May 4, 2021Datavant Way: The DNA of Our Distinctive CultureThe greatest companies have distinctive cultures — cultures that attract great people and define how an organization works together to pursue a mission and build a huge business. Some of the greatest companies have written down their cultural playbooks: the Netflix Culture deck (from 2009) and the HP Way (from…Culture8 min readCulture8 min read
Published in Datavant·Nov 8, 2019Pregnant Women Expect Better: Real-World Evidence Can Solve the 50-Year Knowledge Gap for Medicines Used in PregnancyMy husband and I are expecting our first child right around the new year. After the initial excitement of learning that we were pregnant, we eagerly set out to learn everything we could to help ensure a healthy pregnancy and delivery. …Health5 min readHealth5 min read
Jul 24, 2019Mid-Summer Advice for Our Summer Intern ClassI recently shared the following guidance with the 4 summer interns (all rising college seniors embedded in our engineering team) based on talking with them, their mentors, and other who are working with them. What would you add or change? On ownership: Like the TSA airport slogan goes, “If you…Internships2 min readInternships2 min read
Published in Datavant·Jul 11, 2019Guiding Philosophies for Recruiting World Class Teams in TechAs the Head of People at a fast growing tech startup in San Francisco, I’ve had the pleasure to meet hundreds of candidates and refine the way we approach hiring and talent at Datavant. These are my guiding philosophies, which may help other teams who are developing their approach to…Hiring3 min readHiring3 min read
Jul 11, 2019My Commencement Remarks: “Be wrong as often as you are right and pivot often.”I was honored to be invited to deliver the 2019 Commencement remarks at the school I attended for 6th to 12th grade, Cary Academy, in Cary, NC. These are the remarks I shared on May 24, 2019. Good afternoon. To the Board of Directors and head of school, Mike, thank…Education7 min readEducation7 min read
Published in Datavant·Mar 25, 2019A Quick-Start Guide to Compliance for Startups (Open Sourcing Datavant’s Compliance Policies)We are sharing this “quick start guide” for leaders of early stage data companies trying to build a compliance program while retaining a culture of nimbleness and empowerment. It’s everything we wish we knew a year ago. Datavant’s vision is to connect the world’s health data. This puts us in…Cybersecurity12 min readCybersecurity12 min read
Feb 28, 2019CONVERSATIONS on hitting deadlines and commitmentsJeremy Lizt is a Technical Advisor to Datavant, and former CTO and Co-founder of LiveRamp (NYSE:RAMP). Holly May is Head of People & Operations at Datavant. We converse on topics of company culture and organizational development. Their first post is: https://medium.com/datavant-engineering/conversations-1ba61add1c1a Holly May: Hi Jeremy, what do you recommend for…Agile4 min readAgile4 min read
Feb 13, 2019CONVERSATIONS on scaling team spiritJeremy Lizt is a Technical Advisor to Datavant, and former CTO and Co-founder of LiveRamp (NYSE:RAMP). Holly May is Head of People & Operations at Datavant. We converse on topics of company culture and organizational development. Holly May: Hey Jeremy, thanks for joining me in this conversation about organizational development…Startup3 min readStartup3 min read
Published in Datavant·Dec 22, 2018“Why Datavant?” — The answer to the question I ask the mostIn virtually every one of the 111 job interviews I conducted this quarter, I asked: “so, why are you interested in Datavant?” I joined 5 months ago — I was recently on the other side of the table. …Startup4 min readStartup4 min read
Dec 22, 20184 Principles for Learning What Your Employees Really Think About WorkHolly May & Brandon Sammut| December 21, 2018 While soliciting employee feedback can build trust and drive performance, gathering feedback and not acting on it does more harm than good. Employee engagement is a topic that has been explored in great depth in HR and management literature, but truly understanding…Employee Engagement5 min readEmployee Engagement5 min read
