Yoshiko Ono, Creating Partnerships to Improve Your Healthcare

October 12th, 2020

Yoshiko Ono is the Head of Strategic Partnerships and Business Development at Alula, a company focused on making cancer less lonely. Prior to Alula, she spent 2.5 years at Maven Clinic, a women’s and family telehealth company where she was responsible for commercial and product partnerships. Before making her switch to healthcare startups, she began her career at Citigroup and then spent over a decade at Google. She’s incredibly passionate about equalizing access to healthcare for all.

In this feature, Yoshiko shares with us the skills she learned in her first role, her advice for staying in a company and moving up the ladder, why she wants to work for a female-led company, and why she joined an early-stage start up - Alula. Read along to soak up her incredible career advice for ambitious women, such as yourself.

Early Career

You studied Human Development at Cornell for undergrad - how did your degree benefit you in the first few years of your career?

Human Development is the intersection of sociology, biology and psychology. In business, especially in business development or partnerships, you’re required to develop rapport quickly and ultimately there is a psychological element to negotiation.

Your first job was at Citibank as an Assistant Marketing Manager in the Retail Deposit Products group. What skills did you learn during that first role that helped you to succeed later in your career?

Hard skills: fundamental excel skills. Bringing analytic rigor to solving problems is powerful and it’s hard to argue with data!

Soft skills: Citigroup was the most corporate environment that I have been a part of to date. The amount of work and attention that went into every deck and presentation was tremendous and I learned the discipline of extreme preparation for meetings.

Google

You spent nearly 10 years at Google in four different roles, from Account Manager (Large Customer Sales), to Senior Account Manager (Google Offers), to Senior Business Development Manager (Channel Partnerships), to Team Manager (Agency Business Development). Why did you stay at Google for so long, and what advice do you have for women early in their careers who are interested in moving up within their companies?

Say yes to a lot of projects and be clear on how you contributed to the initiative and outcome. You never know how one project will serve you in the months or years to come. It’s important to soak up as much as you can from others and have a diverse set of individuals who can speak to your skills and accomplishments.

At Google, you were involved in the company’s women’s ERG (employee resource group). What did you do as a part of that involvement, and why was it important to you to be a part of it?

It was the first time that I was primarily surrounded by women who had the common goal of wanting to provide support to other female colleagues. I left many events inspired by individuals from Google (and outside of Google) and that’s where I committed to maintaining relationships with mentors and mentees because we all know how hard that can be! The community had such a profound impact on me that I knew I wanted to work for a female led or female founded company after Google. This fed into my research and finding Female Founders Fund which invested in Maven Clinic, the company I ended up at after Google.

Healthcare Tech

After Google you moved on to the female-founded femtech company, Maven Clinic, where you eventually led Global Partnerships. What was it like to switch from Big Tech to a startup, and what was the most important thing you experienced during your time at Maven?

The transition from Big Tech to a start up is common and I had heard many stories of people struggling with the transition. What people say they miss the most about leaving a company like Google is the people and what I mean by that is the magic that is created by these highly-talented, motivated and worldly individuals. I found that to be true of Maven as well and I believe start-ups can attract similar people if they have a mission that people are passionate about which certainly rings true of my company now, Alula.

Previous to Maven, I worked at two major corporations. Getting meetings was easier by just mentioning the company’s name. When I joined Maven, I had to learn how to customize my pitch and stress the value we could provide because no one knew who we were.

Recently, you joined Alula, a female-founded seed-stage startup that is “making cancer less lonely” by providing cancer hacks to help you, your family, and your friends better maneuver through the discovery, treatment, and recovery of cancer. What convinced you to join an early-stage startup, and how do you think your past experiences have prepared you for this role?

I decided to join Alula because I love the healthcare space and I believe strongly in Alula’s mission, and the opportunity to build a company from the ground up was very exciting. I’ve worked at very big companies - Citi and Google - and then at Maven Clinic which was pretty small and got much larger while I was there. At all of those companies, I was helping to build on a vision that had been set by others, so I liked the idea of being one of a small group that would launch this company into the world. Having an understanding of how large companies work is useful because it helps me think about building a company that will ultimately partner with large companies. My experience at Maven was invaluable because I got a sense for how startups work, how prioritizing one thing means you can’t focus on another so you’ve got to be smart with prioritization. I also got to understand how to hire and grow quickly, and that sometimes you make mistakes along the way - you just need to own them, learn from them, and move on.

Advice

What do you wish you knew when you were first starting your career?

Careers are long, they surprise you in unexpected ways, and you don't land your dream job overnight. When you’re just starting out and you don’t have any real work experience, it’s hard to believe that everything will work out as you’d like it to. It can be easy to get frustrated. I have found that if you keep on meeting people, learning more, and working to grow your skills that you will inch closer to what you want until you finally find yourself there.

Who is one woman you aspire to be like?

I have admired Ruth Bader Ginsburg for many years now and she’s top of mind for many of us given her recent passing. But aspiration comes in many forms, and one woman who I have long looked up to is Amy Poehler. Her humor is imbued with confidence and strength, and she challenges a lot of social norms in unassuming ways. She happens to be hilarious, but she’s also always working to advance the position of women in society.