President Ronald D. Liebowitz: Good afternoon everyone. I'm Ron Liebowitz, president of Brandeis University. My wife, Jessica, and I want to thank you all for joining us for the 2022 Asper Award for Global Entrepreneurship, featuring Brandeis alumna, Stephanie Tilenius.
President Ronald D. Liebowitz: The Asper award for Global Entrepreneurship is given annually to a person that best exemplifies the values of the Brandeis International Business School's Asper Center, which include our appreciation for the entrepreneurial spirit and independent thinking.
President Ronald D. Liebowitz: Both the center and the award were established with the support of Leonard J. Asper, who was a member of the Brandeis Class of 1986, and is a current CEO, and majority shareholder of Anthem Sports & Entertainment Corporation.
President Ronald D. Liebowitz: Len, thank you for your generosity and your long standing support for Brandeis. Your support helps make possible one of the primary objectives of the International Business School, which is to empower those who commit themselves to making the world a better place.
President Ronald D. Liebowitz: Previous recipients of the Asper Award have included Deval Patrick, the 71st governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Roberta Lipson, class of 1976, and CEO of United Family Healthcare. John Harthorne and Akhil Nigam, co-founders of MassChallenge, and Brian Lash, Brandeis class of 1978, founder of Target Companies.
President Ronald D. Liebowitz: Today, we are celebrating the recipient of the 2022 Asper Award for Global Entrepreneurship, Stephanie Tilenius, who received her BS degree in 1989 and MA in 1990. She has been given the Asper Award in recognition of her work to make quality healthcare more effective and accessible through telehealth. As the founder and CEO of Vida Health, Stephanie as play, has applied what she learned at Brandeis, to create a company that is not only successful financially, but, at the same time, serves and improves the lives of so many.
President Ronald D. Liebowitz: Later in the program Stephanie will participate in a fireside conversation with Lou Woolf, from the class of 1976, and CEO of Hebrew Senior Life. I wanna thank both Lou and Stephanie for joining us today.
President Ronald D. Liebowitz: And now, I'd like to introduce Dean Katy Graddy. Katy is the dean of the Brandeis International School, and the Fred and Rita Richmond Distinguished Professor of Economics. She previously served as IBS Senior Associate Dean and PhD program director and is the former chair of the university's department of economics.
President Ronald D. Liebowitz: Under Katy's leadership, the school achieved STEM-designation for its core programs which expanded dramatically the post graduate opportunities for our students, developed new masters in business analytics, and expanded partnerships with the academic institutions worldwide. Her research focuses on the economics of art, culture and, more generally, industrial organization. She has published papers in top international journals and is the former editor of the Journal of Cultural Economics.
President Ronald D. Liebowitz: Dean Graddy came to Brandeis from Oxford University of 2007, she received her PhD in Economics from Princeton, her MBA from Columbia University, and her BS/MBA in Mathematics and Russian from Tulane University. It's a pleasure now to introduce Dean Katy Graddy.
Dean Kathryn Graddy: Thank you, President Liebowitz.
Dean Kathryn Graddy: Hello everyone, and thank you for joining us. Today we honor an inspiring and accomplished alumna of both Brandeis University and the International Business School. All of us at Brandeis are so happy to present Stephanie Tilenius with the 2022 Asper Award for Global Entrepreneurship.
Dean Kathryn Graddy: Stephanie is the founder and CEO of Vida Health. Vida is a virtual care platform and licensed medical provider, with therapists, nutritionists and coaches, serving Fortune 500 companies, large insurance carriers and health plans across the United States.
Dean Kathryn Graddy: Before starting Vida, Stephanie worked for the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. She also served as the Vice President of Global Commerce and Payments at Google, helping to build and launch new products and platforms, including Google Wallet, Google Shopping, and Google Express.
Dean Kathryn Graddy: Prior to joining Google, Stephanie worked at eBay and PayPal for nine years, and in her last role, with Senior Vice President of eBay.com and Global Products, where she helped lead the eBay Marketplace turnaround.
Dean Kathryn Graddy: Stephanie also sits on the public boards of CK Technology and Wish.
Dean Kathryn Graddy: We have a great discussion planned today, as Stephanie will be joined shortly by another accomplished Brandeis alum, Lou Woolf. Toward the end of our discussion we'll have time for a brief question and answer session. So, for everyone in our virtual audience, please feel free to submit a question, using the Q&A function on your screen.
Dean Kathryn Graddy: Before we begin, I'd like to acknowledge a few members of our community. Lynne Rosansky has kindly joined us today. Lynne is the Vice President of the Rabb School for Continuing Studies at Brandeis University. The International Business School is very excited to be partnering with Rabb on a new Healthcare Analytics Professional Certificate.
Dean Kathryn Graddy: This fully online graduate program is designed to provide non-critical hospital staff with career development pathways, and to help clinical and research staff who are transitioning to management roles. The program was also developed directly out of Brandeis's partnership with Boston Children's Hospital, who has been a great collaborator in both developing the program and helping us to connect with the first cohort of students.
Dean Kathryn Graddy: Our thanks go out to Lynne, all of our colleagues at Rabb, and to our partners at Boston Children's.
Dean Kathryn Graddy: I'd also like to acknowledge Professor Ben Gomes-Casseres, a graduate of Brandeis University, and a great colleague. Ben is the Peter A. Petri Professor of Business and Society, and the Director of the International Business School's Asper Center for Global Entrepreneurship.
Dean Kathryn Graddy: Under Ben's leadership the Asper Center is sponsoring the third annual Business of Climate Change program, with several great virtual events planned in April. I encourage all of you to join us. Ben will share a few words with us at the end of today's event, and will also help facilitate our Q&A. Ben, thanks for all you do in support of Brandeis.
Dean Kathryn Graddy: Finally, it is my pleasure to introduce yet another accomplished Brandeis alum, Len Asper. Len is the President, CEO and majority shareholder of Anthem Sports & Entertainment Corporation. Most importantly for us, he serves as Vice Chair on the Board of Advisors of Brandeis International Business School, where he founded the Asper Center for Global Entrepreneurship.
Dean Kathryn Graddy: Before that, Len also served for several terms on the board of trustees at Brandeis University. Len, you are truly a great supporter. Thank you, so much, for all that you do in support of Brandeis University and the International Business School.
Dean Kathryn Graddy:I know all of you are eager to hear more about the mission of the Asper Center and to present the 2022 Asper Award for Global Entrepreneurship to Stephanie. Len, the floor is yours.
Leonard Asper ’86: Thank you, Dean Graddy. And I'm always mindful of being the last person before the good stuff starts, so, I'll try to be brief. But, welcome Stephanie Tilenius, President Liebowitz, Dean Graddy, Lou Woolf, and our Asper Center director, Ben Gomes-Casseres.
Leonard Asper ’86:I'm honored to be among such esteemed company, and I just want to say, thank you, to all the people who helped put this together as well. A lot more people behind the scenes participated in making this award what we hoped it would be. Including the technical team, making this call actually work.
Leonard Asper ’86: I joined the Brandeis community in 1982, when, as a Canadian, one starts in life wanting to play in a national hockey league. That, typically, doesn't work out, and one has to get serious about life. So, where better (laughs) to go to have a little fun and also get serious, than Brandeis University? And,I was encouraged to come here by my father for whom, to whom I'm forever grateful for that.
Leonard Asper ’86: It really was the best four years, certainly the four continuous years, of my life. And it’s not a cliché, it really was a fantastic experience that shaped my entire life. The relationship has really continued because of shared values and support for the mission of the school. I've been involved with the school for the 30 plus years since I've graduated, and I'm the better for it.
Leonard Asper ’86: The Entrepreneurship Center was born out of an observation, I think, shared by many, including me, that business schools needed to find ways to teach the art of business, not just the science and the math. And the leadership of IBS though, has created a program around this concept of entrepreneurship, in a way that far exceeds what I even imagined.
Leonard Asper ’86: The award, in particular, is bestowed annually on outstanding entrepreneurs, who share our values of innovation and, in conjunction with the service of global society. A theme you'll always hear in a Brandeis presentation, but that's what makes us who we are. This year's recipient has experienced a vision that is invaluable to our alumni and students, many of whom are interested in entrepreneurship, healthcare technology, and healthcare analytics.
Leonard Asper ’86: By combining advanced technology with the top-notch healthcare providers, Vida Health has been breaking down the barriers that have historically kept people from getting the best healthcare, which is a very important societal and social justice thing, not just about making money.
Leonard Asper ’86: This award was established exactly because of this, this confluence of doing well and doing good. It was to celebrate financial success, but to applaud those who married success in US business, with a global approach, but a commitment to making the world a better place and improving the human condition.
Leonard Asper ’86: An alumna of Brandeis University and a member of the second graduating class of the Lemberg Program in economics, this year’s recipient, Stephanie Tilenius, class of '89, MA in '90, the CEO and founder of Vida Health, and member of several boards in the tech industry, is an outstanding and excellent personification of the values and the vision of the Asper Center.
Leonard Asper ’86: So, on behalf of the Asper Center for Global Entrepreneurship, I now like to award you the 2022 Asper Award for Global Entrepreneurship. I can see this there, it says Brandeis University celebrates in honor, Stephanie Tilenius '89, MA '90, CEO and founder Vida Health for her leadership and promoting innovation.
Leonard Asper ’86: Congratulations, Stephanie. And thank you, so much, for accepting this award. And now I'll hand it over.
Leonard Asper ’86: Thank you.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90:This is the award. Can everyone see it? (laughs), it's a great statue of Louis D. Brandeis, I just wanted to say thank you for that.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: It's an honor to be here today. I really appreciate you setting up this Asper Award for Entrepreneurship. I think it's a wonderful thing for the Brandeis community and the global impact that Brandeis is having, is represented by this award. So, thank you very much.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: When I graduated, I definitely did not have a vision for where I am today. In fact, I've had a very circuitous path to entrepreneurship and to founding Vida, but, deep inside I always had the desire to have a social impact, which is probably what drew me to Brandeis in the first place.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: When I graduated from Brandeis, I was a presidential management intern, in Washington, working on US/Japan trade negotiations, and I actually intended to get a PhD and change the world through economic policy. But when I went to Washington, and experienced the slow pace of change there, I was frustrated and disappointed. And so, I transitioned to the tech sector where I spent over two decades building products and marketplaces for commerce and payments that scaled to millions of people worldwide.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: And, when my father became sick with multiple chronic conditions, I was frustrated by the lack of solutions available to help him, and so, in founding Vida, I listened, really, to the deepest part of myself, and my need to make a difference. And I went back to, sort of, the founding principles of why I went to Brandeis in the first place. And I realized that founding Vida was the culmination of my experiences blending, building consumer platforms and marketplaces, with both B2B and B2C experience.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: So, Vida passed my personal test and, what I call, the toothbrush test, that I learned from Larry Page, at Google, where we're building a product that people use multiple times a day, and it's really integrated into their lives. So, I transitioned from commerce and payments, at companies like eBay and PayPal and Google, to really building a platform and service now to improve the health of many.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: And so, Vida is a virtual care company leveraging technology and a network of human care providers, across the United States, to help treat chronic physical and mental health conditions like diabetes and depression. We reverse the impact of these conditions and enable people to live their best lives. So, we'll take you off your medication for your diabetes and reduce your depression or anxiety 60 to 80 percent. And, we really get these notes from customers where we're transforming their lives. So, it's very gratifying.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: I'm truly grateful for this award and my education at Brandeis, which, effectively, when I look back at Brandeis, it taught me about the ethos of building platforms to address social inequities and committing your time to having an impact on others and at Vida, we're really using technology to create better access to care and transform the healthcare system.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: So, each of you listening has enormous power to change the world. And, as you graduate from Brandeis, are you going to use that power to make the world a better place? I will ask, I will leave you with that question, to ask yourself.
Dean Kathryn Graddy: Thank you, Len, and thank you, Stephanie. Congratulations from all of us. You're an excellent example of global business for good.
Dean Kathryn Graddy: It is now my pleasure to introduce Lou Woolf. Lou Woolf is the president and CEO of Hebrew SeniorLife, an integrated system providing healthcare, housing, research and teaching to more than 3,000 greater Boston seniors.
Dean Kathryn Graddy: Lou earned a Bachelor's degree in Economics from Brandeis University, and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Lou, thank you so much for joining us. Please, take it away.
Louis Woolf ’76:Thanks, Katy, and hello again, Stephanie.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Nice to see you, Lou.
Louis Woolf ’76:Good to see you again, and congratulations again for this well deserved award.
Louis Woolf ’76: So, before we get started with our chat, we're gonna show everybody a short video, which I think provides a really nice overview of Vida Health, and it's holistic approach and the wonderful benefits that it provides to its members.
Video Clip: Not all signs are this clear.
Video Clip: Life's stressors don't stop when we're at work.
Video Clip: In 2020, one in three workers lost over two hours of productivity, per day, due to stress.
Video Clip: But, there's a silver lining, virtual health options are more popular than ever. Vida Health is the leading virtual care app that treats the entire person, with a polychronic approach that treats both mental and physical conditions, and personal guidance from your own Vida coach.
Video Clip: Vida members stay engaged, because they see results.
Video Clip: 33% stress reduction over six months.
Video Clip: 7% weight loss over one year.
Video Clip: One point A1c over four months.
Video Clip: With Vida, members feel empowered to make a change, with a program they're excited to choose, using personalized programs and daily activities to stay motivated every day.
Video Clip: Follow the signs.
Video Clip: Treat body and mind - together.
Video Clip: Vida Health.
Louis Woolf ’76: So, looking at the video, it's terrific to see your focus on both the physical and the mental health issues, and I agree a hundred, so much with the fact that they're so inter-related and how much it empowers its members to use it.
Louis Woolf ’76: So, I was wondering if, as a first step, you could just provide a little more information about the range of conditions that the app focuses on, and how people can get access to it?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Absolutely. So, we cover all the major chronic diseases. Ranging from obesity, to pre diabetes, diabetes, COPDs, asthmas, congestive heart failure, cardiovascular risk, hypertension, depression, anxiety. So, really an integrated approach to most of the ailments that are (laughs) causing a shortening of life in our country and heart attacks, heart disease, cardiovascular risk and hospitalizations.
Louis Woolf ’76: And how do people get access to it?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Today you can download it, you can download the app in the app store, both in Google and, Apple. However, we predominantly succeed through selling to employers and insurance companies.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: So, some of our largest customers are Boeing, Cisco, Visa, Prudential. So, they distribute it to their employees and then, we have large insurance companies where we go in-network as a medical provider.
Louis Woolf ’76:So, given the terrific connection that the app has directly with consumers, maybe you could talk a little bit about why you chose a business to business approach to selling it, as opposed to, direct to consumers? I think for the students that are listening, that will be a really important thing to understand.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: It's a great question and it's still something that I debate a lot about. So (laughs), we started with business because, in healthcare we saw that employers cover a hundred... there's 156 million people in the US that are covered by employers, and people expect that their employers are providing amazing benefits.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: And, particularly in the last five years, you've seen a movement where employers just outstrip each other, compete, to provide the best benefits, and they really care about healthcare and in particular, the services. When I was at Google, it used to be that,, the snack bars and all the cool massage chairs and all those things were the big benefits that the people cared about.
Louis Woolf ’76: Yeah.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: And now, it's really access to mental health, it's access to great healthcare for physical and mental health. And so, we saw that this was a huge demand, and it made sense for us to go that direction, as a starting point.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: We also do see consumers willing to pay direct. I think people, in the consumer market, are willing to pay for, weight loss and therapy. But, when it comes to diabetes and cardiovascular risk, they expect that their insurance company will pay for it, so, it's easier for us to be covered by the insurance providers.
Louis Woolf ’76: No, that makes a lot of sense. So, I can tell you, we have 2,600 employees, and we are focusing so much attention on benefits, exactly what you're saying. So, as I mentioned to you last time we spoke, I'm very interested.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Yes, we should definitely talk (laughs).
Louis Woolf ’76: One of the challenges we have though, we have entered into some agreements, not like yours, but similar in terms of helping people with their health, and we get very little evidence that it's making a difference. And it causes us some serious questions about whether that's the best way to be spending our benefit dollars.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: I see.
Louis Woolf ’76: I remember in our last conversation, you talked about the fact that you are starting to go, at risk, with some of these customers, which, from the perspective of an employer, is really appealing and would really help the sales approach. But, clearly, it adds a lot of risk to you. So, how do you feel confident going, at risk? And what does that mean exactly in this context?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: So, we announced last fall that we would go, at risk, for our clinical outcomes. And the reason we're comfortable doing it is, we've now have enough data, we've proven it, that it works. And we've done it at scale.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: We see within four months or so, we'll reduce A1c by at least a point or more. So, we're impacting diabetes, we're seeing weight loss. We'll see a 60 to 80 percent reduction in depression and anxiety. And we measure these through clinical outcome.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: We distribute devices to people's homes, so whether it's a connective glucometer or a continuous glucose monitor, we're getting the data. We can get an A1c blood test from Quest or Labcore, or from your doctor. We distribute a digital scale, hypertension blood pressure cuffs and we're getting the data.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: And we administer PHQ and GAD scores in the app for depression and anxiety respectively. So, we're measuring all this. We've done difference on difference statistically significant analyses with large pairs and that's where we feel comfortable. And I think that's one of our distinguishing characteristics as a company, is that our north star is medical cost savings and true outcomes.
Louis Woolf ’76: That's great. I mean, not only is it terrific to see that, as an employer, that you're gonna reduce our healthcare costs and absenteeism, but now, with the great resignation taking place, to the extent that you can lower people's depression and improve their mental health, employers will be able to retain their employees longer too, which-
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Louis Woolf ’76:... these days is a huge issue.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Louis Woolf ’76: That's great. Given the holistic approach that you take, one of the things that strikes me as very important, is that people's primary care physicians can be connected to this. How are people's primary care physicians connected?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: That's a great question. We have primary care physicians thanking us, because they'll see their patient and then four or five months later, they'll come back, and they've had remarkable improvement in their blood work. PCPs find out about us, their patients will go in and show all their data, just right from the app. Or we have a pedi app that we can drop into Epic. So, we can drop it into an EMR, for example, and share that with the doctors.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: But, honestly, what we find is, the job that we're doing is complementary to the PCP. It is not the day-to-day management of a chronic disease, it is not their job. That's the nutritionist or the therapist or a diabetes educator.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: And so it's extremely complimentary and they love seeing all the data. We have so much data, it's overwhelming. So, they just wanna see the outcomes (laughs) and then they're good.
Louis Woolf ’76: Do they have access to the data if they want it?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: They do have access to the data, if they want it, yeah.
Louis Woolf ’76: With the patient's permission. I assume there's some.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Yes.
Louis Woolf ’76 :Yeah? That's great.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Yeah. Yeah it's all HIPAA compliant and approved.
Louis Woolf ’76: So the motivation for you to do this was terrific. Your dad's health and all, and I think that's so common for people in our industry who are motivated to be part of a system that cares for older adults is if they had some experience when they were younger, with an older adult.
Louis Woolf ’76: So, what is your overall vision for the healthcare system? You talk in your material about wanting to help the healthcare system get better, so, what's your ultimate vision of how the healthcare system would be different than it is today?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: I think the healthcare… I come from the tech sector, where we really make things more efficient, right? I will say that I get quite frustrated by the healthcare system (laughs) and all of the spending just keeps going up and up and the quality of our care just keeps going down, right? Overall, in the US, on a relative scale, if you look at other, similar GDP countries or per capita income GDP countries.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: I do think we have a massive problem in the US, and we don't treat prevention seriously. We really are very reactive, and it's very drug driven. We'll prescribe. We're reactive with surgery. We don't look at a continuous approach to healthcare. When you look at Vida, it's proactive and continuous day-to-day, and it's much lower cost.
Louis Woolf ’76: Right.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: And so, I think the future of healthcare is largely virtual and day-to-day, continuous, always with you, like we are an integrated care team. It's looking at the mind and body. It's leveraging machine learning and, and AI, like we do today, but also, real humans like nutritionists, diabetes educators, therapists, but also, the physician.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: So, it's an integrated care team model where everyone is practicing at the top of their license and doing their part in the system.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: It's also peer groups. We have groups, peers and groups influence each other to live healthier lives and it's a very social thing and maybe look at the social determinants of health right now that are driving a lot of the problems. Social determinants are much bigger than we all acknowledge, right?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Being able to bring solutions that bring communities together, and really look at health in a different way. I think Europe and some other countries are ahead of the US in doing this.
Louis Woolf ’76: Absolutely. And I couldn't agree with you more. There's a terrific book that came out, maybe five or six years ago called, The Paradox of the American Healthcare System. And it talks about the fact that we spend so much money on, what I refer to as, a sick care system, it's not a healthcare system-
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Louis Woolf ’76: It's a sick care system. And we get-
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Louis Woolf ’76:.. as you noted, very mediocre results. When you look, worldwide, at the amount of money countries spend on wellness and sickness, and you combine it, you see that we spend very little money on wellness, and that our outcomes are exactly where they should be when we combine the money, and that we spend too much money on the sick care system, and not enough on prevention. So, I agree with you a 100 percent about that.
Louis Woolf ’76: I've recently had a lot of discussions with some of the things that call themselves healthcare systems in greater Boston and, point out to them they're a sick care system and when they're somewhat offended by that, they-
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: No, it's really, truly, a sick care system (laughs).
Louis Woolf ’76: That's all, you know, as with any business, you have to follow the money, and they get paid for making people well, not for keeping people healthy. That is hopefully changing more and more, as time goes on.
Louis Woolf ’76: So, given the fact that I'm the CEO of Hebrew SeniorLife, my primary focus is on older adults.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Louis Woolf ’76: When I look at the benefits of your app, and I look at the holistic approach that you take, and the convenience that people can access it without having to go out necessarily and-
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Louis Woolf ’76:... they have a coach that they can get virtually, I see great benefits to that population. Two questions I would have there is the older population... and my definition of the older population, partially because who I care for and partially because of my own age, my definition is people, like, 80 plus. That's where we really focus our attention.
Louis Woolf ’76: So, is that population part of your focus, given the benefit? And is the app user friendly enough for that population?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: You know, it's a great question, because we ask ourselves, how do we impact older folks? Because the majority of them do have chronic conditions, they do have social determinants, they're very lonely, they're at home, often by themselves. We rolled out with Humana, which has a large Medicare population, and we've been surprised by the engagement of older folks.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: And, the tech savviness, quite frankly.I think one of the things that they love about our app is that, we have chat, right? And it's asynchronous. So we also have synchronous care... but they love the connection to somebody. And they love the connection into a group.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: So, we've been surprised by the utilization of our app for older people and we do make sure that it's really easy to use. We have a really high net promoter score, of 81, so that's on the orders of what Apple and Google and some of the best tech companies have.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: We've learned to engage some of the population we may have to reach out to them by phone first, or a text, and then get them engaged in the app. So, we've learned how to enroll them.
Louis Woolf ’76:That's good.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: But once they're engaged and they download the app, then they can chat with their provider, they're very engaged.
Louis Woolf ’76: That's terrific. Because, as you say, the holistic approach for those folks, with their multiple comorbidities is particularly important, so it's great that you're focusing there.
Louis Woolf ’76: Well, I have a for profit and nonprofit question for you. So, the first 20 years of my career, I worked in the for profit world. I worked for Gillette and General Mills, coming out of business school and I worked, actually in entrepreneurial medicine, when MRI first came out and when Surgi centers were first being developed.
Louis Woolf ’76: For the last 20 plus years, I've worked in the nonprofit world - in hospitals for 15 years and now, at Hebrew SeniorLife, for the last 12.
Louis Woolf ’76: My experience is that there's a big difference between for profit and nonprofit. Both types need to focus on quality in service, and they need to focus on the bottom line. But, in the case of for profit companies, the quality and service is a means to the ultimate end of, of making money for investors and lenders and things. And, in the nonprofit world, financial stability is the means to optimally deliver your mission.
Louis Woolf ’76: So, most people say, oh, they're both important in both cases. But, you know, when push comes to shove, and you have to make some tough decisions, I find that the decisions then bifurcate.
Louis Woolf ’76: So, I guess, the question I have for you is, you clearly are very mission driven. The reason you are setting up this company has a lot to do with your experience with your dad and your vision. So, to what extent do you really feel as though you are able to optimize the mission when you have investors who're expecting you to optimize the bottom line?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: You know, I don't think they are mutually exclusive, and, in fact, I'm a big believer, if you don't have the mission and vision right, you can't really create a global, game changing company. And I was fortunate enough to be exposed to cultures like eBay, PayPal and Google, where people were there because of the mission and the vision. I mean it was embraced, I, we (laughs) we used to say, "Embrace the and." So-
Louis Woolf ’76: Yeah.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90:... you know, you had to, you had to win and you had to hit your revenue and your financial targets, but you also had to figure out how to optimize the business in other ways. And so, I use that same phrase inside our company today. We have to hit our targets.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: So a great example would be, in the healthcare services business, maintaining margin is a hard thing to do, right? Because you're always getting pressure. We have to embrace the "and." We have to deliver great quality service and not compromise on care, but maintain our margins.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: And so, how do we do that? Well, we're always, constantly, looking at how we take out the cost of care. So, we're looking at machine learning and AI and optimizing some of the lower level tasks, and then, improving quality along by using data and technology to improve quality.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: I think in healthcare, it's a constant, like, the more you deliver, the better the outcomes, the more pressure you're going to get on cost of care. And so, you have to be able to do both at the same time, there's really not a choice.
Louis Woolf ’76: So, if you were going along and you were beating the expectations of your investors, and you had some excess money available, and you had the choice to improve profits or invest in more growth of the company, or provide free care to an underserved population that couldn't afford it-
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Louis Woolf ’76: ... do you think you'd have the latitude with your investors to go with it?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: That's a great question. I've always wanted to get to this scale where we can do something in Medicaid where we can do a program where we're giving away the service. So, I would like to do something like that.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: I do think there's constant pressure for growth above everything else.
Louis Woolf ’76: Yeah.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Just being honest, just being able to provide access to our service, into the Medicaid population is game changing. They just don't have access.
Louis Woolf ’76: Right.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Like, when we launched our Spanish product, which is full Spanish, so we have Spanish providers, Spanish app, Spanish marketing, Spanish customer service, everything. In Texas, Florida, and some of these locations, we were blown away by the demand. People were thrilled, because that population has not had access.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: So, just providing great access alone is having a major impact.
Louis Woolf ’76:Yeah. That example that I gave you, to me is kinda a big difference between the idea of giving free care is our goal. (laughs) And that's if you're in a position where you have access so you can give free care, that's nirvana.
Louis Woolf ’76: That's when you know we've really achieved our mission. We can get there. So, I hope you have the latitude to be able to do all of the above, because I know you'd love to be able to do that.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: (laughs).
Louis Woolf ’76: The next question I have for you is around corporate culture.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Louis Woolf ’76: We've talked a lot about the platform, so this is, this is more of a management question for you. My experience is that, most companies are very good at establishing goals, as far as what they're trying to accomplish, and then, establishing different initiatives to achieve those goals. But they don't spend as much time on the culture of the organization. You know, the organizational beliefs, the values, having employees really understand what behaviors are expected and what are rewarded and what are discouraged.
Louis Woolf ’76: So, as an organization that is dealing with a lot of diverse type employees, and mostly virtual I would imagine. How do you develop a corporate culture in that more challenging environment?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Culture is paramount to performance, and I think people underestimate its importance. I've been fortunate to work for some amazing cultures and even in founding Vida, I think I underestimated how much work it was to create those great cultures. So, I've learned how much you have to invest in it.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: We've taken a lot of time to create cultural values and realize that we're blending a Silicon valley tech and entrepreneurship culture with product and engineers, with clinical providers, and much more of healthcare. And so, we have to be really good at this. The language between the two, and connecting the dots, and having a common core is, is essential. We have spent a lot of time so we do have organization and key objectives, OKRs, and we do have KPIs. We have all that.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: But, we also really do spend time on culture. We have acknowledged those values, we connect them to the vision and mission of the company, and to the outcomes. We acknowledge all hands that we have, employees that are living the values, and why and how they're living the values. So, we're very clear on, this is how you live the values (laughs).
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: And we've fired people that don't meet those values. And so we're very clear about that.
Louis Woolf ’76: That's great. I've been part of two corporate mergers of healthcare organizations that had very different cultures, and the need to work on culture and focus on culture is much more pronounced when you have a lot of employees who are viewing the world differently. For the people who are participating, the students, you know, a lot of people don't focus on culture, because they think it's hard. And they, people, there are some people who think it's really challenging to change culture and people should understand that you're always changing your culture, whether you're doing it on purpose or not, you-
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: I think that's the aha. If you don't work on culture, you are working on culture because you're not doing anything and then it naturally evolves and you're not controlling the outcome. And then, you could have things happen that are not in the mission and vision of the company. So-
Louis Woolf ’76: Yeah.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90:
... you really have to tend the garden. I think it's very high risk not to focus on culture.
Louis Woolf ’76:Absolutely and I don't think that's, I don't know about recently, but it certainly wasn't taught enough in business school when I was there. And I still don't think it is enough.
Louis Woolf ’76: So mentioning school, I would like to touch on Brandeis a little bit. I graduated in '76, and, like Len, that was after I realized I wasn't gonna play left field for the Red Sox, as opposed to hockey if you're from Canada. But I went to business school, and I focused in marketing and really focused on consumer behavior. I took the course of Bob Liner at Brandeis on consumer behavior and really focused a lot on how consumers view the world.
Louis Woolf ’76: And I believe very strongly that the social justice orientation of Brandeis led me to that real appeal of focusing on how people view the world, and satisfying needs and, ultimately, evolved into healthcare and serving the most underserved members of our population. The older and more frail amongst us.
Louis Woolf ’76: So, you touched on it a little bit, but I'm wondering, as you look back and think about your Brandeis education, what do you think was the key driver that led you, to where you are today?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Well, I think the notion of social justice and solving for social inequities is, sort of the ethos of Brandeis and everyone who I was part of, every community member that I met, had some initiative that they were thinking about, making the world a better place.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: When I left Brandeis I was really focused on economic policy and I thought that would be the place I would go. And I was encouraged by my professors to get a PhD. And I really thought I was gonna go down the academic route for a while. But then, when I realized how slow the change was I just instantly got frustrated and went into tech, and started.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: I've always been an entrepreneur, but it just came out, naturally. As I matured in my career, there was always this sense of I want to do more. I remember, when I was at eBay, and Meg Whitman, the CEO at the time, gave a speech, at an All Hands, and she said, you know, we're change, we're enabling economic democracy, because we had created a marketplace where people were able to make a living on eBay, and put their kids through college, and buy houses, and build their lives. And it was global economic democracy because we were in 33 countries.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90:She said, at the end of that speech, we're not curing cancer, but this is as good as it gets in business. And I'll just never forget that, and that was implanted in my brain. I was, like, okay, how am I going to have an impact, right? Like, what impact are we having? I was always asking that question.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: When my dad was sick and I saw that there was just this complete gap in service, in this area, and then I started researching chronic disease and the things we needed. And then, I realized, okay, this is where I could really have an impact.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90:And so it took me a while to get there. It wasn't like I did that right after graduating (laughs).
Louis Woolf ’76: Right.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: But I always had that sense that this is my mission. And I have to do something that has an impact and solves for social inequities. And I think that's what originally attracted me to Brandeis to begin with.
Louis Woolf ’76: Well, the fact that you have developed a product that so well integrates mental health and physical health, to me, is so critically important today than, more so than it was two years ago. Three years ago.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Louis Woolf ’76: There's so much stress out there and there's so much more mental health issues. And it does, you're absolutely right, it does have a huge impact on your physical health as well. I think the pandemic has its silver linings as far as opportunities and new problems to solve.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Louis Woolf ’76: I think the timing now, of you really making a big focus on the mental health side of it, is bringing even more value to the world than it would've a few years ago.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90:Yeah, it is, we started well before the pandemic. It is stark how only 25 percent of people in the US, who need mental health, are getting it. So it is pretty bad.
Louis Woolf ’76: Absolutely.
Louis Woolf ’76: Hello, Ben.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: Hello, I just can't keep away from an interesting conversation among Brandeis alums. Thank you. I'm Ben Gomes-Casseres. I am an alum with Lou, same year. And, Stephanie, it's so great to have you back at Brandeis. I jumped in at the Brandeis question because it's something that has been on my mind, and I actually have a few comments on that later on, but, we're also getting questions about that from our students.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: So let me just throw some of those at you and get a feel for what you think.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: So, the question you were just talking about, Stephanie, about starting in a certain career track, in a way, and then going to tech. Can you say more about that pivot? That's how the student called it. What does it take? Because you were probably successful on your career track and you had a future there and then, to leave that. How do you leverage it into the new world? Or do you? Or how do you start learning at that point, from the various things you did? Because you had a career in tech, that probably you learned along the way, a lot of things. Could you give that trajectory?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: You know when you graduate from college the world is your oyster, right? I don't think that anyone should hold back. When you graduate from Brandeis you should go try different things.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: And so, I went to Washington, and I was working on Japan/US trade negotiations, and I had a fellowship. I had a presidential management intern fellowship which was very prestigious, but, in the middle of it, I realized that we were not really getting outcomes. And it was painfully political, and so, I just felt stymied.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: So I couldn't affect change. I said, okay, this is not working. And so I started looking at all the different companies that I could go to and I just pivoted to tech. I didn't have a clear path. I just had a degree and guts basically.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90:And so, I worked very hard. I was very successful in these companies. I worked hard and built skills along the way. But, similarly, when I was at eBay and Google I was very successful by standards on paper, right? I was a senior vice president, I had a big team and I was having an impact, but I felt a sense of, a tug, that I wasn't having enough social impact, right?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: You could say, well, who is she to have business going into healthcare? I mean (laughs). I built. I just started tinkering and I built a prototype and I knew that I wanted to solve this problem, and I started doing all the research and then, I was talking to some friends about it, and I said, this is a really big problem, I think this should be solved.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: I actually pitched this early on to Google and I probably would've stayed there, and built it at Google, but I was too early and they were just focused on DNA and data at that point. They weren't really thinking about healthcare in a big way. This is well before Google Verily and everything.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: I just felt the passion for it, and I kept talking about it, and then, eventually, I had friends and venture capitalists who said, you have to go do this and I wanna fund you. And one thing led to another.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: So, I think the lesson is the simplest thing is, if you want to do something, you just have to take the first step, right? It's, like, if you're building a brick wall, you just put the first brick down. There's a saying that, when you make a decision, the universe conspires to support you. And I think that's true.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: I think you don't have to have all the skills, you don't have to have everything perfectly mapped. There's an expression that Adam Grant, who's a professor at Wharton, who says you don't need a full map to make a career decision, you need a compass. And I think that's a really important distinction.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's fascinating. And going back to, to the conversation with Lou, at the end there about COVID being almost the perfect storm here. Did this vision now get boosted by the availability of online things? The Zoomification of things, right?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90:Yes,I think COVID, the silver lining for COVID definitely was digital health probably accelerated by five to ten years.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres:Wow.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: When you look at what happened during the pandemic, I think it was May of 2020, or May of... yeah, it was May of 2020, 63 percent of total visits were through telehealth, right? Because, there was no other way to get care.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: Right.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: What you've seen is, it's gone back down since then, and people have returned to seeing people, seeing doctors in the office. But, actually, mental health has stayed high and people prefer therapy through tele therapy and not in person.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: This whole industry has been radically transformed. And there's no going back. We're very clear that telehealth is a good thing (laughs) and it's going to be part of the future.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90:We grew our therapy, we grew 8x therapy sessions during the pandemic. Yes, it was a big deal. I think it's a bigger deal, frankly, not just for us, but for the whole industry, because it's enabled everyone to acknowledge this is the best way of treating people. And it provides access in rural areas and other areas where people there with their social determinants. And now, Medicaid and Medicare are embracing virtual health. And so, the whole industry is exploding.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: Wow. Wow.
Louis Woolf ’76: Yeah, Ben, if I can just add something?
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres:Yeah. I was gonna ask you, Lou, because your population is in a similar situation, right? Very much so?
Louis Woolf ’76:Well, but just another thing is that the whole focus of our nation on diversity-
Louis Woolf ’76:... over the last two years has shone a light on the need to make our healthcare system more equitable. And while the primary focus initially has been Black Lives Matter as the people in the healthcare environment are looking at that, there is a thought about other groups of diverse nature, and it's really caused a lot of focus on mental health and mainlining it, because there's always been a stigma for people with mental health.
Louis Woolf ’76: And a big push, in Massachusetts anyway, in the healthcare system, to mainline, to make it more integrated. So, I think that's another real boost for Vida, if people are thinking about it in a much more holistic way, even though the systems aren't in place yet, people are thinking that way. So it'll excite people.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: Yeah. That's very interesting. You bring up inclusion and equity, Stephanie, can I come back to another question for you, about your career path and entering tech? Which is, as a woman, you were one of the few probably in the room there, doing the coding or whatever it is that was being done in the tech, right? Can you give advice to women today or can you reflect on how that went for you?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: It is true. I was one of the few women. It's better now, so that's great. And there's more and more women, and there's more and more women founders. It's definitely harder to raise capital as a woman. There's just fewer people, but it's possible. And I think you just have to not think about your gender so much, and just do it.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Sometimes it can be - in today's age - maybe it can be an advantage. Because I think people are looking to back women and to put investment behind more and more women entrepreneurs. So, I wouldn't let it hold you back and I wouldn't be shy. I would just go for it.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres:Yeah, cool. Very good. Thank you. And, in fact, a question from a student about the biggest challenges you faced. I don't know what part of it you wanna take, building the idea, figuring out the target customer, how to monetize, MVP, pitching to venture... so, the whole list of entrepreneurship topics that we cover in the course of course.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: Where is the essence for you in getting something started and then getting it on the way, the way you have?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Well, there are a lot of questions in that.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: In terms of answering that, sort of, tactical pieces of getting venture capital, I do think, in today's world, you need an MVP. You need to have built something, and tested it with customers, and have a sense for some level of product market fit. Even early on.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: And the great thing is, there's so many softwares and service tools that it makes it a lot cheaper to do that today. I think in terms of the biggest challenges I have faced, they're way bigger than that, actually. I think, in many ways, the single biggest thing I've learned is not to give up.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: I know that sounds really simple, but, there were so many existential crises that I have faced, that I could've just said, I'm done. I know them all. I have PTSD from each one of them (laughs) so you just have to be really resilient.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: I've seen this with all my entrepreneur and CEO friends, as much as it looks like amazing growth on the outside, and success and all this stuff, every problem is your problem. Every people problem is your problem. You just have to get tough.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90:... and you just have to problem solve. You've gotta lead well, and learn every day and get one percent better every day.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: So, a lot of it is mental and much more mental than I think people talk about, in terms of how you really deal with all the challenges.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: That's fascinating. I think it actually was Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was asked the question, what would you tell a freshman in college, and she said, "Persevere."
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Persevere. Yeah. I agree.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: That's awesome.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: We have some fantastic questions. We probably won't get to all of them, but some of them had to do with, how do you maintain engagement? This is going back to the product itself, I suppose. How do you maintain engagement because, obviously, in a lot of online things, we find that there is a drop off, inc- including online education, for example.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: Engaging in how you measure that is, is an important thing. How do you do that?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Well, the great news is, it's a digital app experience. And so, we know exactly what you're doing. So, we have people using the app, literally, multiple times a day.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: And we're able to see if they're engaged or they're dis-engaged - like, we know exactly if they're connecting their devices, or reading a lesson, or doing a meditation, or talking to their coach, or doing a video session, we know exactly. We can reach out to them and talk to them. Our providers can do that.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90:So we're really strict about measuring engagement. We literally look at it all, everything they're doing, every day, and try to get better at it.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: Mm.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Very very metrics driven. And I think that's the advantage of digital tech, is you know exactly what's going on.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: We have tons of students who are interested in data analytics and artificial intelligence and machine learning and all kinds of stuff that I'm not even sure what they mean, but
Louis Woolf ’76: (laughs).
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres:... Do you use those things in your business?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Yeah, we do. We use-
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: Can you tell us about this, this frontier of AI and how it's affecting you?
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90:... Yes, we use machine learning throughout our entire product. So we have modeled throughout the experience. When you come in and we match you, we give you a choice of five providers. We're using over 100 different variables to figure out, to map those to them, to you. And then, within the day-to-day experience, we're constantly looking at machine learning to personalize the experience.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: We literally have machine models running so that we know exactly, on the hour, what we should be serving you, that's personalized to you.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: We have machine learning models for our providers to look at predictive outcomes. I mean, it's throughout the product really. It's really critical throughout.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: Wow. It's critical and scary, but thank you for pushing the technological frontiers.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: This has been such a great discussion. I want to thank both of you.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: Stephanie, first of all, congratulations, and we are honored to have you amongst our honorees. So, thank you for-
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Thank you.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres:... for accepting and for being here.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: Lou, thank you for masterful conversation. I know I would love to continue this with you and with the three of you, and we learned a lot, I think, from the conversation.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: And, I just wanted to make a few comments about this whole event and actually, the fact that we're here, as alums... and Len, if you're still in the studio, if we could bring you back on, that would be wonderful. Uh, I see he's there.
Leonard Asper ’86: Yeah. I'm here.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres:... okay, maybe they will, they'll flick you back on.
Leonard Asper ’86: I wanna make a TV show out of this.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: Yeah, there you go. You’re on. We get a cut on it though, right? But, that's good. Len here we are, four alums. I can imagine us sitting in the dorm. I was in the Castle, I lived in the Castle in the North.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: Lou, I think you probably Massell.
Louis Woolf ’76: I was in Massell and East and Rosenthal and the Mods.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: I was in the Castle too.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: In the Castle.
Leonard Asper ’86: I'm North.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: You too? Well that's great. I think we all have that spirit and, in some sense, Brandesians can always talk to each other. So let me give you, as Brandesians here, let me give you a little bit of research I did. Because I work with the Asper Center, I came to realize that entrepreneurship is at the heart of Brandeis. And I didn't realize that before.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: And I went digging a little bit, and if you think of the university starting in 1948, of course it was a startup with no resources. With a huge vision and no resources, right? And afterwards, it grew, like a hockey stick, kinda thing, right? Like any startup. And it, and it was a very risky startup, and so, I started thinking, who was backing it, right?
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: Abram Sachar did the research, obviously, on the beginning of the university and the birth pangs of the university. It sounded just like a startup the way they tossed around an idea and then finally found people to support it.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: And listen to who the founders were, the early investors. These were all the early investors. There's a small group of them that are considered the founders, right? Or early investors and their families. And they were all entrepreneurs. Each one of them.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: One of them had a business manufacturing shoes in Worcester. Lou, that's where you're from?
Louis Woolf ’76: Yes. Absolutely.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: You're not from a shoe business down in Worcester. Several manufactured clothing of wool or of rubberized material for raincoats and jackets for the US Army and others.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: One made corrugated boxes in Fall River, a very big operation there.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: Another processed seafood. These are the individual founders.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: The lawyer of the group ended up running the railway between New York and Boston. That was his business that he took on.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: And one family established a grocery store business that later became Stop & Shop.
Louis Woolf ’76: Stop & Shop, right.
Stephanie Tilenius ’89, MA’90: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: So, here we're talking about something that is, I think, quite interesting. These men and women and their parents, and their families, were first and second generation immigrants, from Europe to Boston. And they were, again, almost to the last one not college educated. One or two were college educated.
Louis Woolf ’76: Right.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: The others were all basically learning from life. And they had this tremendous vision and drive. And so, it's like immigrant entrepreneurs in America. It's a movie, right? Len, that, that could be your’s.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: And if Brandeis was founded like that, it must be inside our DNA still. I think what we're doing here, Len, with the support that you're giving, it's really in that way, in the best tradition of Brandeis.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: We like to think that there are more entrepreneurs out there, with the Brandeis label on them, than we know. I know they may be in the audience, or others, but we would like to hear from them. So, if you're an entrepreneur or you have your own business or, or somehow you feel entrepreneurial, even inside a business, like Stephanie has described, inside large companies, we'd like to hear back from you.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: I wanna thank you for bringing this to life, Len, for supporting it. Stephanie, for allowing us to use your example here in a way as the best of Brandeis. Lou, from your entrepreneurship inside large organizations too, congratulations on that.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: I will just say thank you to the President and Dean Graddy. And especially the staff, Kim Airasian, in particular, and others in the staff, this tremendous team that help put this together. And we're at three o'clock, and our classes begin on time and end on time.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres: So, thank you, very much for all your attention, and good luck to all of you.
Leonard Asper ’86:Thank you. Thank you, Ben. Thank you, all.