Sunil Verma: I owe my career to some incredibly powerful female mentors

Sunil Verma, SVP, Global Head of Oncology at AstraZeneca, shared on LinkedIn:

“Reflecting on today, the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, I am joined by a very special guest…my daughter Suhani.

I owe my career to some incredibly powerful female mentors. Nearly two decades ago I made the decision to pursue my oncology fellowship in Breast cancer. As I evaluated different positions, I was introduced to Dr. Kathy Pritchard and Dr. Maureen Trudeau at Sunnybrook Hospital, University of Toronto. Their mentorship and guidance was critical as I established a foundation as a clinician, clinical researcher and health care leader. I will forever be grateful for Kathy, Maureen, and many other great female mentors especially Verna Yiu and Susan Galbraith who have supported and guided my career path.

As a breast cancer oncologist, I’ve seen first-hand the positive impact having gender representation in all aspects of science can have with many strong female leaders shaping and raising the standard of care over the past few decades. And yet we have more work to do. We need to continue to celebrate and promote gender diversity in STEM.

To accelerate progress against cancer and medicine more broadly and to improve treatment for patients, we need to expand the field to ensure we’re attracting the best and most diverse and creative thinking. Expanding opportunities for women in science is critical to achieving this mission. Although change is happening gradually, we need to move faster to remove the barriers for women across the medical and scientific communities.

One way to address that is to encourage our younger generations. I chatted with my daughter Suhani who shared her thoughts about the importance of women and girls in STEM and the future of science. I was so proud to see how well her generation understands what’s important to focus on and how they can identify challenges of the future and prime themselves to unleash the power of science to tackle these challenges.

Watch the video to hear her views on innovations and why she encourages her female peers to stay curious and determined. I also ask those who have insights on this, please share your views and reflections on how we can support the next generation of women and girls to pursue a career in science! We’re listening.”

Proceed to the video in the post:
Source: Sunil Verma/LinkedIn