20-Minute Leaders
“Everyone is here about solving problems, creating value, and changing the world.”
Sarah Levy Schreier, CTO of Sight Diagnostics, believes people should have an active role in managing their health and that Sight’s tests will help change health care
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Tell me about your career and how you ended up at Sight Diagnostics.
I was born in France to an Israeli father and a French mother. When they graduated their dentistry studies, they made Aliyah. They came back to Israel, and I grew up in the north. At the age of 18, I joined a military program called Talpiot. It's a highly exclusive program.
After three and a half years, I graduated Talpiot and I joined the special technological unit of the intelligence corps, where I spent over six years and led complex and strategic projects. I managed the cyber security department.
How many women were in your cohort?
It was me and another woman out of 33. I think these are the numbers more or less: two to five.
What was that experience like?
Back then, it was pretty rare for women to study physics and mathematics and excel in that. It's becoming more and more common. The combination of military and combat training was unique. I feel that from building leadership skills, it built me. It was good to build my strength and my ability to deal with stress, but it's not for everyone. You get criticized a lot. You really need to fight to prove yourself. It felt like there was no other option. It's either you're the best, or you're not really acknowledged for your achievements.
What was your strategy shaping your career?
I wasn't even sure if I wanted to study physics or I wanted to have this type of career. I had a dream to become a doctor. Nothing was necessarily planned.
I think I'm a real achiever. I try to lead wherever I am. So the career in the Army kind of shaped my way through whatever came after. It was during those years in the Army that I met some of the smartest people I know.
What was it about Sight Diagnostics that triggered you to join them early on?
I was approached by Yossi Pollak, the CEO of Sight Diagnostics, whom I actually knew from Talpiot. His first two weeks in the Army, I was his commander. They had a terrific story about how to help the developing world with malaria diagnostics. It's a huge problem. That was exciting for me to take part in such a journey.
Being around really intelligent people, some of whom also went through similar educational experiences as you, what does that do to a team?
There are different cultures of brilliant people. In the first five years, I kind of recruited everyone, so I had a direct impact on this. It's a culture where you really value the talent and you build a workspace where you solve complex problems together, but you also value each other. Everyone is here about solving problems, about creating value, about changing the world. Not about ego, not about showing how smart you are. I think when everyone's brilliant, you just know you're working with the best people and you are here to do the job.
I think the two most important aspects in a company for employment of those brilliant people are the people they're working with and the challenge. If you have a real deep challenge that can impact the world and you build an ecosystem of smart people, these attract more and more talent.
What is Sight Diagnostics aiming to do today to the world and to humanity?
Sight was created to provide patients with access to accurate, convenient, and pain-free diagnostic tests. We deliver results in minutes instead of days. The way it can transform health care is by providing much better and faster diagnosis to sick people.
We're actually transforming blood samples to visual data. This allows us today to perform a complete blood count, which is the most common blood test worldwide. But looking forward, we have a huge amount of data, and this paves the way for our future applications around prevention diagnostics, precision diagnostics.
We're working on biomarkers and on algorithms for treatment monitoring and early disease detection. This really is the future: to be able to access accurate blood testing at the point of care that gives you value and digitizing your blood to allow future analysis.
Two different challenges you need to overcome: consumer behavior and technology. How do you see, as you're developing the product, the shift in consumer behavior that needs to happen?
In the past 20 years, we see a serious trend of transferring diagnostics from the central labs and big centers to the point of care. We don't need to educate the market about it. You want everything in your house, if possible, if not close to your house. Affordable, convenient. The importance of decentralization is felt today globally.
The challenge remains technology. The existing technologies for some of the tests couldn't allow this decentralization. You need it to be smaller, affordable, convenient, and still as accurate. You cannot compromise this. So by using computer vision and AI, we actually introduced a new technology to complete blood counts, which allows us to preserve—and even in some cases, be better than—what's currently considered the lab-grade solutions. We can make it affordable and accessible and simple with no compromise. This is why patients and operators will actually adopt this solution.
As you're working with the team as the technology leader, how do you see your role?
Today, I'm leading what we call the product group, which defines the requirements and priorities and shapes the pipeline of our products; the program group, which manages the programs, the projects, and execution of these plans; and the quality and regulation activities.
I'm actually shaping the strategy and the roadmap of the company. That's really my role. I'm trying to shape a user-friendly product. In parallel, I’m building the infrastructure for our data. My role is to shape an excellent product that users will enjoy using that will be adopted in hundreds of thousands so that we have the data we need for the future promise.
What does that do to you internally, working on a problem like this?
I'm enjoying the role. I love the company. I feel I have a direct impact on everything that we do and it excites me. I believe in the freedom and autonomy of individuals and in emphasizing freedom of choice. People, in my opinion, should have their own choice in all fields of life, specifically in managing their health.
Sight emphasizes the importance of patient-centricity in all that we do. People should own their own data, make decisions on where and when they go through the diagnosis, and take a proactive role in leading their own care. This really resonates with my personal beliefs and the journey that I'm doing with Sight.
Where do you derive inspiration, either technologically or leadership-wise?
I was inspired by several leaders I encountered throughout my career. Some of them were in the Army. I'm inspired by some women leaders. I'm not the classic feminist in just hiring women and having a women culture. I think a balance between female leader and male leader creates a very interesting and holistic culture. I hope to be looked at by other young women that think about their career.
Sarah, I'm looking at you as a source of inspiration. So it's not just young women.
I hope so as well. I'm a technologist and I lead technology, but I actually view myself as a leader in general. I hope to have more opportunities in the future to participate and contribute to other areas.
Michael Matias, Forbes 30 Under 30, is the author of Age is Only an Int: Lessons I Learned as a Young Entrepreneur. He studies Artificial Intelligence at Stanford University, is a Venture Partner at J-Ventures and was an engineer at Hippo Insurance. Matias previously served as an officer in the 8200 unit. 20MinuteLeaders is a tech entrepreneurship interview series featuring one-on-one interviews with fascinating founders, innovators and thought leaders sharing their journeys and experiences.
Contributing editors: Michael Matias, Megan Ryan
