Insulet CEO Shacey Petrovic says she didn’t jump immediately at the chance to join the company.
In an interview with the DeviceTalks Weekly Podcast, Petrovic, who was serving as CEO of a women’s health company when CEO-Patrick Sullivan, her former boss at Cytyc, called her with an offer to serve as Insulet’s chief commercial officer
“I said, `Well, Pat, I’m a CEO now, you know, didn’t you hear?” she joked.
A chief commercial officer role might be seen as a backward or sideways step from CEO, but Sullivan framed the opportunity differently.
He told Petrovic that he came out of retirement to take the CEO role and didn’t want a long stint as CEO. “He said, `This could be your opportunity to eventually run a public company. If it goes well, I need a successor, the technology is remarkable, and together we can fix this problem.’”
A path to the CEO role at a publicly-traded company was certainly appealing. But Petrovic had more personal reasons for the job.
”My father lives with Type 1 diabetes,” Petrovice says. “I’d really grown up with the disease, and I know about its impact on families and people. So I was immediately taken with the technology and the opportunity. That’s really what convinced me to come over.”
Petrovic took over the CEO role in 2019, and the company is building on the technology that impressed her so much.
In the podcast, Petrovic discussed (links will take you to the exact point in the interview)
- How the company is engaging the diabetes community.
- Why it moved away from selling its Omnipod insulin-delivery devices as a durable good.
- What partnerships with DexCom and Abbott will bring
- How mobile phones might bolster diabetes management in the future.
We’ll also hear from how our sponsors PSNLabs and PackworldUSA can help you.
We’ll also hear from Dr. Niki Panich, a practicing physician who is now CEO of a company that can help hospitals and health care facilities process their N95 masks on site. Dr. Panich will be a speaker on this Monday’s DeviceTalks Clubhouse series.
Finally, Chris Newmarker delivers the week’s big Newmarkers Newsmakers involving Baxter, Adaptive Biotechnologies, Boston Scientific, Abbott, and AdvaMed.
Subscribe to the DeviceTalks Weekly Podcast on all your favorite podcast apps.
