Key Takeaways

• Discover how the shift from individual expert to cross-functional leader requires a fundamental change in mindset: moving away from having all the answers toward asking better questions and building the right teams. Tanya Bos describes how her first global commercial role across 50-plus countries made this transition real.
• Learn strategies to become a recognised scientific leader without constant self-promotion, by focusing on execution and allowing results to address external scepticism. Emma Tinsley credits this approach with creating the psychological safety her teams needed to be genuinely curious and high-performing.
• Gain practical approaches to navigating resistance when driving innovation in established pharma and biotech systems, including how to build a coalition of aligned leaders, prioritise the two or three most critical objectives, and reframe change as risk mitigation and value acceleration rather than disruption.
• Explore how being underestimated or operating outside expected norms can become a leadership advantage in life sciences. Catherine J. Pearce turned geographic and demographic assumptions about biotech leadership into a source of differentiated perspective, competitive focus, and a clear sense of where the real opportunity lay.
• Understand the importance of resilience as a non-negotiable leadership quality in biopharma, including how to regulate your response to setbacks, maintain forward momentum through repeated rejection, and separate personal worth from external outcomes. Pearce tracked investor rejections as a practical tool for staying focused during fundraising.
• Identify clear actions that allies and senior leaders can take to create structural change for women in life sciences, including introducing deliberate and purposeful mentorship into funding and investment structures, and actively recruiting for complementary skills that diversify boardrooms and senior leadership teams.
• Apply Emma’s approach to founding a company around a problem no one else is solving: anchoring to patient impact, pushing on assumptions even without conventional credentials, and committing fully to a mission you care enough about to tolerate the inevitable failure and discomfort that come with it.
• Take away Tabya’s insight on authentic leadership presence: understanding how to flex your style for different audiences and contexts without compromising your identity, and recognising that belonging in a senior life sciences role is not something that needs to be earned or justified.
• Uncover where women are positioned to have the greatest impact in scientific innovation, including growing momentum around women’s health drug development, the expanding role of the biotech ecosystem in connecting and championing female leaders.

Snippets

• “Give yourself a seat at the table. Because… the chair is not always going to be pulled up for you… So raise your hand. And be vulnerable and humble and ask and be curious.” (2026, Tanya Bos)
• “If you stop spending your energy on worrying about what other people think and focus on delivering the outcomes, very quickly the results will quiet that noise.” (2026, Emma Tinsley)
• “It’s easy to lead when things are going well. I think the true test of leadership is how are you going to respond. Your own emotional regulation. Not taking it personally, saying now I have to buckle down and do the hard thing next.” (2026, Catherine J. Pearce)

Timestamps & Topics

The following timestamps are approximations:

• 00:21:36 — Intro: Overview of Lift Up mission and today’s Breaking the Glass Lab focus
• 00:24:14 — Tanya Bos Introduction: 25 years in life sciences, from field sales to global biopharma leadership
• 00:26:41 — Emma Tinsley Introduction: Founder and CEO driven by the 90% clinical trial failure rate
• 00:29:00 — Catherine Pearce Introduction: Serial biotech founder from Roche and Merck to AllRock Bio
• 00:32:13 — From Doing to Directing: The mindset shift from individual expert to cross-functional leader
• 00:38:33 — Breaking the Glass Lab: Personal experiences of bias, barriers, and not fitting the expected template
• 00:46:18 — Beyond Technical Excellence: The one skill future life science leaders need most
• 00:47:49 — Challenging the Status Quo: The boldest ideas pushed through and how resistance was handled
• 00:55:23 — Structural Change: What single change in funding, mentorship, or promotion would most benefit women
• 01:00:43 — Women’s Impact: Where female leaders are having the biggest impact in science and innovation
• 01:03:54 — Advice to Younger Selves: Final insights from three senior life sciences executives

Resources

• Follow Catherine J. Pearce on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-j-pearce-mba-dhsc-822a401/
• Follow Tanya Bos on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanya-bos-bio/
• Follow Emma Tinsley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-tinsley/
• Follow Louise Williams on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lifesciencesexecutivesearchretainedstaffingtalentsolutionsmanagingdirector/
• Join Lift Up: https://fraserdove.com/lift-up-women-life-sciences/
• Follow Lift Up: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/lift-up-women-in-life-sciences/

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Feedback?

Have questions or feedback about the broadcast or want to feature as a guest? Email us at hello@liftup.fraserdove.com