Imagine a healthcare industry where innovation thrives through diversity.

In this episode of the Greenbook podcast, Dan Fitzgerald, CEO of Apollo Intelligence, joins us to delve into the vital role of diversity and inclusion in research. We explore the necessity of supportive environments and diversity action plans in research and clinical trials. Dan underscores his commitment to fostering teamwork and continuous improvement within his organization. The discussion delves into methods for effectively engaging diverse audiences, highlighting technology, community engagement, and collaboration with underrepresented groups. We also discuss the future of the industry, focusing on advancements in machine learning, behavioral insights, and strategic partnerships.

You can reach out to Dan on LinkedIn.

Many thanks to Dan for being our guest. Thanks also to our producer, Natalie Pusch; our editor, Big Bad Audio; and this episode's sponsor, Dig Insights.

This episode is brought to you by our friends at Dig Insights. Using decision science Dig Insights helps researchers at the world’s most well-loved brands drive growth in crowded categories. Their work is supported by proprietary technology, including Upsiide, the only ResTech platform exclusively built to test and optimize innovation. Learn more at diginsights.com.

Hello, everybody, it’s Lenny Murphy with another edition of the Greenbook Podcast. Thank you so much taking time out of your day to spend it with myself and my guest. And today, really, really pleased to have Dan Fitzgerald, the CEO and President and board member from Apollo Intelligence Corporation joining us. Like many folks, Dan and I have known each other for a long time. It’s great to have you on and catch up. Hello, Dan.

Hey, Lenny. How are you? It’s great to be back together.

It is. It’s been a while. I think before we started, we were catching up and it’s been probably a few years since we chatted. So, I’m glad to have you on. Now obviously, I know you, but for our audience who does not, you want to give a quick bio, and tell us a little bit about Apollo as well as you head into the end of the bio?

Yeah, sure, I’ll be happy to do that. So, as Lenny remarked to me, we’ve known each other for many, many years. I’ve spent most of my career in data and informational and analytic-oriented businesses working across many different vertical markets, having worked for, you know, several prominent market intelligence and data services companies within the industry. A little bit of background on myself; I came up through the ranks in sales, moved into general management, and leadership because I was one of those rare, one of those rare individuals that always, sort of, appreciated the moving parts of a business working in concert, which kind of drove me into wanting to move into general management and leadership. So, like I said, I’ve worked across many different life stages within the market intelligence and data services field, had many different exits. And in the last four years, I’ve had the opportunity to find my way into life sciences and healthcare and bring, really, my passion about innovation and technology and transformation to the life sciences industry. So, really excited to be here. And Apollo is, at the core, a data-driven, technology-enabled life sciences platform and services company that’s pointed directly at the life sciences and healthcare field. Our passion and our aim is really to generate high-quality speed to insights that support the critical business, brand, drug development, and product development lifecycle decisions that big pharma and healthcare services companies have. We talk a lot about our mission, which I think will be relevant to the conversation, is really to drive health innovation to improve life. And our angle on that, Lenny, is really by finding and creating new paths to insights that, you know, provide our clients, our healthcare, and our life sciences clients the time they need to advance and develop and refine life-changing products, drugs, and innovations that really can improve patient and health outcomes.

So, think about the InCrowd, gosh, 15 years ago, something of that nature, right, and one of the early companies that was leveraging technology for speed and cost efficiencies, particularly in life sciences, and InCrowd was one of the foundational companies in developing Apollo, right? You’ve built off of that. Do you want to talk a little more about the different technologies and pieces on that evolution to where you are now from that foundational element of InCrowd?

Yeah, no, that’s sort of an important sort of connection to, you know, my journey professionally, and then finding my way to Apollo and InCrowd. So, Apollo was formed four-plus years ago—actually August 2019—when a few investors that I’d had great success with and had recently had a successful exit to Dynata, selling the Reimagine Holdings portfolio—so a lot of research tech and data services cross-vertically—we’d come across this interesting business, InCrowd, that had really developed a, you know, strong mobile-first, you know, technology capability that was really trying to modernize how research and insights were gathered in support of life sciences. So, we found that InCrowd was really a very exciting, sort of, pioneer of real-time insights that could be a platform for building the Apollo vision and taking sort of that spirited passion for innovation and growth to life sciences. So, in August of 2019, the Apollo journey began and we acquired InCrowd and I stepped in as CEO. About a year later, we acquired Survey Healthcare, which is a really world-class first-party data provider, data collection, research services for the market research agencies and consultancies within life sciences, supporting all of that first-party data, healthcare professional access that supports all the critical decisions that those agencies and consultancies do for life sciences brands. So, together with strong global communities and panels of healthcare professionals and strong underpinnings of technology and operations, the Apollo journey really came into full swing.

It’s been fun watching that externally. And certainly, what, 2019 pulling all this off and then we go into arguably the most important era in the need for healthcare insights in [laugh] in history. So, what was that like forming this company and then all of a sudden, whoa, we really need to talk to healthcare professionals on a regular basis.

Yeah. So, it was—obviously, Covid created an incredible opportunity and disruption that sort of drove our clients to need to stay connected and engaged with their critical stakeholders, their audiences, the patient journey if you will. And obviously, there was massive movement and disruption during that period. So, we were well-positioned with our speed to insight, high-quality speed to insight proposition to really keep our clients engaged during that period. And it’s very, very interesting; a data point that we may have talked about a few years back is, during that point in time, there was a lot of question as to whether healthcare professionals should be doing research during that period. But what we discovered through listening—which is one of the fundamentals that we believe in, I know we’re going to talk about that; we listen and engage our panels and our communities and draw from them in so many different ways—we interviewed them, we surveyed them, and they really felt like they were not being heard, that health-care professionals, the people on the front lines, didn’t feel like they had a voice during that period. So, our capabilities, our services, really helped our clients stay on top of what was happening within their industries and segments, but it also provided an amplified voice for healthcare professionals to share what they were experience, how prepared they felt, what was really their ability to do their best work during that period at that most critical juncture of Covid. I’d say the other interesting dynamic, Lenny, is we acquired a business in the middle of Covid. And, you know, the old-school way is, you know, you get out there you mix it up with your operations and meet the teams, and we didn’t have the opportunity to do that. So, we acquired a business in the middle of Covid and integrated while we were actually going fully remote and, you know, had the technology and the services and the aptitude to be able to do that on a moment’s notice. So, it’s really served us well.

Very cool. Very cool. Now, how’s the long tail of that? I mean—and I don’t mean that in a merc—kind of a mercenary way of, you know, oh, we made so much money off of Covid, but the rise in and the desire for and need to understand the voice of healthcare professionals, is that a trend that has continued?

It sure has, you know? And you know, as I commented and as you know, I’ve worked across a lot of different vertical markets, and the similarities within life sciences and healthcare are almost identical to other segments and industries that are trying to stay connected to their audiences and stakeholders, but in healthcare and life sciences, the stakes are a little bit higher. You know, there’s more risk, there’s regulatory hurdles, there’s data compliance and pharmacovigilance protocols, but all other conditions are the same. And so, what do we find even today and what we found over the journey of Apollo is clients want to and need to stay connected to those critical audiences and stakeholders. They need to do that seamlessly, frictionless, and as quick and efficiently as they can, making sure that they can reach representative audiences that are important to their study. They also want to engage technology. They want to be empowered. They want the ability to actually move quickly without sacrificing quality. They want to work with individuals that understand their business and can advise and consult and hold their hand through, you know, those study design efforts. So, all of that has continued to persist, and I think the market movement in life sciences and healthcare has been tremendous, right? The complexity, the R&D spend, the movement, the impact, the changes, all create a need, you know, to have what we like to call, kind of, dynamic learning, right, an always-on capability so that we can deliver high-quality insights that are at the same pace of business, transformation, movement, and complexity.

That’s great to hear that the upward trajectory continues. So, I think as we mentioned, the long tail, there’s still an awful lot of change and learnings to come after this period of disruption, and it’s good to know that you guys are going to be there to help facilitate that from an inside standpoint. So, when you first reached out—not you, but the company—it made me think, “Oh, you know what? We should catch up with Dan.” It was an email about the focus around DEI within the organization. So, tell us a little bit about that. Because, you know, as you just said, you went through this 2019, then Covid. You’re really busy, you do an acquisition, it’s all remote, and, [laugh] you know, and all these other cultural trends were occurring at the same time.

Yeah, for sure.

So, tell me about how you navigated that and it kind of baked this into the organization and the priority that has as well?

Yeah. So, I think the conversation, you know, started with some communication, some work that some of our key folks leading the DEI initiatives internally are doing to support the industry and market need to find different diverse segments and representative audiences for clinical trials and the work that we do to support our clients. And you know, the announcement this year—earlier—was the appointment of an executive chair to DEIA, Milly Bhatia, who has been with the organization since the acquisition of SHG back in July of 2020. And I guess what I would say is that, you know, DEIA has been sort of an important foundation of our culture and our identity at Apollo, you know, from the very beginning. And Millie’s appointment was really just, you know, one of many, sort of, ongoing investments that we’ve made to create a strong sense of acceptance and inclusion and values within our organization itself. And many of your listeners may not know this, but Apollo has had a strong culture of diversity inclusion, and InCrowd, our first acquisition—which we talked about—first commercial brand was founded by two gay women, Janet Kosloff and Dr. Diane Hayes, a rarity in the tech space, you know, to really remove the friction between market research and their respondents in life sciences. And InCrowd has always had a strong employee representation of women, minorities, LGBTQ individuals. And as we’ve grown, we worked really hard to maintain those tenets. And even today, you know, really, despite being a technology company, more than 50% of our employees are predominantly women. So, we continue to recruit and employ many talented people from diverse backgrounds who enrich our business and perspectives. And you know, where am I going with this Lenny is really, I think, you know, serving the marketplace and being, you know, a driver of change and advancement, you know, begins internally, right, with internal values. You know, to really continue to emphasize, we’ve just hired you—might have seen some LinkedIn posts that popped up yesterday—we’ve hired a female chief financial officer that’s been added to the team. So again, we continue to really sort of embrace DEIA, you know, initiatives and foundational values internally, which serve us well. And Millie’s appointment was really just, you know, the natural advancement of many things that we’ve been doing over the past four years. So, I really believe, you know, a top-down approach to DEIA serves our ability to then act and guide and support our clients as they need to embrace these needs and challenges as well.

It’s always kind of strange for me when we have these conversations because I’m thinking, well, I’m an old white guy, right? So, what do I have to talk about these? And I, in my own life, I’ll think, well but I have five daughters, and you know, and sisters, and you know, et cetera, et cetera. And so, as a stakeholder in these topics, it’s as a champion on behalf of those that I love and care about and I want to see them prosper. And indeed within the organization, within Greenbook, right, it’s very similar, where you’re—gosh, we’re probably 70% female is my guess. But I guess my point is, as the CEO, making this a huge priority and this legacy from InCrowd, does that give you a special sense of responsibility in driving this?

Well, I have two daughters and a son. So, I am a father of some very talented adult women. You know, in terms of sort of supporting and advocating as a leader, you know, from my vantage point, I’ve been influenced by a lot of, you know, diverse individuals throughout my journey, personally, professionally, and sort of acceptance and constant open-mindedness and learning sort of go together. So, you know, for me, this is just sort of my authentic self, you know, creating an environment, where we’re all about team, we support each other, we need to listen to each other, we need to embrace thinking and reflect. So, from my standpoint, it’s just, you know, part of how I lead and how I think and how I try to galvanize a spirit of acceptance and teamwork. You know, at Apollo, I mean, we’re a very innovative business. And I’ve worked for many different progressive, technology-enabled businesses in the past, so we embrace, you know, different ideas, perspectives, and are constantly learning. I’m a champion of continuous improvement. I practice it myself. I’m still learning every single day. I still wake up every day, trying to figure out, sort of, how I can be more effective, learn something new, try a new technique. So, for me—you know, and maybe this is difficult for some to, you know, relate to—I just see this sort of as a natural sort of expression of who I am. But I do believe that it’s the strength of our culture and our values and what we stand for internally that’s enabling us to be sort of a champion and a leader with our clients and in the industry.

That’s great. Thank you for putting into better words the point that I was trying to get across, too. I think it’s just a natural, just part of being, right? Being a good human for lack for a better term.

Sometimes it’s as simple as that. It really is.

We’re going to take a quick pause to highlight our podcast partner, Dig Insights. Have you listened to Dig In? It’s the podcast brought to you by Dig Insights, designed for brand professionals that crave innovation inspiration. Each week, Dig invites a business leader onto the podcast to spill the beans on the story behind some of the coolest innovations on the market. Search ‘Dig in’ wherever you get your podcasts.

So now, on a related note—and I think you touched on this a little bit—are you seeing a greater priority given from your clients understanding and engage with more diverse audiences within the core work? So, measuring clinical outcomes or, you know, patient journey, those types of things, or with even as the healthcare provider community changes? How are you seeing that shift occur?

Yeah, so first and foremost, you know, the change that we see—and there’s a multitude of areas that we could talk about here, but you know, our clients, you know, are including diverse audiences in their research for both patient and healthcare professionals. And they’re asking for help and guidance in how they can sort of expand their representative reach, you know, across their segments of learning and clinical trials. And I’d say so one of the other areas that are driving this is the FDA used to offer guidance on diversity plans, in terms of, you know, an FDA requirement. And now, the law that was passed at the end of last year makes, sort of, the FDA requirement for manufacturers to absolutely include diversity action plans. It’s not just guidance and, sort of, thought and consideration; they really have to have an active strategy for reaching diverse audiences to ensure drug safety and effectiveness for broader groups. So, these are two fundamental drivers that we’re seeing and embracing as, A, our clients are asking for guidance and help, there’s movement, you know, from a legislative and a law standpoint moving in this direction. And I think the other thing is that really just, you know, old practices, you know, have had some limited impact, right? The manufacturers recognize and customers are much more aware now that old practices of participation in clinical trials with limited audiences have limited impact. So, there’s a big driver that we see sort of emerging in the industry and we’re trying to sort of stand up and meet them and partner with them and drive things forward to support these needs.

Has there been any methodological changes as a result of that to engage with more diverse audiences? I mean, obviously, we think about just that, maybe the immigration community, or urban—young urban African Americans, or LGBTQ, or—have you seen—have you had to get creative to find a way to reach these diverse populations?

Yeah, so there’s a couple of practices that we’ve employed, you know? And I will just echo that we work with our customers to understand, you know, their audience needs. And our panel team, you know, has a strategy for recruitment, you know, to meet these objectives, you know, strong panel management systems, which is, you know, part of the capabilities that are needed to support these different initiatives. We leverage a lot of the DEIA research that we do in our panel management engagement services to promote awareness and the voice of these underrepresented groups of HCPs and patients within, sort of, the work that we do and a few examples of, you know, how are we embracing and driving, you know, methodology here is—as an example—so for years, so one of the techniques that we might deploy here is that we run a women-in-medicine guest blog series to engage female physicians to the panel. We also recently surveyed medical residents to understand—actually, it’s interesting—how medical schools are actually training around gender and diversity sensitivities. And then we’re using that research to engage and recruit diverse panel populations and members. So, we’re routinely partnering with a variety of different organizations, influencers, and groups that allow us to, you know, understand and recruit diverse populations and really sort of amplify their voices. So, some of the techniques, you have to really understand who these segments are, where they go for certain things, what they care about, who they trust, you know, what’s culturally important to them, among other considerations, sort of, you know, speak that language, draw upon our communities, draw upon the audience’s that we work with and seek their guidance on how we can activate more effectively some of these audiences. We also have a very—you know, again, this is about sort of our how piece is, we have a very strong kind of marketing, automation, and engagement platform that’s dedicated specifically to our panel and community so that we’re in constant—we don’t just do research, you know, necessarily with our panel of healthcare professionals and audiences, you know? We’re engaging them, we’re collaborating with them, we’re sharing content with them. So, it’s a much more kind of fluid process. Where did they go for content and information? And really sort of follow, you know, follow that path and follow that guidance. You know, I’d say one of the other really interesting methodologies, you know, that are out there is really around—you know, is around technology and data, you know, to support this. So, you know, companies that are more digitized, more data-focused can be more intentional in the use of targeting and data and engaging specific groups. So, I gave you a couple of examples of how those pieces come together, but these are, you know, these are things that come to mind for sure.

So, you know, you’ve been around the industry for a long time before you focused on Apollo and healthcare. What are some lessons from this journey that you think the rest of the industry probably should learn as well?

So, lessons from this journey, you know, is really lean in and listen and engage. You know, in our segment, you know, we have very important segments in operating an effective business, right? We have our employees. So, I talked about, sort of, our values and our culture and how we’re trying to foster kind of a spirit of advancement, innovation, and being a good human being, we obviously have our clients that are doing impactful things in the marketplace in the industry that we’re, you know, trying to step up and support, you know, today, tomorrow, in the future. And then we’ve got in our industry, right, our little community—you know, market intelligence and research—is the stakeholders that we’re studying, and sort of really listening in and engaging them, being thoughtful, being considerate, giving them a voice. All of these things sort of working together, I think, are important pieces to the puzzle for us, I’ll say. You know, lessons to reflect on, right, we had [laugh] pre-Covid, Covid, post-Covid market uncertainty, you know, inflation, much movement. You know, the last three to four years have been anything but normal. You know? It’s been constant change. And so, my advice, and I think the learning is, from a business leadership standpoint, know who you are, understand what you do well, you know, and try to focus on being the best version of yourselves. And at the same time, you know, you have to be dynamic, you have to be able to pivot and move quickly. And that takes a certain culture—you know, systems, technology, tools—but I’ll tell you, it’s the people side that matters more than anything.

Sage advice, my friend. Sage advice. So, I want to be conscious of your time as well as listeners. What am I missing? When you were going into this conversation, was there something you were thinking, “Man, I really want to make sure we touch on this is. This is cool, this is exciting.”

In terms of, you know, what you’re missing, again, I guess I would just emphasize, as it relates to diversity, equity, inclusion, and advancement—which is one of the, you know, main topics that I think brought us back together—is, you know, you’ve got to look in the mirror first, right? You’ve got to walk the walk, you’ve got to talk the talk. And you know, are champions within the organization around diversity are cross-functional, you know? They sit within the teams that are engaging the clients and doing the consultative research and delivery, they’re members that are leaders within our panel team. And those values and those leaders are in a position to then more effectively tackle these new challenges, new problems for our clients, and collaborate because they’ve got sort of that right tone, right, that right chemistry. So, that’s a critical piece of the puzzle. You know, I think in terms of, you know, our business and where we’re going, if I think about what’s around the corner, you know, our promise is to be a leader and transform, and in order to do that, we’ve got to continue to make smart investments in technology, automation, operations, our communities, our panels, how we engage, how we operate. Business is moving very, very rapidly. And I don’t feel that across the board, you know, research is moved as rapidly as it needs to keep pace with the pace of the business decisions and pressures. So, you know, I think that’s one of the takeaways as I reflect on this conversation, I reflect on where we are, is we’ve got to keep moving fast because the marketplace is moving fast.

Absolutely. So—well, let’s play on that for a minute as we kind of head to the—toward the exit door: what do you think the future looks like? Not just for Apollo, but for the industry as a whole? Because as you said, there’s—[laugh] nothing’s normal past couple years, and I don’t think it’s going to be for the next few; I think it’s just an escalating curve of change and disruption from all directions, and especially technologically, obviously, we’re doing some leapfrogging on that now. So, what do you think that looks like?

Well, I think a few things. I’d comment on, sort of, machine learning and AI and the ChatGPT sort of advancement, revolution, whatever you want to call it. You know, we have a half a dozen applications internally using machine learning and AI, really centered around driving optimization and efficiency internally, which then translates to speed to insight and high-quality answers for our clients. But clearly, there’s different parts of the workflow that are in the process of being completely, you know, transformed. So, that probably goes back to you know, business advice, which is understand, sort of, what you do and what is your differentiated, sort of, asset because there’s certain things that will become more commonplace, right, and like water. I think that’s certainly, you know, picking your spots and sort of using those tools to optimize your business and operation, or deliver products and services off-the-shelf that clients can easily navigate through to get at answers faster is, you knows, part of what’s around the corner. The other piece is this, sort of, age-old bridging between behavioral data, right—and in healthcare, that’s real-world data—and insights and attitudinal research: the what and the why. And how do those pieces become more connected, more available, more digestible together, you know, continues to be sort of a path forward? Clients today, what we’re seeing is they may have, you know, data budgets and data service—behavioral data budgets, they have insights budgets. These used to be a little bit more standalone and separate and distinct; today, essentially what’s happening is business needs, business decisions are presented, and clients are really looking at how am I going to answer this? What’s my approach and what’s the best angle for me to do this? And so, there’s more expansion of how clients are solving and answering some of the questions that they need. It doesn’t necessarily mean that research and insights is becoming constricted or evolving or changing, but you better make sure that what you do is connected, is actionable, is consumable, and you know, our job at Apollo is, we’re not going to be all things to all people, you know? We may do a lot of expansive things with our vision, but it’s understanding what you do well and then making that actionable and consumable to clients. I’d say the other thing that I would touch on is clients want parties to solve problems for them. They don’t want to cobble multiple suppliers’ partners to solve problems. You have to think beyond yourself. Find the connections that matter, build partnership, sometimes you’re going to make acquisition to, you know, build a bigger basket of capabilities and services, but you know, I think, sort of New Age partnerships is in the future, and breaking down some of those walls that, you know, no one would have thought of collaborating around 10, 15 years ago.

Couldn’t agree more my friend. And especially in life sciences where there are so many regulatory barriers for that holistic view from a data standpoint. On the, you know, Gen2 side of the business, we’ve been working with a large pharmaceutical company and trying to understand patient journey, and it’s really hard for them [laugh] and so.

Yeah. Well, I was going to say, I don’t think you can, I don’t think you can dabble in healthcare and life sciences. You either have to, you have to step in and do it fully and do it right, you know, or you’re going to have your, you know, your lunch eaten. It’s got those really important, you know, complexities, which are exciting if you’re focused on doing it the right way [laugh].

Yeah. Learning that lesson. There are times where it’s like, really love this client, but oh, my God. Boy, if we screw up, there’s big implications here. So, [laugh] it’s an interesting time. So, anything coming down the pike in the short run that you want to make people aware of? Like, hey, look for this cool announcement coming up, or?

Oh, yeah. I mean, stay tuned. Definitely, definitely cool announcements, you know, coming around many of the areas that I mentioned. You know, we’re going to continue to be the best version of ourselves and continue to try to build that capability of speed to insight, but you know, look out for interesting partnership, look out for M&A connections that really help our clients move quicker, solve problems faster. You know, I already mentioned more technology, more automation, more operations, more application of machine learning. You know I’m a technology-oriented leader, so from the moment I stepped in, we tripled, quadrupled our investment in technology. You know, it’s not just sort of marketing terms; we really have, you know, kind of a second-to-none in the industry data environment and technology platform that’s going to serve us well as the market continues to move. So, you know, those are the things I sort of focus on. You know, we’re pure play life sciences and healthcare. That’s what we do.

Very cool. Now, where can folks find you, Dan?

So, find me on LinkedIn, of course; that’s always an easy way to connect with me. And I’ll just give my email. So, it’s dan dot fitzgerald at apollointelligence—one word—dot net. Reach out to me. You know, I’ve got a lot of colleagues and friends that I’ve worked with in the past that I speak to on a regular basis, but I love to network, I love to exchange ideas, so you know, please reach out. I mean it.

Yeah. On that note, I was actually—I’ve been working with Martin Filz, and we were talking about you, and he said that you were one of the best people in the world. So—

Well, that’s, that’s, that’s very nice. And listen, you know, Martin, I had the pleasure of working together when we, you know, we sold our business to Kantar/WPP and worked together within Lightspeed and then Kantar. He’s obviously doing a heck of a job at Pureprofile as CEO. A real passionate leader of change and innovation.

Yeah. I’ve been enjoying our conversations immensely. So. And I’ve always had a soft spot for Pureprofile for a very long time and I’m glad to see Martin has turned that ship around. But anyway, just for whatever it’s worth, just wanted to pass that on since we were chatting.

Yeah, no, I appreciate it. I appreciate it.

All right. Well, Dan, thank you so much. Great conversation, we’ve touched on a lot of important topics, and it’s always a pleasure to catch up. And it’s even cooler when we can do that and let other people eavesdrop on the conversation. So, thank you.

Yeah, thank you so much, Lenny, and enjoy, sort of, your new surroundings. And it was great to catch up as well.

Yeah, thank you. All right. So, that is it for this edition of the Greenbook Podcast. Thank you so much to Dan for joining us, to our producer, Natalie, our editor, James, our sponsor Dig Insights, and of course, you, our listeners because without you, I wouldn’t have an excuse to talk to cool people like Dan. That’s it for now. We’ll see you on the next edition of the Greenbook Podcast.