Intro - 00:00:06: Welcome to The Biotech Startups Podcast by Excedr. Join us as we speak with first-time founders, serial entrepreneurs, and experienced investors about the challenges and triumphs of running a biotech startup from pre-seed to IPO with your host, Jon Chee. Our guest today is Leslie Loveless, CEO and managing partner of Slone Partners, a life sciences and health care executive search firm that helps companies build the leadership teams behind important work.
Leslie's path to the top of that business did not begin in recruiting. It began in Indiana, moved through high school classrooms and pharmaceutical sales, and eventually led to a small recruiting firm where she became employee number five. Her career is a story about transferable skills, reading the room, explaining complicated ideas, building trust, and knowing when people need something different from what you would need yourself. It's also a story about taking a leap before you fully understand how big the decision is.
Over the next four parts, Leslie traces her path from a close-knit Indiana family to teaching, pharmaceutical and health care sales, and ultimately, the leadership of a growing executive search firm. Today, we start with Leslie's early life, her shift from mathematics towards English and writing, and the year she spent learning how to engage a room full of students. Without further ado, let's dive into part one of our conversation with Leslie Loveless.
Jon Chee - 00:01:58: Leslie, it's so good to see you. Thanks for coming on the podcast.
Leslie Loveless - 00:02:01: Thank you for having me, Jon. Great to see you again as well.
Jon Chee - 00:02:04: Likewise. Really been looking forward to this. I know it's been some time since we got this on the calendar, but finally, the day is here. As we were kinda, like, going back and forth on, like, where's this conversation, we always think it's fun to go all the way back. At least our thesis here at Excedr and also The Biotech Startups Podcast is that all of the experiences that have accumulated along the way have an impact on how you carry yourself today. So take us all the way back. What was it like growing up, Leslie?
Leslie Loveless - 00:02:29: Great question. And that does take me all the way back. So first of all, I am born and raised in Indiana, and I grew up with two sisters. So I am the middle child, and I blame that on everything. Anything that I do that's weird, it's because I have middle child syndrome. I have an older sister and a younger sister, so three girls in our family. And my parents are actually celebrating their sixtieth wedding anniversary this month.
Jon Chee - 00:02:56: Amazing.
Leslie Loveless - 00:02:57: Yes. So that's pretty exciting. But people that know our family will often tease us that we're sort of Brady Bunch-ish in the sense that we're very, very close, all of us, to each other, my sisters and I, and then also very close with our parents. They are great people. And so I do have to admit that I've been very lucky. Like, I can't imagine being born to two more spectacular people, and they have loved us and supported us and been amazing to us at every period in our lives. So that's the very beginning, and we all still live in Indiana. And so that makes it nice at holidays and, you know, for all the events of life, everyone is pretty close together.
Jon Chee - 00:03:41: That's amazing. My wife and I don't have children, but my close friends do. One of them has three children, and the middle child's name is Otto. It was funny. The older brother, quite loud, and I just loved as, like, the middle child. He's just like, can I speak now? Like, he asked us for permission. He was like, you can do your thing, Otto. Sorry, Leon. You gotta make some room for Otto. Interesting to see that, like, the sibling dynamics as, like, we're the fun aunts and uncles don't have children ourselves, but I can definitely see how it might have that impact growing up in a household with siblings. When you're growing up and your parents were kind of putting you through school, was there any, I guess, track or influence or maybe kind of, like, career trajectory in which they had in mind for you? Or is this something where it's just like follow what is interesting to you, do your thing, maybe a combination of the two. What was that like?
Leslie Loveless - 00:04:31: So interestingly, my dad is a pharmacist. So he graduated from Purdue and was a pharmacist for his whole career. And so when you're a kid, you see your parents and what they do, and many times you're just like, well, I'm gonna do what my dad does. And so I can remember in sixth grade having a school project where I was supposed to talk about what I was gonna do with my life. And, of course, I said I was gonna be a pharmacist, not really having any appreciation at all for what that meant and what was going into that. My mom was always a stay-at-home mom, housewife, and that was her dream. And that's a wonderful thing that we had that sort of balance in our lives growing up.
But, anyway, I think that what was always important and clearly supported in our household was that school had to matter, like, our job as children. We were taught to be polite, nice young ladies, and do right by other people, but we were also taught that we were to focus on school and to be good students and, you know, to set ourselves up for success down the road. That was the learnings from my mom and dad. I don't think that they ever so much cared what direction we took our careers in. It was just that they wanted us to have a path that we felt good about and that we felt passionate about. And, ironically, my older sister did end up becoming a pharmacist. And, funnily, she is the chief pharmacist for a federal penitentiary, which is really funny because she's, like, a hundred pounds and this little tiny blonde but powerful in, yeah, in the way she carries herself. So, anyway, one of us did end up following in my dad's footsteps in that way. But outside of that, it was really just about be good people, be good to other people, and do right by yourself in having a plan for your life.
Jon Chee - 00:06:32: I love that. And so, like, as you were, you know, growing up, going through high school, was there any subject matter that fired you up?
Leslie Loveless - 00:06:41: Yes. It changed though. So when I was in elementary and middle school, I was very much a math kid. My parents were sure that I would be one of those kids that went somewhere with mathematics. At some point, and I can't put my finger on exactly when it happened, I think the math outgrew me the way that my brain worked, and it was no longer my favorite thing.
Jon Chee - 00:07:09: I know that feeling.
Leslie Loveless - 00:07:10: And that really happened at some point in high school, and that's sort of when I went in the direction of feeling like I liked writing, and I liked grammar, and I liked reading. And so that's sort of how I ended up going in the direction of focusing on English as my career path. But what I think is a little unusual about how that happened, and this may cross over a little bit into the fact that I loved math, is that I actually loved writing and grammar before I loved reading. And I think most people that go in the direction of, like, liberal arts or English major, they probably fall in love with reading first and don't always love the grammar aspect.
But for me and again, I go back to, like, having a little bit of a math mind. I like when there's a correct answer. I like when something is right or wrong and you know why and can defend it, explain it. And in reading, as you know, I was a teacher, and when you're teaching literature, there's a lot of subjectivity and interpretation that happens. But when you're teaching writing and grammar, there are right answers and there are wrong answers. And I have a brain that appreciates when something can be explained and understood as being correct or incorrect. And so what I loved first was grammar and writing and understanding sentence structure and where does a modifier go. And if you put it in the wrong place, how does that change the meaning of the sentence? So those are all things that I really love and started getting hooked on in high school.
Jon Chee - 00:08:55: I love that. And my wife was an English lit major, so lots of reading. Lots of reading. And I had a similar kind of experience too. I was, like, decent at math growing up. I think I thought I had it out. Like, I asked if I could do this. And then I think, for me, I remember when I got to calculus, I was like, I really don't enjoy this. Like, it was like math was fun until then. And, sadly, I discovered statistics way later, which was actually fun. I understand, like, advanced statistics goes back to calculus. It ends up being calculus because you're doing, like, integrals under, like, but I was, like, oh, there's this path of math that could be really interesting to me. And for me, what I, like, kinda saw or just, like, learned from that experience is, like, getting out there and getting exposure to a bunch of different things to learn what you like and dislike is super important. Because if I encountered statistics earlier in my career, I probably would have stuck it out. I probably would have stuck math out.
But that's, like, another multiverse life that, like, it's you know, it is what it is. Like, I got into science because I fell out of love with math. Not that life science isn't mathematics. It is. But that's kind of, like, how I found my way to life science. But, also, what stood out to me about the way you described, like, the grammar and syntax of English, that I, for a moment, considered being a lawyer. And, like, I like, LSATs, like, did the whole thing, just, like, didn't pull the trigger. I ended up staying in science. But there's kinda, like, this quantitative aspect to it that is just, like, really is, like, catnip for me. So I totally resonate with that experience. And so you realize, okay, English, this is, like, resonating with you in high school. Talk a little bit about when you're starting to consider colleges. Was your college experience something where you're like, I wanna spread my wings and go out of state? Do I wanna stay close? Like, what was your mind state then?
Leslie Loveless - 00:10:49: Yes. So I would probably think about it differently now. One of the things I often talk to my parents about is how it's such a shame that you have to get older to get wiser because it would be great if you could really appreciate and understand things at an earlier age, but it is something that happens with time. I never really had a desire to go far away from home, and it ended up that I got a full scholarship at the university right by where I lived. And so I took that, but it was a combination of having a full scholarship and being close to home that kinda drove that decision. And it was a good teaching school for English and all of that, and so it ended up working out.
But I never really had that urge to fly away and be away from home, and I feel like I would've, at different times in my life, made a different decision about that. And I remember feeling a little jealous at different times in my life that I didn't do that, and I, you know, I think about how that might have impacted my life. But at the end of it, I go back to, I feel like I've had a pretty amazing experience and that there's nothing at all wrong with the choices that I've made and where that has taken me and that I have to feel very happy about that. It's just, you know, you always second guess. And should I have done this, and what would that have meant for my life and what directions it went? But, you know, in the end, I'm a pretty happy person, and I feel grateful for many of the choices.
Jon Chee - 00:12:27: I'm in the same boat. I haven't left the Bay Area my whole life. My parents love it. Like, my mother, yes. Like, I'm an only child, so there's, like, yes. Jon's close to home. This is amazing. And a lot of my friends went to New York. My wife went to study in Spain. I was, like, just in the Bay Area. But I think that's afforded me to a lot of, like, unique experiences that, like, everything's a trade-off, and the only path forward is forward. Like, you can't, like, do anything like it is what it is. And to, like, go one step further, like, something that I think about a lot. So a lot of my friends, like, after wrapping up college, took a year or two to travel internationally. Some of my closest friends did, basically, a road biking trip through Southeast Asia, like Vietnam, Thailand, like, built the whole thing. I was bummed that I couldn't do it.
So I started Excedr, like, I just never stopped. So I just, like, continued work, like, right out of the labs, started working. But that trade-off for me like, all that to be said, I'm hoping to do more travel now. I just have I'm not well-traveled as is, but I'm hoping to be. But what that afforded like, the trade-off I made, it was just, like, I was able to just, like, hunker down and just, like, build Excedr just, like, and just, like, focus. And that has its own kind of, like, perks to it that I can appreciate now. So it's kind of this thing I do wonder. If I took, like, a year or two to, like, bike in Southeast Asia, like, where would I be? But, like, like you said, it's just, like, I'm happy with the decisions that I made and where it's, like, brought me to, but it's definitely an interesting kind of, like, thought experiment.
And also, you're just like, you know, like, it's never too late to go experience things. I was talking to a colleague of mine. She basically got to her, like, dream job, like, high up in this, like, firm. They do life science real estate. And then she just, like, decided, like, she was, like, even though this is, like, my dream job, I kinda wanna do my own thing. Kinda like she's 50 years old, maybe a little older than 50, and she's like, you know what? I'm gonna do this even though this is, like, my dream job. And I was like, that's freaking awesome. Like, it's really never too late. Like, it's really there's a will to the way to experience whatever it may be. But I digress. You're now at university. Were there any, like, professors that, like, had an outsized impact on you or any specific, maybe, courses that were, like, influential in shaping how you think? You mentioned that you became a teacher too, so talk a little bit about that.
Leslie Loveless - 00:14:56: So I think certainly in college is where I really started to love literature because those classes were just fun. I mean, that is a fun class. It's all engaging and roundtable discussions, and what does this mean, and what is this symbolism, and how did you interpret that? And those were all really fun conversations. And so I think that was the shift for me and getting a little more balance in the well-roundedness, literature and writing and grammar and, you know, kinda loving it all. So at that point, I was thinking that I wanted to be a college professor. That was kind of the moment when I started considering, oh, okay. Maybe that's the direction that I wanna go. And as it turns out, I did end up going into high school teaching, and I simultaneously was working on getting my master's degree in English.
And then a lot of things changed at that point, and so I didn't end up pursuing a PhD and becoming a professor and, you know, went in a completely different direction. But I think what I learned in college was a real love of literature and stories and critical thinking about the meaning of what you read and what's behind it. And so that would be, I think, the biggest impact for me during that period.
Jon Chee - 00:16:24: Love that. And I think when I think about, like, traditional science curriculum, I find myself really drawing on the humanities courses I took at school even though I interface purely with the sciences. I encourage anyone out there who's, like, on a scientific track to load up on the humanities. It's, like, so critically important. Like, it's so critically important. And, also, just, like, it teaches you that critical thinking and, like, really gives you that elasticity in your worldview. So, like, I know it's, like, easy to just, like, I'm just like, you know, STEM is, like, very track-based. But, like, something I when I look back on that experience, it was like, damn, I wish I took way more humanities. It's hard now because, like, going back to school is, like, the whole thing. But, yeah, it's I loved every, like, humanities course I took. So talk about a little bit about when you, one, were getting your master's and simultaneously teaching. What was that experience like for you?
Leslie Loveless - 00:17:20: It was a lot. I mean, it was on-campus classes at night, and so I would go from teaching school to going to school to being up late doing homework and reading assignments and writing papers and things like that. And then, you know, when do you fit in reading and grading all the papers from six classes of students that you have all day? So that part of it was heavy for a couple of years, but I still loved it. I really did. I had a great time getting my master's. I got my master's at Butler in Indianapolis, and it's a very, you know, small private college. And so the classes were small and just really enjoyable.
So I did love all of that. And at that time, I was still thinking my life is in education. Like, that's I don't know exactly how this is gonna turn out, but I wasn't at the time that I was getting my master's really thinking about doing anything else with it, or I might have gotten a master's in something else. You know? I got a master's in English, but I just remember that as being a pretty happy time for me. I've always loved school. I, again, I really love school. I love the homework. I love the classes. I love talking to professors. I love learning something new, and that's been since, you know, kindergarten. I've always been that person. So for me, it was just an extension of what I already knew that I love doing.
Jon Chee - 00:18:45: That was amazing. And question, what grade were you teaching?
Leslie Loveless - 00:18:49: So throughout the time that I was a high school teacher, at any given time, I had ninth, tenth, and eleventh grade. The only grade that I didn't teach was twelfth.
Jon Chee - 00:18:58: How was just, like, being a teacher of high school students? Like, what was that like? I knew when I was in high school, I was a handful. Like, I'm sure when it comes to learning how to keep a classroom intact with high school students, it's a skill in itself.
Leslie Loveless - 00:19:14: Yeah. As you might expect, there were amazing, wonderful days where I felt like, okay. That was great. This was a great class. This was a great day. The kids love this material. The kids are learning. They were participating, and you feel like, okay. That was good. And know when it's good. It's like having a business meeting. When you know that it's a good business meeting, you know you've had a good class. And then there were very, very hard days. And, you know, a lot of the hard days are behavior-related hard days because my classes were always anywhere from, like, 28 kids to 35 kids. That's a lot of teenagers in one room. I mean, it's too many. It's just too many. And thinking that all of them are going to be focused and well-behaved during a fifty-minute class is just kind of a silly notion. That's not the way that it's gonna go. You hope that more of them are than aren't and that the ones that are influencing the ones that aren't.
Jon Chee - 00:20:22: Yeah. Yeah.
Leslie Loveless - 00:20:24: You love the days when you're teaching material that they can get engaged with, and you dread the days where you know that the material is a little dry and they're probably not gonna love it and it's gonna be hard to keep them with you. So you get creative when you are teaching teenagers. I remember, like, I mixed it up a lot. We never spent the full class period on one thing. There was usually three different aspects to the class. A lot of times, I would start with something that was current events related because if I could get them to read a news article and have a conversation about it and it was something that I knew that they would have thoughts about, that set the stage for a good class. And then maybe I would work in something that was a little drier in the middle and then come back to something that was going to get them involved toward the end. But it really is all about figuring out how to manage a period of time where people have different interests, they like different things, and they're just sort of all over the place. And you've gotta figure out how to get as much focus out of them as you can. And in some cases, it was easier than others depending on the makeup of the class. And all I can say is teaching is hard, and you do the best that you can every day. You just do the best you can.
Jon Chee - 00:21:51: There's so many kind of things I wanna unpack there because I think the way you just described how you worked with your class, how you structured the class, there's so many cross applicability to it's just like any organization. Yes. Teenagers are rambunctious, but it's the same thing when you're holding a meeting at a company. It's like, some people are in sales, some people are in marketing, some people are in finance, some people are in legal. They all have their own thing, and you're, like, trying your best and keep them from just, like, falling asleep. Because at the end of the day, like, business is not all fun and games, but you have to keep people engaged through the dry parts. A colleague of mine said, like, everybody, like, wants to be a rock star, but no one wants to do the laundry. Still gotta do the laundry. Like, right?
And I think as a leader of any organization, it is, like, important to exactly what you described. It's like communication. How do you keep people engaged, like, with different circumstances, different interests? You also don't know what's going on outside of the classroom that might be influencing just like in a, you know, an organization or a company. They have personal stuff too. What I've learned is just like also just like like, I always have to, like, remind everyone, so like, look, you have no idea what's going on outside of this room right now or the Zoom that might be influencing how they are today. But don't, like, think that is gonna be like that a 100% of the time. Gotta give people that grace. I would imagine probably that with a teenager, there'll be some big flare ups.
Leslie Loveless - 00:23:19: For sure. Yes. Remarkable at times. Yes. I mean, I hear horror stories. It hasn't happened in my business experience, but I talk to clients and candidates all the time, and I hear stories about these outbursts in business meetings. And I'm like, wow. Does that really happen? It does. It really does.
Jon Chee - 00:23:38: Yeah. Even at companies where, like, you think it's like a perfectly well-oiled machine, all these big tech companies, there are flare ups, like, when you, like, aren't able to handle, like, especially when the meeting is really big, it's almost like a town hall, like, that's a whole different beast, but I see so many learnings that are important that you probably experienced in the classroom. Was there, I guess, like, anything else from that experience that you think was, like, something that you take with you to this day or perhaps have an outside influence on your style of leadership?
Leslie Loveless - 00:24:10: For sure. So it goes along with what we're talking about right now, and that is reading the room. Read the room. And it doesn't really matter if it is a group of teenagers or a group of adults. You need to really be in tune with what's being heard and received and understood. Are people checked out? Like, what is happening in front of you? And be nimble and adaptable and figure out what to do in the moment to get things back to being an engaged environment where people are actually participating in learning. So that is a very direct crossover between teaching teenagers and running a meeting with adults in it because people can check out at any age and become disengaged at any age. So that is a direct connection between the two.
Jon Chee - 00:25:06: Absolutely. And, like, also, like, reading the room is just it is kinda like a vibe element to it too. Right? Which is, like it's not that it's, like, impossible to learn, but it's, like, a lot of the times is, like, kinda, like, trial and error. Like, god was, like, terrible at it at reading the room in the beginning. But then slowly, you start to tune in, and you start to tune in and, like, it's kinda, like, qualitative, like, soft skills that I think are, especially now when, like, everything technology-wise is, like, kind of changing the way, like, what is scarce. And these soft skills are, like, super scarce. Like, to be able to learn that skill, like, reading the room because, like, the difference between, like, everyone leaving that room inspired versus everyone's just, like, depressed. And at the end of the day, like, scientific enterprises are just, like, a group of people working on hard shit, like and you need them fired up to, like, run through walls because, like, the problems are super hard. So it's so important. It makes so much sense that, like, that's a skill that you've acquired through your teaching. It sounds very difficult to do school and also teach, but it sound like you had a passion for this. When did you know this is like, I need to make a change?
Leslie Loveless - 00:26:17: So I've thought a lot about this, and I'm not sure that I have a really good answer for you on this because I can't recall, like, this moment of epiphany that made me feel like, okay, I'm making a change. Because when you go into teaching, you go into teaching thinking that that is going to be your life. You don't really think that you're going to start being a teacher and then completely do something else. That's not how you feel about your career. Two or three years in, I would not have known at that moment that I was going to make a change as dramatic as I did. But I knew a lot of people in the pharmaceutical sales industry, and I was one of those teachers that I remember this very clearly. I had an interior classroom, so I did not have any windows.
Jon Chee - 00:27:11: That is intense, especially with teenagers. Because teenagers, like, just cooped up, they're just like, let me out. It's like, that's brutal. Okay. Okay. I see. I can envision in my head now.
Leslie Loveless - 00:27:22: And being in Indiana at certain points in the school year, I was coming in and it was dark, and I was leaving and it was dark. So I would come into the school. The high school that I taught at class started, I believe, at 07:10 in the morning. And so I would get to school depending on how much I had to do before the classes started. I would get to school sometime six to 06:15, and then you teach all day. And I was also the cheerleader coach. And so I would leave my class at the end of the day, go directly to practice because this is at this point, cheerleading had become, you know, kind of a competitive sport, and so there were competitions and things like that. And so I would go directly to practice, and then by the time I would leave to go home, it would be 6 PM unless it was a weekend and there were games, and then it would be 10 PM. And so it's your life.
Yeah. School is your life, and all the extracurricular stuff that you do with the kids, it's your life. And so that's what I did. And reflecting on that, I did love it. I really did. You never can truly appreciate the camaraderie that you have with fellow teachers that are showing up and doing this same thing with you every day, and it is nonstop. You have 25 for lunch, and then the rest of the time, you're with teenagers. And there's a level of appreciation and empathy in that group and understanding of what that means. And I had really, really good friends when I was a high school teacher, and, you know, you just understand each other and what every day is like. And so I loved all of that, and I didn't feel like I was running from anything. It wasn't that.
I think that part of it was that I was 27, and I was going into a building and not seeing daylight and leaving and going home. And there was a part of me at 27 that wanted to feel a little more out and about and free. And I can remember on days, like, when school was closed for some reason, a break or a snow day or something like that. When I was outside of the school walls on a Tuesday, it was really weird.
Jon Chee - 00:29:53: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like out of body experience.
Leslie Loveless - 00:29:56: It was really weird. And so I think I got to a place of wanting to have more freedom in how I led my day because you don't you run by the clocks in the school and the bells that tell you where you're supposed to be, when you're supposed to be there, and you're there. You have to be. Like, kids can't show up in your room and you're not there. Right? So I think that it was partly that. If I'm being honest with myself, there had to have been some financial aspect to it also. People that are critical of teachers and the education system and this idea that teachers are off for two months and all these other it's not grounded in reality of how it actually happens. You work really hard as a teacher, and if you're a good teacher, it is your life. And so I think that I knew what the hours were, and I knew what my life was. And while there were things that I loved about it, I also could maybe fast forward a little bit and think about I would like to be in a different financial situation than what this is going to allow me to be in ten years. And so I think that there probably was some of that that influenced me as well.
Jon Chee - 00:31:12: Yeah. I mean, it make a lot of sense. I have friends who I grew up with who are educators, and it is all-consuming. Not in a bad way. It's just, like, it's part and parcel with the whole thing. I could talk forever about how underappreciated, you know, teachers are and underpaid. It's a tragedy, to be honest. I actually reached out to my somewhat recently, to my high school AP biology teacher because he's the reason why I'm in bio to begin with. It was funny. I called him mister Fong, and he's like, I don't go by mister Fong anymore. I was like, oh, I'm sorry. I'm just so used to it. Like, that was just like I was just like, mister Fong, thank you so much. And, like, you talk about, again, inspiring, and, like, that's so critical for young adults as to find that inspiration. And, like, there are plenty of teachers who didn't inspire me, and that's okay. But this teacher was, like, so inspirational that, like, I was like, life science is, like, where I wanna be. Like, subject matter, for sure, interesting, but, like, my first interface with the topic because of how he set it up, just, like, set the trajectory of, like, everything else. So, like, cannot emphasize enough how important having those people in a young adult's life really are. And anyone out there who holds a purchase paid teachers more, it's like, we need more good teachers. Like, it's really what we need. Having a classroom with, like, 38 students is too many. It's too many. But, yeah, it's it can be a slog, it sounds like. It can be a slog. So you're wrapping up your time as a teacher, and you said you knew people in the pharmaceutical industry. Was that via your father being a pharmacist, or was it, like, colleagues? Or how did that first opportunity come about?
Outro - 00:32:56: That's all for part one of our series with Leslie Loveless. Next time, Leslie leaves the classroom for pharmaceutical sales, discovers that teaching skills transfer surprisingly well to a sales role, and moves from calling on individual providers to helping lead enterprise sales training inside the health care system. If you're enjoying the series, follow the show and share it with a friend. See you next time.
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