this silly misconception like, "Oh, you're gonna be seen as bossy." No. Good, good. You should be. Go after what you want. And if you are working in an organization where that is not encouraged, that's not the right organization for you. There are plenty of organizations out there that encourage that. I'm not saying do it rudely. I'm saying work with people. And it doesn't necessarily have to be your direct manager, either. Work with people in your organization and tell them what you want. You can ask their opinions, but you can also tell them what you want. You want a management's position? Ask their advice on how to get there and then follow their advice on how to get there. Because then you can go back to them and say, "Thank you for your advice. I have followed it. Now it's time for me to become this position." And there is irrefutable evidence for you to get that position.

So, just do it. Ask for it, demand it, but do the work. I come from a generation where you still have to do the work. It is not automatically given to you because you've been somewhere for two years. Do the work and earn it because, first of all you'll feel better about yourself and second of all, you'll learn more, and you'll go further in the long run, and that's more important. It's not this next tiny milestone, it's the future. So if you have done the work and you've learned, you've set yourself up for the future, but really just ask for it and ask and communicate what you're looking for because nobody is naturally-- or very few people are naturally-- just going to give something to you without you asking.

Lindsey Dinneen: I love that advice. I was smiling and nodding my head the whole time because I hundred percent agree with you. And also it is one of those things where if you don't ask, the answer is always "no". Very few times, are you just gonna be handed something, so. Brilliant. Love it. And how do you prioritize your own continued learning and growing as a leader?

Marissa Fayer: Yeah, it's a lot of listening, you know, a lot of book reading. Thank God for podcasts. I'm a podcast on the go listener, so that's great. I, I listen to a lot of people in a lot of different industries as well, cuz I think that's really important because you can learn from other industries and learn from other different styles. So generally it's listening to feedback from others. I don't necessarily take everybody's advice because advice is a dime a dozen. You have to figure out what to do with it. But I listen, hear what people are saying. I listen to also direct feedback. I listen for trends in the market and understanding what's up and coming as well, and and trying to prioritize those and hopefully trying to be ahead of the curve a little bit. But I think the key to learning regardless of what stage you're in again is just about, listening and absorbing.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. So you mentioned back at the beginning when you were telling us a little bit about your background of spending some time in Latin America and how that helped influence the way that you would eventually start your own business, and your perspective on women's healthcare and whatnot. I'm curious if you would be willing to elaborate a little bit more on that time that you had there and its impact on what you do now.

Marissa Fayer: I mean, besides the fun, the hiking, and the surfing and friends and, all that stuff, I worked very hard. I went to a country where I didn't speak the language and I had to learn it after work. It was a great learning experience. And that's the other part of like continuous learning. Like you always have to do something different. For me, Costa Rica fully shifted who I was. And it created my future. I went there with a large multinational. I was integrating an acquisition. I was integrating other acquisitions into that, company and I was talking to a friend and women were dying of breast cancer at alarming rates because the one mammography machine in that region broke down. And of course I thought that was ridiculous because I just, right before moving to Costa Rica, deployed the 3D mammography systems, and I knew the 2D systems were always coming back and they were lined up against the warehouse wall, and they were just sitting there. And so I knew that there was no reason for women to be dying because they didn't have a mammography machine. I literally had them lined up against a warehouse. Like why wouldn't we just ship one down, you know, as a donation.

So, going through that entire process and creating an entire program to give back to the countries which medical device companies are working in and other industries are working in, it shifted my mindset on how for-profits and nonprofits can work together. And it was the origin story for the beginning of HERhealthEQ. And I didn't start it originally at that time I waited until I left corporate. For years I had to formulate my thought around it. I had to build a successful consulting firm first and all of these things. But that time formed who I am right now. Between teaching you how to work and live in another country and figuring everything out yourself. And also more or less finding your life and your passion all in the same three year timeframe is pretty spectacular. So 10 years later the mammography machine is still working, it's still screening women in Costa Rica. And now that same company, Hologic, has supported a HERhealthEQ program for the screening of cervical cancer in Costa Rica. So it's come full circle 10 years later, which is incredible. That's kind of unheard of. And it's so special and spectacular. So, to say the least, Costa Rica certainly changed my life.

Lindsey Dinneen: That's an amazing story.

Marissa Fayer: You just never know. And that's the point. I didn't go to Costa Rica thinking "I wanna life change and I gotta change everything here." I went to work. I had never thought about leaving corporate. I never thought about starting a nonprofit. I never thought about becoming a consultant. I never thought about these things. These were not in my life plans. And so I think you just generally have to be open to understand and receive what the universe is like literally putting in front of your face. If the aerospace industry was not tanking in 1999, in 2000, I could be at NASA right now. I mean, who knows? But I think that being in Costa Rica, lining up those circumstances, everything that I learned put me in that position to open my eyes, to see that as an engineer in a healthcare company, in a medtech company focused on women's health. That's why it changed my life. Because I saw an opportunity, I saw it, and I acted.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. I really appreciate that perspective of being open to things that you really probably would never have expected. Like you said, you didn't go there thinking, "Oh, this will be the impetus for me to have this amazing organization one day." That wasn't the plan, but what you did do is you went with this willingness to explore, and that led you to an incredible opportunity to really help people. So I really like that piece of advice as well.

So imagine someone were to offer you a million dollars to teach a masterclass on anything you want. It does not necessarily have to be in your industry. What would you choose to teach and why?

Marissa Fayer: First of all, let's just be clear, I would put the million dollars back into charity and I wouldn't be pocketing that. I think I would love to teach. I would love to be paid a million dollars for it. But I would also like to channel that money actually to do the work, less to hear myself speak. So, putting that big caveat out there. But what I would love to teach would be how can nonprofits and for-profits partner or better partner together to, to better the world? So how can they work together to better life, better the world? And, and obviously very specifically for me, women's health. But just generally the world. Nonprofits seem to be working in this one vertical, for-profits work in this other vertical. There is now a lot of thankfully overlap. There's just not enough. And for-profits have the power to catalyze change. Nonprofits with for-profits are the way oftentimes to do that, and social enterprise-- I'm considering both of those in the mix-- but to really have them work together to change the world and better the world. That is how to mix profit and purpose. That's what I would love to teach on and also take that class.

So, any recommendations on if that class exists? I would love to be learning about that a lot more. . Cause we do it. But it's still a continuous learning journey and I think that it's something that everybody still needs to get better at. There's not any one organization, not even the largest in the world, and not even the largest nonprofits and largest corporations that are good at this. Nobody has it down, and I don't think it should be a formula. I just think it needs to be better communicated. So I would love to teach a class on that once I figure it out. That's the next edition of our podcast, I guess?

Lindsey Dinneen: Right? Okay. So brilliant. So we'll have you back on, once you have this masterclass that you can teach us, that'd be amazing.

Marissa Fayer: Yes. I might be 90, so we'll see. Let's hope not.

Lindsey Dinneen: Well, amazing. And to that point, is there a good way that for-profit organizations can partner with you and what you are doing to create some change and to help each other? Is that something that you are currently actively seeking help with? And how could an interested company do that?

Marissa Fayer: We are a thousand percent actively searching and looking to work with any type of corporation, doesn't necessarily even have to be in the medtech or the healthcare space. I mean, obviously there is a linkage there. Let's just be clear. But, we're looking for like-minded organizations to partner with them, to support our work, but also to increase their CSR, their corporate social responsibility and their ESG and their DEI and all of those things that are important as a corporation and their employee engagement, et cetera, to promote that out in the world, because it is a corporate imperative for them to do that. We wanna be part of that corporate imperative. And so anyone can go to HERhealthEQ.org or email us at [e-mail] or find me at marissafayer.com. But it is the way to move things forward.

So we are actively doing it right now, and we're seeing incredible results. We're screening 50,000 women in Costa Rica right now with a corporate partner. And that's per year. And that's as a result of three corporate partnerships. So it is the power to drastically improve lives with not a lot of money. So, yes, we're actively seeking them related to supporting women, supporting healthcare on a global scale. And, we look to partner with any type of organization. It could be the CSR department. It could be through a grant, it could be through a donation, it could be through an employee retention program. There's so many ways. It could be through even a marketing program that has been created jointly because, listen-- when we are able to do the work, those metrics and impact shared back to the companies and they're able to report and use them for their goodwill as well. And we want that, we want them to be proud of the work that they've sponsored and partnered with us for. That just amplifies us. It amplifies them and it amplifies the focus on improving women's health, which is the end goal for everything that I do and that we do. And that's how everybody can partner with us. Thank you for asking. So, yes, would love to partner with corporations however, large or small, there is no size limit. That's the other thing. Like small corporations are also incredibly applicable.

Lindsey Dinneen: Excellent. Thank you for providing all of those resources too so we can get in touch with you. All right, so what is the one thing you wish to be remembered for after you leave this world?

Marissa Fayer: That women deserve access to quality healthcare regardless of where she lives. That's it. Period. End of sentence. It is a requirement. Healthcare should be equal in access and equitable for everybody and that is currently not even close to being the state of where we are right now. And so, I'd love to be remembered after I leave this world for improving the situation and ensuring that women have better health and better access to healthcare.

Lindsey Dinneen: And then final question, what's one thing that makes you smile every time you see or think about it?

Marissa Fayer: On a personal level, obviously my niece and my nephew. Because that's, thank God, unconditional love, but I also think it's like the little things: a sunny, warm day in New York City in the middle of winter. I think given the crazy lives that we all have, I think taking tiny moments of joy are just so important, and I don't necessarily remember that every minute of every day, but I think it's worth taking just a moment every day to create joy or to appreciate joy. So I don't know what it is, it varies day by day. Some days it's a chai latte. Some days if I'm traveling in Europe, it could be a delicious croissant. Or it could just be a delightful walk. It could be anything. I guess whatever you're in the mood for to make you joyful that day.

Lindsey Dinneen: I love it.

Marissa Fayer: Yeah. Yeah, I know. It's very random, so I don't have a good, clear answer for you. So who knows?

Lindsey Dinneen: You know what, something joyful is a beautiful answer because you're right, it can vary from day to day, and all those little things add up to make you smile. That's wonderful. Well, thank you so very much for joining us, for all of your amazing advice and insights. Really enjoyed getting to know you a little bit, getting to know your organization and of course, your passion behind it and why it is so important. So I really appreciate that, and we are honored to be making a donation on your behalf as a thank you for your time today to Feeding America, which works to end hunger in the United States by partnering with food banks, food pantries, and local food programs to bring food to people facing hunger, and it also advocates for policies that create long-term solutions to hunger. So Marissa, thank you again, so very much. We wish you just continued success as you work to change lives for a better world. Thank you for being here.

Marissa Fayer: Thanks so much for having me. It was a pleasure.

Lindsey Dinneen: Great, and thank you also to our listeners for tuning in and if you are feeling as inspired as I am right now, I'd love it if you'd share this episode with a colleague or two and we will catch you next time.

The Leading Difference podcast is brought to you by Velentium.

Velentium is a contract design and manufacturing firm specializing in the development, production and post-market support of diagnostic and therapeutic active medical devices, including implantables and wearables for neuromodulation and other class three indications.

Velentium's core competencies include electrical design, mechanical design, embedded software, mobile apps, contract manufacturing, embedded cybersecurity, OT cybersecurity, systems engineering, human factors and usability, and automated test systems.

Velentium works with clients worldwide from startups seeking seed funding to established Fortune 100 companies.

Visit velentium.com to explore your next step in medical device development.