Harsh Thakkar (00:01.166)
All right, we're live. Welcome to another episode of Life Sciences 360. My guest today is Lisa Sellers. She is the CEO of Vector Labs. And if you haven't heard about Vector Labs or Vector Laboratories, they are one of the trusted reagent and critical component manufacturer partners. I think they have more than 600 reagent and kits. That's what I read somewhere, but.

We're gonna dive into this one, talk to Lisa about everything that's going on at Vector Labs. Welcome to the show, Lisa.

Lisa Sellers (00:32.863)
Great, thank you very much, Arsh, for having me.

Harsh Thakkar (00:35.662)
Yeah, I want to ask you, you had an amazing background in the industry. You worked at Thermo Fisher, you worked at 10X Genomics, you did some QPCR and instrumentation stuff at Life Technologies before that for almost a decade. And now you're the CEO of Vector Labs. So how has that transition been from being a industry professional to leading an organization?

Lisa Sellers (01:04.991)
Yeah, that's a good question. It's not that I foresaw this happening. It kind of organically happened. I'd say, you know, it's been great training being at these big companies, learning best practices, whether it was product development, marketing, sales, and just general management. And certainly at ThermoFish or scientific, there's just a strong

capabilities around financial management. So certainly that's been fantastic to leverage being CEO of Vector Laboratories. I'd say that the biggest difference is, you know, you have so many resources at these big companies and you're really just, depending on how big the company is, Thermo Fisher, certainly a much smaller piece of the pie in contributing to the business, whereas

you know, here at Vector Laboratories, we are the pie. And so less resources, you feel everything, you see everything, as opposed to the CEO of these bigger companies didn't always see everything that was going on in your business. And so, but I think, you know, the benefit of it is, is I get to take the good from all the big companies of those best practices, and then right size them for Vector Laboratories.

Harsh Thakkar (02:31.31)
Hmm.

Lisa Sellers (02:32.671)
and still bring nimbleness and agility, entrepreneurial thinking, and just bring that to a small company, which I did have some exposure in small groups at these bigger companies. And certainly my first foray into business was at a much smaller company. And so I look at it as I get the best of both of taking...

these things from big companies, bringing them into a small company, but still have this small company culture where we know everybody by first name, we get to interact with everybody. It may not always stay like that as we continue to grow, but it's certainly been a fun journey and I've enjoyed it. Yeah, it wouldn't change the trajectory of how things have gone.

Harsh Thakkar (03:18.126)
Yeah, that certainly has been my also experience working with big companies like BMS and J &J and others in the past. And then when I moved into consulting world, now I work with small startups, many cases that only have 20 employees, right? Or less than 50 employees. And like you said, everyone knows.

every person by their first name, they even know which dates they're on vacation when they're getting married, what's the name of their child. So yeah, I get that. And I definitely miss, I don't know, do you have a preference, big company, small company? Personally, I like the small, because I like that personal interaction with my colleagues.

Lisa Sellers (03:50.129)
Yes.

Lisa Sellers (04:06.239)
Yes. I mean, I have a great network of people that I built personal relationships at the big companies, even across the globe, because it's spending so much time traveling. I'd say I really enjoy the small company, but it's biased because I'm the CEO, even when I was the COO, because of the ability to shape and drive culture. It's much easier to do in my seat and in my size company.

Harsh Thakkar (04:15.342)
Hmm.

Harsh Thakkar (04:24.174)
Yep.

Lisa Sellers (04:36.287)
And that's what I really, really enjoy. I enjoyed it when I ran groups and businesses and the big companies, but it was sort of a really just a small bit of the culture within the larger company where this is you're living and breathing it and helping influence it at the other sites that we have. So I think that's what I enjoy most is the impact you can have on the culture of the company.

being in my position and at the size of our company.

Harsh Thakkar (05:05.934)
Shoo.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. You know, in that case, at least having a smaller group, you can get more one -on -one interaction with people. You can understand their expectations. If you're a big company, you pretty much have to send them an electronic survey and hire somebody to analyze that. But yeah, so I get that. I want to ask you if you can highlight a bit about the product and services portfolio of Vector Labs because...

I didn't know much about it until I started preparing for this. So do you want to comment on what's your secret sauce for the company and what are some areas that you're trying to develop in the coming years?

Lisa Sellers (05:50.847)
Yes, absolutely. And yes, many of us are familiar with the big companies in the life sciences. And I too didn't know Vector Labs until I applied for the position and did my homework. And it's amazing how there's so many of these gems out there in the life sciences, these small companies, many of them founder run, which is what Vector Laboratories was. It's been around for over 45 years in the San Francisco Bay area as well. Not far from everywhere I've worked.

Harsh Thakkar (06:11.342)
Hmm.

Lisa Sellers (06:18.911)
But really what the best way for me to articulate what we have done in the past and continue to do is really provide products, which are reagents for scientists that need to label, detect, and conjugate, whether it's biology or chemistry. So we have a history of providing reagents for immunohistochemistry to universities. So really transforming the ability to look at proteins in tissue samples under a microscope.

and visually detect the differences, different morphologies of those samples. And we've evolved the business. Part of it has just been because as technology matures, it ends up integrating into many applied uses, whether it's diagnostics or pharmaceuticals, much like you referenced my background in PCR, the same we've seen the evolution of a mature technology like PCR. And so where we're mostly focused today is,

providing those reagents as ingredients to other people's innovations, whether it's innovations in life sciences, like other tool providers, like in spatial genomics, they need to label, detect and conjugate, but also diagnostics. And more recently, because of two acquisitions last year, now we're serving the pharmaceutical space, providing click chemistry and DPEG linkers for companies that want to develop ADCs.

Harsh Thakkar (07:44.686)
Hmm.

Lisa Sellers (07:44.735)
We know it's a very hot area, so it's been exciting to be able to take our conjugation experience and know -how, bring in these two companies, and now serve the pharmaceutical space. So we're really diversified from a very traditional methodology to now serving these customers as they innovate in these three sectors.

Harsh Thakkar (08:08.078)
Yeah, that was a great summary because I was trying to read, and again, this is maybe because I'm not in this space. Most of the content that I consume or the people that I work with are in the compliance and the technology and the quality side of things. So I know a lot about those areas, but when it comes to science, I don't get much interaction with people or even companies like you.

I don't get to work with them as part of my role in consulting. So it's great to know that the length and the breadth of all the products and services that Vector Labs has. Yes.

Lisa Sellers (08:48.671)
Yes, label, detect, and conjugate. It's a very simple but powerful summary of what we do.

Harsh Thakkar (08:56.398)
Yep, and I wanted to also hear from you. So you have, like I said, at the top of the episode, you've had a really great career in the industry, and then now you're on the business side of things as the CEO. So if you had to walk somebody through a day in a life of Lisa's job, what happens, can you articulate that? Like, when do you put on your business hat versus your...

industry professional had in your current role. How do you juggle those two?

Lisa Sellers (09:29.567)
Yes. Yeah, it's certainly a CEO. It's very different than what I expected in the sense of I mentioned shaping culture and I think it's even more so in a smaller company. We're just under 100 and soon to be just under 200 after our merger with Absolute Biotech, which will happen soon. And I spend quite a bit of time on culture.

and coaching and mentoring either MyDirects or Skip Level, working alongside our HR leader, making sure that we're thinking about investments in learning and development. Because as we continue to buy companies, there's a lot of change management going on. And so making sure that our learning and development program is aligned to our values, but also aligned to where we're headed so that we prioritize teaching managers about change management.

Harsh Thakkar (10:15.47)
Hmm. Yep.

Lisa Sellers (10:27.839)
teaching managers about delegation. So I spent quite a bit of time on sort of more the HR people side of things. I hadn't expected how much I would, but part of why I spend so much time there is because it really impacts how we execute. And we all know, it's great if you have a vision, but if you can't actually execute against it, it's not as meaningful. So that's...

Harsh Thakkar (10:44.814)
Hmm.

Lisa Sellers (10:55.103)
quite a bit of my time, but then the other is, as I mentioned, we've been expanding our portfolio through acquisitions. So I do spend quite a bit of time. That's where I can leverage the industry experience, really go on to more the business side of things, partner with our investors to fill our &A funnel, and then evaluate companies to see how they fit best in our strategic direction.

within our capabilities and where we're headed. And so I do spend quite a bit of time working on &A activities. And sometimes it's just building relationships with target CEOs and founders of these companies and building those relationships, understanding their business. It's almost like recording each other to see if this really makes sense. Yeah.

Harsh Thakkar (11:47.854)
Yeah.

Lisa Sellers (11:50.207)
So those are just two examples. And then there's just day -to -day tactical blocking and tackling because we're a small company and talking about being agile and entrepreneurial. I roll up my sleeves. I do a lot of work output, whether it's working with the team on forecasting or putting together the board deck slides. There's a lot of just rolling up your sleeves and getting day -to -day work done as well. I'm no different than the rest of the team members when it comes to that.

Harsh Thakkar (12:15.278)
Yep.

Harsh Thakkar (12:19.79)
Yeah, that's great. And I'm sure your team and all the employees at Vector Labs appreciate that having that mentality that you are just part of the team, right? And also you're executing at the same level as them. And I know you mentioned about mergers and acquisitions. So most of the ones that I usually track are your Pfizer goes and buys Cgen or BMS goes and buys

Lisa Sellers (12:47.327)
Yep.

Harsh Thakkar (12:49.166)
you know, some cell therapy startup. I don't really pay attention to these other ones. So why you mentioned that Vector Labs acquired Absolute Biotech. Is that right?

Lisa Sellers (13:02.431)
Yeah, so we've been active last year was really when we first started being active. We bought two companies that really allowed us to expand our bio conjugation capabilities. So we bought a small founder run company that has predominantly click chemistry capabilities and also dies. And so you see how it fits into the label detecting conjugate.

Harsh Thakkar (13:07.31)
Hmm.

Harsh Thakkar (13:24.27)
Mm -hmm.

Yep.

Lisa Sellers (13:28.767)
And then towards the end of last year, we bought a company, again, founder run, focused on linkers in more of the peg -related space. And so that really is what those two acquisitions allowed us to expand into pharma. And then we announced recently a merger with Absolute Biotech. So that gives us primary antibody capabilities. So with linkers and primary antibodies that are

Harsh Thakkar (13:54.19)
Hmm.

Lisa Sellers (13:58.591)
also recombinant as well. So now we have great tools to offer these pharmaceutical companies that are developing the antibody drug conjugates for treating cancer. So that was the merger with Absolute was just announced and should be closing very shortly, which is what is essentially doubling our footprint.

Harsh Thakkar (14:22.742)
Okay, yeah, I didn't know if it had already gone through because I couldn't quite tell from the sources that I read, whether it was just under talks or whether it had already gone through. But yeah, I mean, I can sense the strategic direction of, you know, picking these and you said that you mentioned that you have a team that looks into these potential, I don't want to call them targets, but companies where there is synergy.

for vector labs to do something with them, whether it's acquisition or a partnership or something of that nature, right?

Lisa Sellers (14:53.087)
Mm -hmm.

Lisa Sellers (15:00.287)
Yes, and so I'm actually private equity backed. So most of my career has been with public companies. And then I worked with 10X genomics when we were venture capital backed. And so this was coming to Vector Laboratories was really my first time into private equity, which I'm thankful for. Certainly in this economy, it's been nice to be in. And so the team is primarily consisting of the investors. So Thompson Street Capital Partners are investors.

Harsh Thakkar (15:05.934)
Hmm.

Harsh Thakkar (15:26.094)
Hmm.

Lisa Sellers (15:28.799)
And so they have resources and they have processes that really help us. So we don't, I don't need to have a corporate &A team. They're really extension of us and fill that role. And then there's some of my employees that work with me. So we have a really small team. So they do all the outreach. Of course, they're already on the same page with regards to our strategy and what we're looking for. And then it's a wonderful,

collaboration to progress things in the funnel. But still at the end of the day, it's my decision with my executive team on what we go and pursue to ultimately get to the decision of making an offer to acquire or to merge. So it's a really fantastic partnership with our private equity firm because they do what they do really well and they respect us and

Harsh Thakkar (16:16.974)
Okay.

Lisa Sellers (16:27.295)
and work in a collaborative way with us to then make those decisions and ultimately execute against that strategy and be accountable for those synergies that we want to capture through the &A activity.

Harsh Thakkar (16:40.622)
Yeah, I think that's so important to have because in especially I don't know about from your perspective, but in just in the last 10 years, I have seen a lot of, you know, executives, whether they're in a service based business or, you know, even in the life sciences industry constantly on the lookout for, you know, acquisitions and mergers just because it again, it goes back to that age old, you know,

conflict of buy versus build. Like should we try to build something internally? We probably can, but if we can buy some other company that's already there, we can go much faster, right? So I think of it sometimes even as a consultant, you know, the same thing, right? Like we always think about that, whether we are buying a house or a car or whatever. I guess car is not a good example, but house maybe is an example where some people like, should I build one?

Lisa Sellers (17:24.319)
Yes.

Lisa Sellers (17:38.751)
Yes.

Harsh Thakkar (17:40.174)
or should I buy a house? Like what are the pros and cons? So it's good that you have a background even in that field because I think I'm seeing more and more executives who are being asked to be in these decisions like, hey, what is your take? Is this a good target or no? Because it could potentially change that, yeah.

Lisa Sellers (18:00.415)
Yes. And well, and the private equity timeline is pretty short. And so they're always in a hurry. They're like house flippers. We can stick with those analogies. And so while I might be able, very good, I'm very handy actually, you know, so maybe I can fix it myself. And so we do some organic investment as well, but, you know, getting somebody in that's, you know, can, that is, you know, already done it.

Harsh Thakkar (18:06.574)
Yeah.

Harsh Thakkar (18:10.99)
Yep.

Lisa Sellers (18:29.823)
and can rinse and repeat brings in the capabilities just through buying so much faster for you to then renovate and then flip that pretty quickly, which is the private equity model. So, and it's, yeah, well, you know, we can't claim success yet, but we've been on a great journey so far with the, just brought in two great teams out of the two acquisitions last year. And I'm looking forward to working with this team at Absolute.

Harsh Thakkar (18:31.662)
Hmm.

Harsh Thakkar (18:40.846)
true.

Harsh Thakkar (18:48.142)
Yes.

Lisa Sellers (18:59.711)
biotech as well, makes all the difference. I mentioned culture at the beginning. These teams all had very similar cultures. And so I think that also sets us up for success in executing, in finding those synergies and complementarity across the businesses.

Harsh Thakkar (19:18.51)
Yeah, definitely sounds like exciting times at Vector Labs. I wanted to ask you also, let me go through my notes here. yeah, so I know what I was gonna ask you next. You mentioned earlier that with these acquisitions or the mergers and all these partnerships that now there's expanded portfolio of products and services, you're able to provide them to more biopharma industry and life sciences industry.

So within the protein and glycan detection or bioconjugation area, what are some of the challenges that you see happening in the industry? And then what is Vector Labs doing to try to help companies overcome those challenges?

Lisa Sellers (20:07.775)
Yeah, so that's a good question, especially because there's been some conferences recently that team members have attended. And there's two things that's interesting is, and there's been recent articles even just this week about some of the technologies that pharma have really put a lot of money behind and they're not quite seeing as much as they've expected. So.

Even when I was a part of Maravaya Life Sciences, there was a big, because of the Pfizer and BioNTech Moderna vaccines, mRNA push. There's been a lot around cell therapy. And now we've got the buzz around the ADCs. So I think one of the challenges is these pharma companies are really trying to have these new technologies that give them this long runway to develop new drugs and treat.

Harsh Thakkar (20:47.15)
Mm.

Lisa Sellers (21:03.615)
you know, diseases and illnesses far greater than they've been able to so far with current drugs. And, and so, you know, even a recent article that came out talking about cell therapy is some of these pharma companies are shifting to autoimmune diseases because it's been such a struggle in cancer. And so what we're trying to do is, is really, so in ADCs, for example, these pharma companies, they have their payload.

Harsh Thakkar (21:21.934)
Hmm.

Lisa Sellers (21:33.151)
delivery and really what they're trying to do is, how do I get more of that at this precise place that I need it? And so by us expanding our conjugation capabilities with linkers and now with recombinant antibodies with absolute, for us to be able to have more ways to fine tune these components.

for these pharmaceutical companies developing ADCs, then maybe they're gonna be more likely to achieve those challenges of having more payload delivered to the precise location. So that's the role we play is the more that we can provide the tools like the linkers or the recombinant antibodies and give them the ability to fine tune for their output, then we serve that market.

Harsh Thakkar (22:08.494)
Hmm.

Harsh Thakkar (22:26.158)
Yep.

Lisa Sellers (22:28.543)
in the challenges that they have today with the capabilities we have today. Does that make sense?

Harsh Thakkar (22:34.062)
Yes, yes it does. And then from what I can understand, so like in addition to life science companies, you know, Vector Labs also has customers or clients, however you want to define it in like academic institutions or other diagnostic and testing services, we're basically doing work on behalf of Bio Pharma, right? So this is kind of...

Lisa Sellers (22:55.135)
Yes.

Harsh Thakkar (23:01.39)
what you explained helps everyone because then they're able to get to their end goal much faster, right?

Lisa Sellers (23:09.247)
That's right. And so whether it's providing dyes to diagnostic companies or even life science tools companies that are looking at spatial genomics, which help us advance our understanding of biology, which then help the pharmaceutical in doing their discovery work. So it is a nice position to be in to have this diverse portfolio serving diverse customer segments.

Harsh Thakkar (23:18.926)
Hmm.

Lisa Sellers (23:39.135)
It also can be a challenge because we're a small company and you've got to figure out where to prioritize your resources. And so, you know, I think what's nice is we've got a, for the academic universities, we have a long standing relationship with them. The brand is very nostalgic for many, many customers because they've all used Vector products at some point in their career in the university.

Harsh Thakkar (24:03.47)
Mm.

Lisa Sellers (24:06.687)
And so we continue to sell them those staples day in and day out through channel partners and directly ourselves. And then we focus much of our resources on helping these other companies integrate our products into their diagnostics, into their pharmaceuticals. So I think that's our biggest challenge. It's wonderful to be so diverse. But then the challenge in running a small company is you've got to...

make sure it's clear to employees what are the priorities, where do you focus your investment, your time, your resources.

Harsh Thakkar (24:40.814)
Yeah, yeah. And talking about that, you know, focus and priority. So as a leader, like, you know, given the activity or, you know, whatever's going on in that month or in that quarter in your company, like, let's say, you know, you're having a merger or acquisition. So maybe there's some gap assessment that needs to be done. There has to be some collaboration, or maybe you're doing a big deal with a company and you need to...

onboard that client or make sure everything's going smooth. So how do you get your employees to sort of shift priorities but still continue to innovate, right? Because as a leader, I'm guessing that that's your, you set the tone. How do you go about doing that?

Lisa Sellers (25:26.943)
Yes. Yeah, no, it's great. We're in the midst of this now because you take two companies that already have financial commitments to their investors, already have goals and objectives laid out for the year for their employees. And now you're bringing them together. And so the message when we announced this merger was look through the rest of the year, the goals are still the same for you.

Harsh Thakkar (25:37.07)
Hmm.

Lisa Sellers (25:51.743)
the financial commitment's still the same, that doesn't change. And so we need the bulk of the employees continue to focus on what we've asked them to do. And then we look to just carve out the critical few and seek help from outside agencies or consultants because we can't do it ourselves. We can't keep.

sort of running the business as is, and then on top of it, look to do integrations of two companies. And so we absolutely lean on resources, whether it's our investors or outside consultants and agencies to help us with the integration activities, because you can't take employees and now give them a whole second job of integrating two companies. And so that's how we do it is, and then it just takes the discipline.

Harsh Thakkar (26:36.654)
Yeah.

Lisa Sellers (26:44.095)
of constant communication and two -way dialogue with the employees. And so this is where having good management structure, which is why I invest in manager training, because we rely on that strong communication to employees to remind them to stay focused and making sure that the priorities are aligned to where we need them to be. And the more transparent we can be with communication of what's going on.

the easier it's going to be for them to focus and not wander and sort of come up with their own idea of what's going on with the merger. And so that's where we are on that journey. And it's a constant, it's always on my mind, right? Because communication is the most difficult thing we can do, whether it's in work or in personal life. And so we always need to think about over -communicating, being as transparent as we can with employees because...

Harsh Thakkar (27:12.846)
Hmm.

Lisa Sellers (27:39.007)
If you are, then they're gonna be able to focus and execute as you need them to do.

Harsh Thakkar (27:43.022)
Right, right. Yeah, and you know, from everything you've said so far, it's really evident that you have a clear vision in mind, you're operating with some intention, you understand everything that needs to happen. So when you are reflecting in your downtime, if you have any, what's the vision of vector labs in your mind? Where do you see it going five years from now?

Lisa Sellers (28:12.511)
Yeah, that's a great question. And I reflect a lot both on myself as a leader, but also certainly on the business. And really, in five years, it's how do we, because where I started with the strategy was looking at what was Vector Laboratories already great at, right? Just no different than talent. And so what is our strength as a company and how do we invest in that to make it better? And so in five years, you know,

I want to continue doing labeling and detecting and conjugating for these companies in these sectors, but doing it at greater scale for them, right? So that as they go through their journey of product development, we're a stronger, more robust supplier for them. And I think...

You know, with that comes thinking about the organization. It's not just the technical capabilities of their portfolio. It's what does the organization need to transform into over the next five years? and, and the kind of strength we needed in the talent, and the footprint. And so that was another reason I was excited about merging with Absolute Biotech is, there's manufacturing capability in the UK and in the Netherlands, which I don't.

Harsh Thakkar (29:22.766)
Hmm.

Lisa Sellers (29:33.183)
have today at Spectre Laboratories, but with the merger, we'll have that. And so having a footprint in Europe starts to give us more of that scale, capabilities to reach customers, to be local to customers, to locally manufacture for customers. And so that's how I envision us in five years is we're not just making linkers in the US, we're also making linkers in Europe. So we're in the back door of our customers that are based in Europe.

Harsh Thakkar (29:42.83)
Yes.

Harsh Thakkar (30:02.254)
Yeah.

Lisa Sellers (30:03.199)
So it's not glamorous or sexy, but it's very practical. And it's, I'm here to make sure that the company has longevity and a sustainable growth strategy. So I'm excited about it. Cause I mean, this, this change and buying these companies and merging with capabilities and talent is exciting. And I see us making that progress to that road five years from now.

Harsh Thakkar (30:07.118)
Ha ha.

Harsh Thakkar (30:28.974)
Yeah, and I think what happens is most of the times when people view a business or a company, you know, past the trajectory of where it has made that growth, it appears to them almost as like, something magical happened, right? But this conversation, you know, you talking about all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes, it's never that, you know, nothing ever happens overnight. So I feel like all the biggest, you know,

Lisa Sellers (30:53.279)
Yes.

Harsh Thakkar (30:57.966)
company mergers or anything that we've seen, they all were a conversation and a coffee conversation or a lunch conversation between few people that ended up becoming this big idea. So yeah, that's why I always like to ask people these questions because otherwise very few people would know the real stories of what's happening with the company. So yeah, and especially like you said, having that global footprint, that is very exciting because...

Europe is a huge market, lot of academia, lot of companies. So yeah, I've seen many biotech companies do that same thing, acquire a European, you know, subsidiary so that they can get that scale. So that's really good.

Lisa Sellers (31:32.863)
Yes.

Lisa Sellers (31:43.167)
It's exciting times for sure.

Harsh Thakkar (31:45.166)
Yep, and I know you're not just creating positive impact inside Vector Labs, you're doing a bunch of stuff outside the company, like mentorship and stuff. I read on your LinkedIn, maybe last week or something, you had posted that you like mentoring school students or you had the opportunity to do something. Can you comment on what you're doing in terms of mentorship outside of the company or outside of your role?

Lisa Sellers (32:12.479)
Yes. Yeah, I do. I do enjoy spending free time working with people of all ages on career development. And so it really started actually way back in applied biosystems. Big companies have great resources, which is university relations. And so somebody in your university relations connected me with San Jose State University, their masters in biotechnology program.

Harsh Thakkar (32:22.062)
Mm.

Lisa Sellers (32:41.151)
So I've been working with them for many years, probably since 2007, helping them in an advisory level, but also teach workshops in resume writing and interviewing. Because I saw that this population, it's a state university, and so you tend to get students that don't have financial means or network or family support.

Harsh Thakkar (32:45.806)
Mm.

Lisa Sellers (33:09.471)
to really help them navigate a career, let alone an education. And so that's where I started my endeavors of helping community and helping people navigate career. And I've over the years evolved to bring that into colleges. So I do a lot of work with my old university, Santa Clara University and on their advisory board for their first generation program. Cause I was also a first gen college student. So again, these students,

Harsh Thakkar (33:29.774)
Mm.

Lisa Sellers (33:38.815)
that don't have means and resources available to them. And so it's a way for me to help the program, but also be there as a mentor for those students. And then I worked my way into high school. And so I'm on the board for my, what was my daughter's high school, all girls Catholic school. And so how do you, particularly because of my interest in STEM,

how do we bring more of STEM into young girls in high school? And then we moved as Vector Laboratories to from the peninsula in the San Francisco Bay area, which is fairly affluent, to a more industrial area in Newark. And so now we're doing the wonderful things with the high school there in Newark and bringing the students into Vector Laboratories.

Harsh Thakkar (34:06.67)
Mm -hmm.

Harsh Thakkar (34:30.094)
Hmm.

Lisa Sellers (34:33.663)
sharing with them our journey, taking them through the lab and really encouraging them, regardless of whether they loved chemistry, biology or physics, there are amazing job opportunities in the biotech sector and really trying to open up the opportunities to them because they wouldn't otherwise speak to people in our space with our kinds of education and we're right there in their back door. And so,

I've made my way down to trying to influence those that are as young and impressionable as the high school years, just because I've always loved my career. And that's what I hope for these young folks and even older people that I coach and mentor, that they can find clarity in understanding their own strengths and then finding a place to leverage those strengths to really find...

Harsh Thakkar (35:14.062)
Hmm.

Lisa Sellers (35:30.239)
a lot of gratification and reward in their day -to -day job, because we spend so many hours doing it. So that's a long answer, but you can tell it's something I really enjoy doing and try to continue to do. Yes.

Harsh Thakkar (35:34.766)
Yeah. Yep.

Harsh Thakkar (35:48.238)
Yeah, it's great that you do that and I think we need more executives like you who are also creating impact in their communities or in their circle of, like you said, you're doing it for your daughter's school. So whatever you're doing outside of the job, it's really, we need more people like you who do that. And it's evident that you love doing that because I also was reading that you got the recognition for.

women of influence by Silicon Valley Business Journal, right? So when other peers or other people who are listening to this podcast, maybe there's C -level executive at a service or life science company, maybe they're just an industry professional aspiring to be leading a company one day. What are some of the, if you had to name two or three qualities of a leader in a STEM field?

What would those be?

Lisa Sellers (36:48.671)
Yeah, so I think many people in the STEM field love to learn and grow, right? That's why they like, and they're problem solvers, right? They like data because the data helps you learn and understand to ultimately solve problems. And that's what great leaders do, right? Is they take data and I take it from diverse employees, diverse perspectives. That's why I'm a big believer in DEI.

and because it's more data to get at a better answer and a better solution. and so that those are elements of a great leader, somebody who really wants, lots of data to get at a good outcome, leverage that data from multiple employees, multiple sources, seek feedback from multiple sources, multiple employees. and so there's ways that you can take.

a scientific STEM or engineering background and actually apply it more broadly. Apply it to people, apply it to organizations. If you're open -minded, which most scientists are curious, right? They're trying to understand things. A great leader will try to understand why did this problem happen? It's not a failure or, my gosh, penalize people.

Harsh Thakkar (37:52.878)
Hmm.

Lisa Sellers (38:14.623)
it's seeking to understand so that you can do it better the next time. That's that growth mindset. And so there's really a lot, I take a lot of my scientific background and I apply it even to this day in first understanding what's the problem I'm trying to solve and then who might I bring in to help solve that because of their background, their experience and making sure that we iterate, scientists always iterate to get at a better outcome. So there's these,

fundamental traits that you learn as a scientist that I think if you just continue to harness them in a leadership capacity, you can be a great leader.

Harsh Thakkar (38:53.07)
Yeah, no, those are all great points, especially the one about thinking with a scientific mindset where you're constantly open to data. But the other side that I feel is you're also constantly open to experimentation. Because a lot of leaders,

Lisa Sellers (39:12.415)
Yes.

Harsh Thakkar (39:13.934)
are comfortable just doing what they have done and they don't want to experiment even when the data suggests that they would have better odds experimenting something new versus doing the old thing, right? Or maybe they can run an experiment, do five things in five different directions and then decide where to put all their resources. So yeah, it's definitely, you know, having that experimentation mindset, but then also learning.

from those experts, because some will fail, right? If you do five things, one will hit, four will fail, but if you don't do those five, you've already failed, right? So.

Lisa Sellers (39:42.923)
That's right.

Lisa Sellers (39:50.399)
Yes, that's right. And we always talk about you need at least it's a minimum number of data points to make a conclusion. And so doing a few experiments gets you those few data points. And I use the word iteration because so many people are uncomfortable with the word failure. Whereas I don't. I'm like, I learned so much from it. Right. As a scientist, you should learn just as much from a failed experiment as a successful one and maybe even more so.

Harsh Thakkar (39:56.462)
Yeah.

Harsh Thakkar (40:08.43)
Hmm.

Lisa Sellers (40:18.367)
And so when I interview candidates for positions, I let them know this is our culture. Like we embrace iteration. It should be comfortable for you. It's poking holes in theories or assumptions or approaches is how we get a better outcome. But not everybody's comfortable with that. And so I try to help people understand that there's a connectivity to the scientific thinking.

It's not anything personal. It's a methodology of how to work for a better outcome.

Harsh Thakkar (40:51.214)
Yeah, I have enjoyed this conversation so much and I know we're close to our time and I want to be mindful of your time. So thank you so much for coming on to the show. It's your leadership, your mindset, what you're doing for the company, your employees, what you're doing outside with all your mentorship. It's really great to hear and chat with you today. For our listeners who may be...

you know, want to work with Vector Labs or maybe just want to have you on as a speaker for some other opportunities, what's the best way for people to connect with you and with Vector Labs?

Lisa Sellers (41:32.223)
Yeah, so Vector Labs and I both are active on LinkedIn. I'm a big LinkedIn fan. So that's the best way to reach either of us, either directly through Vector Labs and our media or to myself on LinkedIn.

Harsh Thakkar (41:49.326)
All right, thank you so much, Alisa. Before we wrap this up, any final closing thoughts that you wanna share on the show?

Lisa Sellers (41:57.663)
No, I just I appreciated meeting you and I too enjoyed the conversation. Yeah, it was very easy to talk with you and I thank you for the time.

Harsh Thakkar (42:05.71)
Yeah, thank you. Have a great one.

Lisa Sellers (42:08.575)
All right.