Fun fact: Dr. Jake Barralet introduces me as his “pitch whisperer” 

The Faculty of Medicine at McGill runs 2 start-up support programs:

 

Surgical Innovation –a year long program for graduate students to literally invent a clinical innovation. 

 

The Clinical Innovation Competition –a competition to identify the most promising start-up projects emerging from faculty research.  

 

They have in common a culminating public event that is a pitch competition. Dr. Barralet recognized early on he had a problem: the research and the innovation was better than the communication of it.  That’s where I come in.  

Both cohorts have to move beyond the space of academic presentation into the world of business start-ups, and I help them get there.  

 

I run group sessions with the entire cohort, and then follow that up with individual coaching with each business team. We work on everything from their value propositions to their origin stories and from their slide decks to their voice. Helping them understand how their research might improve patient lives all around the world is a highlight moment for me each and every time.  

It’s been both wildly fun and wildly successful. The list of start-up successes gets longer every year, and the competitions have become must watch events!