The opening words were given by Haifen Hu, the founder of TOPX Network. As a successful businesswoman who built a bridge to connect science to business in Life Sciences, Haifen shared her own aha moments with us. She mentioned her first big realization of her interest and talent in event management while being a biotech student, which led her to found her own company and do what she liked. Her second aha moment came up when she entered midlife and looked for a new direction and passion in her career and life.She realized that by changing the way she looked at herself, she could reinvent both herself and her company, which led her to start TOPX Network. After sharing her two big aha moments in life to kick off the meeting, Haifen gave the stage to Kinga.

Kinga Matula - What to do Next?

The session was moderated by Kinga Matula, our newest Junior TOPX Ambassador and CEO of QurieGen. As someone who transitioned from academia to industry, Kinga shared her personal story where she hit the question: ‘What to do next?’ for a long time in her life. Hearing her enlightening story of starting from a complicated place to a successful fundraising company was for sure inspiring, to say the least. Kinga is full of motivation and inspiration, derived from the famous what to do next question and the pausing moments in life.

Eliane Schutte - “Think about the mayonnaise, don’t give up!”

Then Eliane Schutte, the CEO of Xeltis took the stage to give her keynote speech. After a brief introduction of herself, her career steps and what her company does, Eliane shared with us her insights about being an executive and learning as an executive.Some of her key points were to explore your unique talents and what drives you as a person, but also to explore your allergies – which is equally important. Knowing your allergies and speaking up about them is a good way to start, the CEO shared.In her learnings, Eliane explained the career story of a CEO uniquely by sharing the story of mayonnaise.“Running a company is like making mayonnaise. You start stirring and stirring, and nothing happens at first. But then if you keep stirring, you will get the structure, it will happen.”Her brilliant keynote speech ended with an engaging Q&A session and was followed by the career stories of our panellists: Debby Kruijsen, Petra Willems and Mariette van der Velden.

Debby Kruijsen – A scientist with natural business instincts

Debby took the stage to share her story which started as a scientist dedicated to making anti-therapeutics. Yet, soon enough she noticed that she had a natural instinct to talk to the clients and listen to what they have to say – which can be a challenging issue for a scientist mostly working between four walls at the lab. Debby described her academic career as being very brief, and she followed her instinct and switched to industry.Her familiarity with academia and experience in the industry helps her significantly in making the bridge between the two. Understanding the scientific language and having business skills is an essential skill she gained throughout her career, she said.Also touching upon the challenges of being a full-time working mother, travelling and managing her personal life, Debby’s story was nothing but significantly inspiring!

Petra Willems - “Step on the train when it passes”

Then we continued with Petra Willems, the Managing Director of Organon Benelux. Petra started sharing the beginning of her career path and why she chose her field, which was formed at a very early age by mere curiosity. The problem in her ear and the medication she was prescribed pushed Petra to think a very simple yet and logical question at the age of 9: how does this little pill know where to go in her body, not to her eyes, toes but to her ear?This question took her on her journey and brought her to her current position in her career steps.Petra emphasized the importance of curiosity in her life and her suggestion to the audience was to dare to ask and step on the train when it passes. Life is full of opportunities; it is important to ask for them.

Mariette van der Velden – Aha moments? Life is full of them!

Our final panellist Mariette van der Velden, the co-founder & managing partner of Curie Capital, shared that before coming to the session, she thought whether she has any aha moments at all. But then she realized that if you look back at your career, it is full of them.Being inspired by her entrepreneur father, Mariette combined her two passions in life, science and business and built her own story as a founder and managing partner of a life-sciences-focused venture capital firm.

Overall, we had an inspiring and encouraging session with great career stories and aha moments to think about in our personal and professional lives.

To all the beautiful and hardworking women out there:“We cross the bridge when we get there”