Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Deborah Di Sanzo, President of Best Buy Health.
Deborah grew up in technology. Decades of technology, healthcare, business, executive leadership. She understood the potential of technology when she watched her systems at work in the surgery theater. She is a professor who teaches AI at Harvard. She knows how complicated all of the connected systems can be. What excites Deborah? Taking all of the complex and making it easy and simple. Bringing technology to the home, connected to other systems, bringing the human back to care. Deborah describes the great progress at Best Buy Health which is only the beginning.
In this Inspiring Women episode, we talk about the future of care delivery at home – except that future is today. And then we delve into aging. Deborah has so many ideas for how AI – which never gets tired and is empathetic – can be that helpful bot for the aging.
As she looks to the future, Deborah sees great promise. What is required? Spoiler alert: Being Bold. Being very, very bold.
About Deborah Di Sanzo:
Deborah Di Sanzo is president of Best Buy Health for Best Buy Co. Inc. She is responsible for the company’s health technology business.
Best Buy Health enables care at home for everyone across the continuum of care based on Best Buy’s core competencies. Integrated technology, personalized caring centers and technical services, logistics, supply chain, and omnichannel experiences create the plumbing which enable consumers to develop meaningful connections with their caregivers, insurers, and clinicians. Her business includes Lively!, the brand of connected health and personal emergency response services to the aging population, which Best Buy acquired in 2018 as well as Current Health, a leading care at home technology platform which Best Buy acquired in 2021.
Deborah is an innovative leader with more than 30 years' experience at the intersection of health care and technology. Prior to Best Buy, Deborah was the General Manager of IBM Watson Health, ad prior to IBM, she was the CEO of Philips Healthcare.
She teaches AI in Health and Managing Information in Health Care at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. Deborah holds a bachelor of science degree from Merrimack College and an MBA from Babson College. She is a Harvard University Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow and serves on the board of AstraZeneca.
[00:00:00] It is everywhere, but you know exactly how important deep and all the intricacies that go on with AI. Optimistic, hype cycle, is it really here? What's your view?
[00:00:15] We're definitely in a hype cycle, without doubt. What Chat did was really brilliant because the technology, the transformer technology that Chat was originally built on has been around since 2017.
[00:00:27] Right? So it's a while. But what Chat did is it took it and it made a large language model that was available to the public.
[00:00:38] So then where there might have been only a small group of people before who understood what the trajectory of AI was, now all of a sudden everybody has downloaded Chat and they're using it and they're making pictures.
[00:00:51] And so you get the wow factor. This is absolutely driving a hype cycle. Now look, AI has been helping in healthcare for decades.
[00:01:03] It has been helping in patient monitoring algorithms. It has been helping in reading images. It helped in automatic external defibrillators. It's been helping for years.
[00:01:13] It will continue to help. And having said that, it is really hard. So I think we have to think of whatever we're making, whether it be a vital sign or an AI algorithm, who is it going to help? Is it going to help drive down the cost of care?
[00:01:34] This is inspiring women. And this morning I am speaking with Deborah DeSanzo and she is the president of Best Buy health.
[00:01:46] And who knew that Best Buy would become the powerhouse that it is currently in the space of health delivering care at home.
[00:01:56] Deborah, I was just reading about the 34,000 people that you are actually helping at home, but thank you for being on Inspiring Women.
[00:02:07] Lori, thanks for having me. I'm so, so glad to be here.
[00:02:11] Well, I am so excited to be talking to you. So I know that you are not where I am, which is in Las Vegas at the health conference, which is all about digital health.
[00:02:21] And I'm very excited to understand what Best Buy health is doing and what you are leading there.
[00:02:28] Before we get into any of that, Deborah, tell us a little bit about you.
[00:02:32] First of all, you've been at Best Buy as leader, the president at the helm there for the past four plus years.
[00:02:39] But give us a little of the bio sketch.
[00:02:41] Well, I've been in health technology for well over 30 years, and it's always been in the intersection between health and technology.
[00:02:51] Sometimes it's been more informatics, AI driven.
[00:02:56] Sometimes it's been more device monitoring, vital signs driven.
[00:03:01] But I've been doing this for quite some time.
[00:03:04] And four from Hewlett-Packard to Agilent to Philips to IBM and now Best Buy.
[00:03:11] IBM Watson.
[00:03:12] And so that was such a big sort of like foray into the world of AI before it's become all the buzz that it absolutely is today.
[00:03:21] And you're also a professor.
[00:03:23] You speak and have been teaching for several years on AI at the Harvard Public School of Health.
[00:03:31] So, you know, Deborah, I'm curious just in terms of like that trajectory, you know, in particular, like, you know, for the world we're in today where AI is all the buzz,
[00:03:43] which of those experiences from before have been the most impactful to what you're doing and leading today?
[00:03:52] You know, I actually did my first AI project in 1989.
[00:03:58] And that's how I got into healthcare.
[00:04:00] So I think I'm going to say that was the most impactful because that's what got me into healthcare.
[00:04:06] I was working for technology companies and I was working for startups.
[00:04:10] And, you know, sometimes startups don't make it.
[00:04:12] I was at a few that did not make it.
[00:04:14] Then I was at a company, it's a very old company, it was called Apollo Computer.
[00:04:20] They made engineering workstations.
[00:04:22] I remember Apollo Computer.
[00:04:25] So we were going to come out with a new workstation and I was the head of product for it.
[00:04:30] But it was a workstation that wasn't, was going to be smaller, less power,
[00:04:37] wasn't going to be able to handle the big aerospace technologies that we had done before.
[00:04:43] So we needed a new use model for it.
[00:04:45] Someone introduced me to Dr. Bob Scalbasi at the University of Pittsburgh.
[00:04:50] It was University of Pittsburgh then.
[00:04:52] They had seven hospitals.
[00:04:53] And at that time they did more neurosurgeries than anyone.
[00:04:57] Bob Scalbasi was the head of neurophysiology and he had a problem.
[00:05:00] He had 12 neurophysiologists and there'd be 25 neuro operations going on at every time.
[00:05:08] This is a problem we know really well today.
[00:05:10] And his neurophysiologists needed to consult in every single operation.
[00:05:17] So we did a first in kind telehealth application for them.
[00:05:22] We took 200 workstations, put them across seven hospitals of Pittsburgh,
[00:05:28] in the operating theaters, in the hallways, in the neurophysiologists offices.
[00:05:34] And we hooked them up to that time Hewlett-Packard patient monitors.
[00:05:39] We did two AI algorithms.
[00:05:41] One was an evoke potential machine learning algorithm to alert a surgeon if he was going
[00:05:48] to cut something that would harm the patient.
[00:05:52] And the second was, we did 3D reconstruction of CT images.
[00:05:58] Now, everything worked very slowly.
[00:06:01] But the Apollo workstations way back then had really good networking, really good imaging,
[00:06:07] and it worked.
[00:06:08] So to cut to the chase, the most impactful thing, they invited me to the first operation
[00:06:18] that they were going to use the technology.
[00:06:20] It was going to be a 12-hour brain surgery.
[00:06:23] And I was a technologist, right?
[00:06:27] I was the product person on this.
[00:06:30] And I was thinking to myself, oh my gosh, I can't say no.
[00:06:34] That would be insulting.
[00:06:36] But am I going to throw up?
[00:06:40] But for 12 hours, I sat there.
[00:06:43] I was completely enthralled.
[00:06:46] And what I saw was the technology was helping everyone in that operating theater.
[00:06:51] It was helping the surgeon.
[00:06:53] It was helping the anesthesiologist.
[00:06:55] It was helping the nurses.
[00:06:57] And most importantly, it was helping the team that we originally designed it for, the neurophysiologist.
[00:07:03] I said to myself, at that moment, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life.
[00:07:08] And I have.
[00:07:09] And I have.
[00:07:10] So I think that was the most impactful thing.
[00:07:14] Well, that is amazing.
[00:07:15] And I mean, if you think about sort of like the operating theaters within the operating room theaters within a hospital today, they are at that time.
[00:07:27] I have to imagine that was unbelievable breakthrough technology.
[00:07:31] Today, there is so much technology in the hospital.
[00:07:35] And it has become far more complicated that with those complications come all kinds of quality issues, handoff issues, communication issues.
[00:07:45] So I think it's quite interesting that at Best Buy Health, you've taken something and you've made things much simpler.
[00:07:53] You're taking it outside of the hospital and you're bringing it to the home.
[00:07:58] And who knew Best Buy?
[00:07:59] I mean, we think about Best Buy.
[00:08:01] I mean, I think I bought a TV at Best Buy.
[00:08:03] I think of the blue shirts.
[00:08:04] But this is health and care.
[00:08:06] And you're making it quite simple.
[00:08:08] So tell us a little bit about Best Buy Health.
[00:08:10] Thanks so much.
[00:08:11] So actually, in the summer of 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, my colleague, his name is David Kenny.
[00:08:19] He's now the chair of Best Buy, interestingly.
[00:08:22] But he ran Watson at IBM.
[00:08:24] Well, I ran Watson Health.
[00:08:26] And we became very good friends.
[00:08:27] And he called me in the middle of a pandemic and he said, would you consider coming to Best Buy and running Best Buy Health?
[00:08:33] And I said, no, absolutely not.
[00:08:36] What is Best Buy doing in health anyhow?
[00:08:38] But that's not entirely true.
[00:08:41] And I came because our CEO, Corey Berry, is just phenomenal.
[00:08:45] And she has this great vision for Best Buy.
[00:08:47] And she had a vision for health, which she convinced me that Best Buy was going to go into health.
[00:08:53] It was going to stay in health.
[00:08:54] And we were going to make an impactful difference.
[00:08:56] And we are.
[00:08:57] So what is it?
[00:08:58] So you bought a TV.
[00:08:59] I hope you buy many things.
[00:09:01] Go buy your Aura ring or your Samsung ring.
[00:09:03] Go buy your wearable.
[00:09:04] Go buy your phones at Best Buy.
[00:09:06] But Best Buy has been helping people with technology in their homes forever, right?
[00:09:12] That's what Best Buy does.
[00:09:14] We take technology into the home.
[00:09:16] We have Geek Squad.
[00:09:18] Geek Squad sets it up in home services, makes sure it works, connects it.
[00:09:22] And that's what we do.
[00:09:23] So we're in the middle of the pandemic.
[00:09:27] Physicians and nurses are at their hospitals outside in tents, putting together remote patient
[00:09:33] monitoring equipment, taking them out of the packages, putting the batteries and doing
[00:09:39] new instructions for use, and teaching the patients and their caregivers how to make this all work.
[00:09:47] And I remember Dr. Rasu Shrestha at Atrium, now Advocate Health, said to me, Debra, I think that you can help us do this better.
[00:09:55] Well, of course we can, because this is what Best Buy does.
[00:09:58] So what Best Buy is today is we enable, enable care at home for everyone.
[00:10:04] We have a big red line.
[00:10:05] We do not deliver care.
[00:10:07] We're a consumer electronics retailer.
[00:10:09] We have no business delivering care, right?
[00:10:11] But what we can help with is the technology, the platform, the logistics, and omni-channel experiences
[00:10:20] that care at home needs.
[00:10:22] Now, why is this so important?
[00:10:24] You mentioned the 34,000 patients that have gone through our system.
[00:10:28] And what we, and that paper is very interesting.
[00:10:32] What we found was that monitoring in the home is different than monitoring in the hospital.
[00:10:38] You can imagine that a patient in the hospital is most of the time confined to the bed.
[00:10:45] The reason why patients like hospital at home, transitional care in the home, aging independently
[00:10:54] in their home is because they get to be in their home.
[00:10:56] So they're moving around.
[00:10:58] And so all the algorithms that work in the hospital don't necessarily work in the home.
[00:11:04] So we don't make the vital signs except for fall detection in our phones, our personal emergency
[00:11:09] response.
[00:11:10] But we curate the best.
[00:11:11] We curate the best that are there.
[00:11:14] We integrate them into our home hub.
[00:11:17] We connect that to the electronic health record.
[00:11:19] Most of our customers are Epic users.
[00:11:22] So we connect right into Epic.
[00:11:24] Epic, we, we, we, we, all we want to do is simplify the hospital at home, the chronic disease
[00:11:31] management and clinical trials in the home too, to make it easy for the patient, the caregivers
[00:11:37] and their clinicians to connect with them.
[00:11:40] And I think we found something.
[00:11:42] Laura, I want to tell you, it's hard.
[00:11:46] Enabling care at home is hard.
[00:11:48] The logistics are hard, but we're, we're working really hard with our development partners.
[00:11:55] And we hear from patients who are making a difference.
[00:11:57] So it's very, very gratifying.
[00:11:59] Well, I tell you, so, so it is, it's not a big leap to understand how logistically complicated
[00:12:06] this all is.
[00:12:07] But the idea of making it easy, um, is so incredibly compelling.
[00:12:13] And look, I, you know, being in a hospital, nobody wants to be in a hospital.
[00:12:19] And if there is any way for people to get excellent care while being in a home environment,
[00:12:26] I mean, that's just amazing in terms of the quality of the experience that that can provide
[00:12:32] for people.
[00:12:33] So I am very excited about what you're doing, but can you just tell us a bit about like,
[00:12:39] what is the current state?
[00:12:40] How much care?
[00:12:42] What are the kinds of devices that can be set up in the home?
[00:12:46] Well, let's talk for a minute.
[00:12:47] So the hospital at home waiver came in the pandemic and CMS approved it with really, you know,
[00:12:55] a clear guidance of what to follow, including you have to do research.
[00:13:00] So CMS just released a paper showing that of the hospital at home projects that have
[00:13:08] gone on so far, that guess what?
[00:13:11] Um, um, length of stay short, shortened, um, readmissions are lower.
[00:13:18] Yep.
[00:13:19] Costs are lower.
[00:13:21] Patient satisfaction is up.
[00:13:23] And what the patients tell us that go through our platform is they love it so much because
[00:13:29] it, you know, as soon as you go into a hospital, you feel sicker.
[00:13:33] And if you're suffering for any kind of dementia, loneliness,
[00:13:42] even you're just worried because you have COVID or the flu or RSV, you go into the hospital,
[00:13:47] you feel worse.
[00:13:48] So people like being in their home.
[00:13:51] They like being able to get their coffee.
[00:13:53] They like being able to get their, their mail.
[00:13:55] They like to be able to sit on their couch and, and all of this, you know, is aiding in
[00:14:01] the better outcomes that we're seeing.
[00:14:03] So what goes into a home is pretty much what goes into a hospital.
[00:14:08] So, um, you know, we have pulse ox that goes into a home and ECG that goes into home
[00:14:13] and blood pressure and weight and temperature.
[00:14:16] Those are the most popular.
[00:14:19] And then depending on the, the condition, the patient condition or the hospital preference
[00:14:25] depends on what brands go in and what, what, you know, what collection goes in.
[00:14:32] They go in with us, with our home hub, because, you know, it is still very hard to integrate
[00:14:39] medical devices into anything.
[00:14:41] It is still very hard.
[00:14:43] So they, we integrate those into our home hub.
[00:14:46] We integrate our home hub.
[00:14:48] If there's not, and oftentimes there is not, there's not easy connectivity in a home.
[00:14:53] We make sure there's connectivity, a wifi.
[00:14:56] We just make it.
[00:14:58] We're Best Buy, so we can do that.
[00:15:00] So we make sure there's connectivity.
[00:15:01] And then we've made a patient app on a, um, uh, on a, on a tablet that's simple to use.
[00:15:11] So when the patient needs to get in, you know, the nurse needs to visit twice a day, the physician
[00:15:15] once a day, those interactions are made simple.
[00:15:18] And there's all sorts of other information for the patient in the app.
[00:15:22] And most importantly, we're, we are not trying to be, this is contrary to what lots of people
[00:15:30] say.
[00:15:31] We are not trying to be the center of the health record.
[00:15:35] We fully believe that whatever health record the health system is using, that's where all
[00:15:40] of this has to go.
[00:15:41] And it has to be one continuous patient record.
[00:15:44] We're just, we're just enabling care at home.
[00:15:50] Well, I, I tell you what, I mean, it, it speaks to me in such a, um, personal way.
[00:15:56] I mean, just, you know, having had experience of loved ones in hospitals and then the, um,
[00:16:03] just all with excellent care and, but the stripping away of the personhood of who they are
[00:16:10] and the humanity and then being able to bring them home.
[00:16:14] And the difference is, um, just amazing.
[00:16:18] But, um, so I'm so excited about what you're doing and let's just talk about AI a bit because
[00:16:24] you are long time in this space, but you are a professor in this.
[00:16:29] So, so what are like, what is state of the art?
[00:16:33] I mean, I'm here at health and it is everywhere, but you know exactly how important deep and,
[00:16:40] you know, all the intricacies, um, that go on with AI.
[00:16:44] So optimistic hype cycle.
[00:16:47] Is it really here?
[00:16:49] What's your view?
[00:16:50] So we're definitely in a hype cycle without doubt.
[00:16:53] And what, what chat did was really brilliant because the technology, the transformer technology
[00:16:59] that chat was originally built on has been around since 2017.
[00:17:02] Right.
[00:17:03] So it's a while, but what chat did is it took it and it made
[00:17:10] a large language model that was available to the public.
[00:17:13] So then where there might've been only a small group of people before who understood
[00:17:18] what the trajectory of AI was now, all of a sudden, everybody has downloaded chat and
[00:17:24] they're using it and they're making pictures.
[00:17:26] And so you get the wow factor.
[00:17:28] This is absolutely driving a hype cycle.
[00:17:31] Now, look, I, AI has been helping in healthcare for decades.
[00:17:38] It has been helping in patient monitoring algorithms.
[00:17:41] It has been helping in, um, reading images.
[00:17:44] It helped in automatic external defibrillators.
[00:17:47] It's been helping for years.
[00:17:48] It will continue to help.
[00:17:50] And having said that it is really hard.
[00:17:53] So I think we all, we have to think of whatever we're making, whether it be a vital sign or
[00:18:02] an AI algorithm, who is it going to help?
[00:18:06] Is it going to help drive down the cost of care?
[00:18:09] Is it going to help increase patient satisfaction?
[00:18:13] Is it going to help with physician and nurse burnout?
[00:18:16] We have to keep that first and foremost, and then build our algorithms to ensure they do it.
[00:18:25] And one demo doesn't do it.
[00:18:27] And one pilot doesn't do it because you have this problem in AI that your algorithm is only
[00:18:34] as good as the data that goes into it.
[00:18:37] And it takes a long time to get the right data, the best data,
[00:18:43] the data that is really going to make a difference to the patient, the nurse, or the physician.
[00:18:48] So we have to keep at it.
[00:18:50] What I worry about lots of times is some, not all, but some of our beautiful startups are
[00:18:57] more interested in the exit than interested in doing the right thing for the patient,
[00:19:03] the nurse, and, and the physician.
[00:19:06] So we focus on the outcome.
[00:19:09] And then where are we?
[00:19:10] You know, I think I hold great work.
[00:19:12] First of all, chatbots, phenomenal.
[00:19:15] I run a caring center that takes 9 million calls a year.
[00:19:19] It's part of the other business that I didn't talk about, but we may make simple, easy to use
[00:19:24] phones for seniors and personal emergency response cases.
[00:19:27] And as part of the phones and the PERS, we have a caring center that takes, you know,
[00:19:33] 9 million calls.
[00:19:34] Some of them are just calls of, I'm lonely.
[00:19:38] I can't find my cat.
[00:19:40] I can't find myself.
[00:19:42] And, and our caring center agents stay on for many minutes.
[00:19:46] They're trained in empathy.
[00:19:47] They're trained in loneliness.
[00:19:49] And then we take urgent response calls.
[00:19:51] You know, I have chest pain, whatever.
[00:19:54] We have social workers.
[00:19:55] We have health coaches.
[00:19:56] We have nurses that do clinical command centers for our, for our, for our patients.
[00:20:03] But we have a chatbot.
[00:20:05] Her name is Sally.
[00:20:06] And gosh, the technology today in Sally is so much better.
[00:20:10] The chatbots are just so much more kind, empathetic.
[00:20:15] They get the answers right.
[00:20:16] So I have great hope for chatbots all over, all over.
[00:20:20] I think Sally is taking about 30% of our calls now.
[00:20:22] The more routine calls, the more calls about bills and things of that nature.
[00:20:28] But still that's so important.
[00:20:31] I mean, just like those simple things, again, that making it easy, making that easy.
[00:20:36] And I know that you have a lot of hope for what is possible, particularly for aging, the aging
[00:20:44] population and people who have early stages of dementia.
[00:20:49] So what are some of those opportunities?
[00:20:51] I really think that this can help because, you know, we, there's lots of studies out now showing
[00:20:58] that the gender of AI is more empathetic than humans.
[00:21:02] And you probably, you know, even us.
[00:21:05] Doesn't get tired.
[00:21:07] By emails, more empathetic.
[00:21:09] You know, I write an email and then I ask co-pilot for help.
[00:21:11] And it tells me, that's a bit harsh.
[00:21:14] And I look and say, let's rewrite that.
[00:21:16] So I have for a long time thought, you know, that a bot, I used to call her Coco.
[00:21:26] And I, my, my aunt, her name was Auntie Teresa.
[00:21:31] She, she, first of all, my whole mother's family ended up with dementia.
[00:21:35] So, you know, it runs, it goes down from the mother.
[00:21:38] So I'm worried for myself.
[00:21:40] So I hope we make this before I need it.
[00:21:42] But my auntie Teresa got dementia and she was living in her house.
[00:21:47] She was independently living in her house.
[00:21:49] And I wasn't working at Best Buy then, but I, but we had her, it all wired up.
[00:21:53] The sensors all wired up and she had her phone.
[00:21:57] My cousin, Cindy started living with her.
[00:21:59] And then one day my aunt Teresa decided to walk out the house.
[00:22:04] She was 89 years old in her house coat.
[00:22:06] And she went down to the bus stop.
[00:22:09] And thank goodness, a nice couple stops in Watertown, Massachusetts.
[00:22:15] And they asked her what she was doing on the street in her house.
[00:22:19] She said, I'm trying, I'm going to catch the bus to go home.
[00:22:22] So my aunt Teresa never drove.
[00:22:24] She always took the bus and where she wanted to go home was to Brighton Mass,
[00:22:28] which is, you know, some miles from Watertown Mass.
[00:22:32] So I thought if there had been a Coco, a bot in her home that spoke to her and just said,
[00:22:41] no, you know, Teresa, this is your home.
[00:22:43] Got to understand her patterns and then just talk to her like a friend.
[00:22:49] And, you know, we have to think about the ethical concerns of this,
[00:22:53] but we've just seen such great success in the bots that we're using in the caring centers and the empathetic nature of it.
[00:23:03] That just a reminder, no, Teresa, this really is your house.
[00:23:06] You don't have to go anywhere else.
[00:23:08] I saw it with my mother too.
[00:23:11] She didn't know who I was, but I would just say, know your home.
[00:23:14] And so there's lots of science that can go on there, but I do have a lot of hope in bots that can help.
[00:23:24] That is, again, another example of something that, you know, it just speaks to me in my own family experience of, you know,
[00:23:34] mother-in-law who, I mean, same question, same question, same question.
[00:23:41] And it was, you know, not anything, you know, we just, we get tired of answering the same question
[00:23:48] because her short-term memory was completely calm.
[00:23:51] Yes, yeah.
[00:23:52] And that just sounds so promising.
[00:23:56] Yeah, the bot's not going to, the bot has lots more patients than we do.
[00:24:01] Yeah.
[00:24:02] And this can be, this is something that's, you know, easy to train and, and, you know, will be dependent on the person, but easy to train.
[00:24:12] And so best of all, I'm not making it, but I certainly hope someone does.
[00:24:16] Well, I'm so hopeful about it.
[00:24:18] So Debra, as we close out and I just, I, again, I'm so excited about what you're doing,
[00:24:23] but you're also a many decade veteran as a technology leader and as a health leader and a business leader and an innovation leader.
[00:24:35] And that all was at a time when women were not even one of those things very often.
[00:24:42] You're all of those things.
[00:24:44] So as we close out, we don't all need to learn all the lessons that you have learned over the years,
[00:24:51] but for those other younger women who are starting out, who also want to be senior executive leader like you, what's your advice for them?
[00:25:02] I have two pieces of advice.
[00:25:05] First of all, know yourself and then be bold and courageous.
[00:25:09] So know yourself, know what you want to do.
[00:25:13] For years at Phillips, they would ask me what I wanted to do.
[00:25:16] And I'd say, I want to change the world.
[00:25:18] And they'd say, well, you're not very ambitious.
[00:25:20] And I'd say, no, I'm pretty ambitious.
[00:25:22] And for me, it didn't, the title didn't matter.
[00:25:25] I mean, this was me knowing myself.
[00:25:27] The title didn't matter.
[00:25:28] What mattered to me was, is the innovation going to help someone?
[00:25:34] Is it going to help change the world?
[00:25:36] And can I make a difference in innovation?
[00:25:39] And that has kept me happy.
[00:25:42] Because for the second part, be bold and courageous.
[00:25:45] There are always going to be people who are shooting arrows at you.
[00:25:49] There are always going to be people who like what you do and people who don't like what you do.
[00:25:54] And they're going to be very vocal about it.
[00:25:56] You have to be bold.
[00:25:58] And you have to be courageous.
[00:25:59] And you have to go out there and say, and that's why knowing yourself helps.
[00:26:03] Because inevitably, arrows are going to come.
[00:26:09] But if you know yourself and you know why you're doing this, you persevere and you get through it.
[00:26:15] And you can end up like Debra DeSanzo.
[00:26:17] And this has been an unbelievable, inspiring women conversation.
[00:26:21] I've been speaking with Debra DeSanzo.
[00:26:23] And Debra, thank you so, so much.
[00:26:26] Lori, I loved it.
[00:26:27] Thanks so much.
[00:26:27] This has been an episode of Inspiring Women with Lori McGraw.
[00:26:32] Please subscribe, rate, and review.
[00:26:34] We are produced at Executive Podcast Solutions.
[00:26:37] More episodes can be found on inspiringwomen.show.
[00:26:41] I am Lori McGraw, and thank you for listening.