Our final advisory board member spotlight is Christina Dolan. Christina graduated from Purdue in 1988 with a major in communication and a focus on journalism. Her career has taken her across several industries and provided a unique perspective and skillset for her current role as Vice President of Marketing for a healthcare company.
What is your favorite Purdue memory?
Hanging out on Slayter Hill with my friends late at night.
What is your top piece of advice for current Lamb School students?
Network. Network. Network. Don’t be afraid to reach out to anyone. Most people are willing to help.
What impact are you making as a member of the advisory board?
I hope that I am just bringing a unique perspective. I wrote a presentation last year that I’m hoping we can resurrect in terms of finding ways to get advisory board members that live a little further out a way to get more involved.
Could you talk a little about your current job role and how you got there?
I just recently started a new position as VP of Marketing for Accel Clinical Services. It is the parent company for five subsidiaries that are involved in different aspects in clinical trials. Everything from patient recruitment to site selection to clinical trials management to creating programs for physicians and overall research management. I would say it is a very interesting role. I have never worked in clinical trials before.
My background for the last 7 years has really been healthcare in what I call population health, which is how do you manage a certain demographic and how they live their life to be healthier. Getting into clinical trials has taken me from managing hospital programs to managing healthy living, and I think clinical trials covers that gamut. Plus, I do think clinical trials are an important part of what I call the healthcare continuum, because people don’t realize you can have access to some of best care for no out of pocket costs.
What was your first position post-graduation?
I started out in advertising. I thought I was going to be a writer, and I went to work for a big ad agency in Chicago in media which is almost the exact opposite of creative. Media is all numbers. That was my launching point.
Your job experience spans across several different industries, from healthcare to entertainment. How have these varied experiences helped you in your career?
I worked for some amazing brands. I worked for Disney. I worked on Ford Motor Company’s national advertising agency. I worked for Universal. So that has given me the opportunity to work on some amazing stuff and then every job that I have taken has given me experience and insight into things I have never done before. I purposefully select those types of jobs.
What has been the most rewarding moment of your career?
I worked for a healthcare system called Advent Health. We shared a story about a woman who had cancer and she had bone marrow transplant from a man who is part of a donor network. She did not know him, but he contributed his bone marrow for her and she got better. He was deployed and lost his life in the Gulf War. Just being able to share that story was pretty powerful.
One of the things that I managed was the cancer marketing campaign for the system throughout central Florida. There were eight hospitals across five counties in central Florida. That was truly rewarding. Really educating people about the importance of screening as part of your wellness and taking care of your health is critically important. Then if something happens, educating people about the best doctors for them. How to share that story and what it means. That was extremely rewarding.
Do you have a mantra or saying that you live by?
I do like Maya Angelou’s quote of “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” It’s always about being kind.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I’ve had the opportunity to do some really fun things in my career. I helped launch the Universal Orlando destination theme park. I had one moment where at the end of our grand opening, I was sitting at a table with Jimmy Buffet, Emeril Lagasse, and Sheryl Crow and her band. That’s what coming out of the Lamb School has enabled me to do.