On June 21st, iBET had the honour of hosting Anne Aunins, Program Leader at Moderna USA, as the first speaker in our newly launched “Leading for Impact” seminar series. This exciting series aims to showcase guest speakers who have achieved remarkable success in their own careers, inspiring others along the way.
During her presentation, entitled “Problem Solving Through Science”, Anne Aunins shared her career journey, highlighting the challenges, learnings, achievements, and the ways in which she excelled both personally and professionally.
Beginning with her studies in Chemical Engineering at the University of Virginia and the MIT, Anne highlighted the curiosity, independence, resilience, and collaboration as the most valuable lessons acquired during her academic training.
Transitioning into the healthcare industry, Anne embarked on a leadership path that evolved from a focused approach to a broader perspective. From her first project leader role while working with vaccine bioprocess R&D at Merck, she progressed to leading multiple teams, and to building a new department and a whole research program. Throughout this process, she invested in learning and mentoring from peer senior leaders to support hers and her teams’ development.
In 2020, Anne made the leap to Moderna, where she played a crucial role in the development of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine platform. She highlighted the difficult challenges faced by her team during the vaccine development process, including the constant emergence of different COVID-19 strains.
Anne shared several key insights with our community, including the recognition that every job holds valuable lessons, even if it’s not completely clear what they are in the beginning. She also stressed the importance on being your own career advocate, and nurturing relationships, both inside and outside your work environment. Lastly, Anne emphasized the importance of continuously embrace new challenges as a mean of personal growth, such as Anne’s recent experience completing the Boston Marathon, helping us learn not to give up when things get difficult (because they will).
iBET acknowledges Anne Aunins for her insightful talk and we look forward to the next edition of our seminar series.