When people hear the phrase “growth mindset,” they often picture expansion—adding more, moving faster, reaching farther. But for me, growth is about flexibility. It’s the ability to listen, adapt, and evolve alongside our partners to deliver long-term, sustainable impact. And that is what has made Acclinate the partner of choice across the industry: our willingness to approach every engagement with curiosity and integrity.
In business development, success starts with listening. When I joined Acclinate a year and a half ago, what immediately stood out was how deeply we value understanding before execution. We don’t enter conversations with pre-packaged solutions or rigid outcomes. Instead, we begin by asking what a partner truly needs—and often, that question opens new pathways for collaboration that neither side initially saw.
For instance, our pharma partners have no shortage of will to improve diversity in clinical research. But the challenge lies in knowing where to begin, especially now that FDA diversity guidance remains in a grey area.
Why is it so difficult for clinical researchers to find a starting point? The path to cultivating trust isn’t always linear. Community engagement doesn’t fit neatly into a standard vendor model. It takes patience, understanding, and shared definition of success. Sometimes that means spending months shaping KPIs together before the first project even launches. But those early conversations are where the strongest partnerships begin.
When I think about growth at Acclinate, chasing volume never comes to mind. Rather, we aim to evolve our approach based on what the market and our mission demand. Early in our journey, Acclinate’s partnerships centered on large pharmaceutical companies responding to regulatory shifts. Those early adopters gave us invaluable data and experience to refine our model. We learned what works, where we add the most value, and how to translate community insights into measurable business outcomes.
When I think about growth at Acclinate, chasing volume never comes to mind. Rather, we aim to evolve our approach based on what the market and our mission demand.
Now, with a validated solution and clearer ROI metrics, we’re expanding our reach to mid-sized pharmaceutical and biotech companies—organizations that may not have dedicated health equity teams but are eager to engage diverse patient populations in meaningful ways. Our growth mindset pushes us to meet them where they are, equipping them with best practices we’ve learned from leaders in our space while tailoring our approach to their structures, budgets, and therapeutic focus areas.
I’ll be plain: not every partnership opportunity is the right one. A key part of my role is identifying where our expertise can make the greatest impact—and where there’s genuine alignment with our mission. We look first at therapeutic areas that disproportionately affect communities of color and other underrepresented groups.
Equally important with assessing alignment is timing. We work best with organizations willing to engage with us early—before a study launches or recruitment challenges arise. When diversity is an afterthought, even the strongest community partnerships can’t overcome design barriers baked into the protocol. True alignment happens when a sponsor builds inclusivity into its strategy from the start.
Integrity has always been the backbone of how we do business. It’s what allows us to build trust not just with clients, but with the communities we serve. That means being transparent about what we can and cannot do, setting realistic expectations, and investing time even when immediate returns aren’t guaranteed.
A notable example of this is our relationship with one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. It took six months to complete the initial qualification process and another year before our first project began. During that time, we customized new services tailored to their internal needs—before a single dollar was exchanged. That level of commitment defines a true partnership. It’s also what builds credibility in a space where trust is everything.
Every company today talks about being “data-driven,” but what matters is how that data is used. In our case, it starts with historical performance—helping clients set realistic expectations based on past success. But the real magic happens when we use community insights to shape future strategies.
Our presence in the communities we serve allows us to gather nuanced feedback about perceptions of clinical trials, barriers to participation, and even study-specific design elements. That information helps clinical operations and informs marketing, diversity, and R&D teams across the organization. Presenting data in a way that resonates with each internal audience has opened new doors for Acclinate, allowing us to work cross-functionally with departments that may not have previously considered how community insights could inform their work.
Like any growth story, ours hasn’t been without its learning moments. Early on, we sometimes approached proposals by trying to fit client needs into our existing framework. Over time, I learned to reverse that process: instead of asking how a partner’s goals align with our core services (our “what”), we ask how our expertise and mission (our “why”) can uniquely advance their goals—even those they may not realize we can impact. That shift has led to richer collaborations and stronger outcomes on both sides.
That same growth mindset also applies within our own team. We’re a lean commercial group and every day brings opportunities to stretch beyond traditional job descriptions. Coming from larger companies, I had to get comfortable learning fast: tackling contract language, building budgets, and helping shape new services. Those early growing pains were essential. They taught me that flexibility isn’t only something we bring to our partners. It’s also how we operate internally.
As I think about what’s next, my focus is on bringing what we’ve learned from our top pharma partnerships to emerging biotechs that are pushing the boundaries of patient care. These companies are developing treatments for diseases like cardiovascular, cancer, and mental health—conditions that deeply affect underrepresented communities. Helping them integrate equity into their clinical strategies from day one is how we extend our impact and make our mission real at every level of drug development.
Growth, in the end, is about trust—trusting that when we listen, adapt, and build with intention, opportunity will follow. That’s how we’ve expanded our reach. And it’s why partners continue to choose Acclinate: not just for what we know, but for how we grow.
Want to learn more about growth opportunities with Acclinate? Schedule a 1:1 with our team.