Podcast Ep. 21 Laura Francis Stanford MBA ’95 meets Aislin Roth MBA ’25

Today, I’m joined by Laura Francis from the Stanford MBA Class of 1995 and Aislin Roth from the Class of 2025.

Laura is the CEO of SI-BONE (Nasdaq: SIBN), a global leader in the medical device industry. She recently joined the board of Bruker Corporation (Nasdaq: BRKR), a life science and diagnostics company, and was previously a board member for Shockwave Medical (Nasdaq: SWAV) prior to its acquisition by Johnson & Johnson. She also serves as an executive board member of the Medical Device Manufacturers Association, advocating for the future of the medtech industry and mentoring the next generation of industry and medical professionals. Prior to SI-BONE, Laura held executive roles with both public and private life science companies, including Auxogyn (now part of Progyny, Nasdaq: PGNY), Promega Corporation, and Bruker Corporation. Earlier in her career, she was an Engagement Manager with McKinsey & Company and began her professional journey as an Audit Manager with Coopers & Lybrand, now PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Aislin is a second-year MBA student at Stanford GSB, originally from Toronto, Canada. Before business school, she worked as a consultant at BCG and as Director of Strategy and Special Projects at Life House, a venture-backed hospitality technology startup. She also completed a pre-MBA growth equity internship at Georgian, investing in high-growth technology companies. After graduation, Aislin will join KKR’s private equity operations group in Menlo Park, helping portfolio companies drive operational improvements and growth. She is passionate about building companies from the inside, blending strategic insight with hands-on execution, and is drawn to the intersection of leadership, transformation, and long-term value creation.

Together, we explore what it takes to grow companies—from venture-backed startups to public markets and private equity ow  nership. We talk about the challenges and rewards of CEO leadership, the new career pathways emerging for operators like Aislin, the evolving conversation around women in leadership, and the choices we all make between work, life, and purpose along the way.

Chapters

00:00 Women in Leadership: The Journey to CEOship

13:33 Navigating the Public Company Landscape

22:38 Balancing Career and Family: A Personal Perspective

31:07 The Gender Dynamics in Business Leadership

32:39 Navigating Career and Personal Life

33:24 The Stanford Experience: Expanding Horizons

35:58 Cultural Exposure and Diversity in Education

37:16 Travel and Life Experiences

40:08 Leadership and Purpose in Business

46:48 Work-Life Integration: Balancing Career and Personal Goals

52:46 The Impact of Technology and AI on Work

58:14 Purpose-Driven Leadership in Today's World

Join the Podcast Series
Stanford MBA: From Baby Boomer to Gen Z | Class of ‘95 Meets Class of ‘25

Each of these episodes will feature a different pair of Stanford MBA people -- one from the class of 1995, and one from the class of 2025.

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https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSaVisoF0D_GKxVmHmakNxdpAJCb5_VTP

More info: https://www.katharinemclennan.com/

Contact: kath@katharinemclennan.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katharinemclennan/

Chapters

• 0:00 Women in Leadership: The Journey to CEOship
• 13:33 Navigating the Public Company Landscape
• 22:38 Balancing Career and Family: A Personal Perspective
• 31:07 The Gender Dynamics in Business Leadership
• 32:39 Navigating Career and Personal Life
• 33:24 The Stanford Experience: Expanding Horizons
• 35:58 Cultural Exposure and Diversity in Education
• 37:16 Travel and Life Experiences
• 40:08 Leadership and Purpose in Business
• 46:48 Work-Life Integration: Balancing Career and Personal Goals
• 52:46 The Impact of Technology and AI on Work
• 58:14 Purpose-Driven Leadership in Today's World

Transcript

Note: this transcript is generated by AI, so it won’t always be perfect, especially when it comes to: 

·        Incorrect breaks in a sentence (AI hears the pause and assumes a new sentence)

·        Exact word recognition – you may see that there are words that don’t make sense from time to time

Katharine McLennan (01:03)

Today I'm joined by Laura Francis from the Stanford MBA class of 1995, one of my classmates, and Aislinn Roth from the class of 2025. Laura is the CEO of Cybone, a global leader in the medical device industry. She recently joined the board of Brooker Corporation, a life science and diagnostics company,

And was previously a board member for Shockwave Medical prior to its acquisition by Johnson & Johnson. She also serves as an executive board member of the Medical Device Manufacturers Association advocating for the future of the medtech industry.

and mentoring the next generation of industry and medical professionals. Part of Sidebone, Laura held executive roles with both public and private life science companies, including Oxygen, now part of Progeny, Promega Corporation, and Brugge Corporation. Earlier in her career, she was an engagement manager with McKinsey & Company and began her professional journey.

as an audit manager with Cooper's and Libra, Aislinn is a second year MBA student at Stanford GSB, originally from Toronto, Canada.

Before business school, she worked as a consultant at BCG and as director of strategy and special projects at LifeHouse, a venture-backed hospitality technology startup. She also completed a pre-MBA growth equity internship at Georgian, investing in high growth technology companies. After graduation, Aislinn will join KKR's private equity operations group in Menlo Park.

helping portfolio companies drive operational improvements and growth. She is passionate about building companies from the inside, lending strategic insight with hands-on execution, and is drawn to the intersection of leadership, transformation, and long-term value creation. Together, we explore what it takes to grow companies from venture-backed to public markets and private equity ownership.

We talk about the challenges and rewards of CEO leadership, the new career pathways emerging for operators like Aislinn, the evolving conversation around women in leadership, and the choices we all make between work, life, and purpose along the way.

Katharine McLennan (03:27)

Laura, first of all, where do we find you?

Laura Francis (03:29)

I'll give just a little bit of background on myself. So I am a Stanford 95 grad and I am the CEO of a publicly traded medical device company. The name of the company is SI Bone and we work with

Katharine McLennan (03:31)

Yeah, please.

Laura Francis (03:47)

orthopedic and neurosurgeons that treat patients with a number of different sacral pelvic issues. So we'll do around $200 million in revenue this year. We're located in the San Francisco Bay area. We primarily sell in the United States, but we do have operations in Europe and we sell in Australia too and have around 350 employees and it's

I've been here 10 years. I've been the CEO for four years.

Katharine McLennan (04:20)

And you listed,

I saw the beautiful photos of you guys listing on NASDAQ.

Laura Francis (04:23)

I know

that that was a bucket list. That was a lot of fun.

Katharine McLennan (04:30)

And let's come back to that. Aislinn, where do we find you today? We know you're a second year, almost graduate of Stanford Business School,

Aislin Roth (04:39)

no, it's exciting. I'm actually I'm sitting in one of the breakout rooms on campus right now and it's another sunny day and I think they're setting up for a reunion which is this upcoming weekend. So the end is sneaking up on us month and a half left to school and then maybe I'll be back this time next year for reunion. But a little bit about me, I'm from Toronto, Canada. We were just chatting about that earlier.

and then just moved here for business school. I spent some time working in consulting and then joined a travel startup called Life House, Series B to Series C stage before business school. And then I'm joining KKR full time after this on their private equity operations team.

Katharine McLennan (05:14)

That small little company. So Laura, typical day, we were just talking about the day of a CEO

Aislin Roth (05:17)

one we've never heard of before.

Laura Francis (05:25)

Yeah, I was saying that I probably work more now than I ever worked before. being with a medical device company working with surgeons, usually they're in a clinic or an operating room Monday through Friday. So weekends are

definitely fair game. It's pretty typical for me to travel. I was traveling this weekend. I went to a meeting on Friday and that's the norm. This week I'm actually, I'm on the board of a lobbying group called the Medical Device Manufacturers Association. So I'm going to Washington DC.

later this week where I will meet with a bunch of the leaders in medical device and I'll meet with members of Congress and talk to them about what's important to our industry. So that's this week and then next week I'm going to Europe. Actually, I have my earnings call on Monday for my first quarter.

And then Tuesday, I have my town hall meeting with my employees in the morning. And then the afternoon I go to Europe, I meet with investors in London on Wednesday and Thursday. Then I'm going to Italy for a board meeting with the company, Brooker Corporation. And then I'm going to meet with my employees in the Milan area, pretty much our whole European team on Tuesday and Wednesday. So, and this is not an unusual.

schedule for me.

Katharine McLennan (07:00)

He's like, well, let's go back a little bit to KKR because I'm interested in that. I'd love to hear a little bit about that. And

your decision on that.

Aislin Roth (07:10)

Yeah, I guess we are fortunate here. They have a campus recruitment process now. So I think they hire one to two people a year from Stanford and Harvard. So they luckily came to campus. And I actually knew another Canadian who I used to work with who has gone and joined the KKR team in Menlo Park. And so she was the reason I heard about the role and knew it existed. think maybe similar to both of you, it sounds like.

PE ops wasn't really on my radar. It wasn't a career path that I knew existed. But I think after my time in consulting and then at the startup, I like, I think I want to be an operator one day. I don't just want to be the advisor seat as a consultant, but I also don't know if I'm ready to like dive right in and I know what's the end company I'm going to choose and end up at.

So KKR, if you think of consulting as like building your analyst toolkit, think KKR, Capstone, the PE ops team pitches itself as building your CEO toolkit. So who knows Laura, maybe one day I'll be aspiring to sit in your shoes. But I think the idea is to spend a few years there learning like how do you work with leaders of some of the companies that KKR owns? And since you're actually the owner and not just a hired advisory consulting firm, think incentives are a lot more aligned. So it should be an exciting, exciting role to work with different portfolios.

companies that KKR has and just learn about what it takes to lead some of those organizations.

Katharine McLennan (08:23)

So Aism, for benefit of our listeners, when you say ops, tell us a little bit about what ops means.

Aislin Roth (08:33)

So I guess KKR is a global investing firm and the biggest asset class they invest in that they started with is private equity. And so they're going and taking a controlling interest in some of these companies. And after they acquire the business, they're investing in it because they think they can run the business more efficiently. And so the business can.

be more profitable. And usually there's a few key initiatives for why we think we can drive more value. Maybe we want to change our sales team structure. We want to expand to different locations across the US. And so the P operating team comes in after they've completed a transaction to say, all right, like how are we actually going to drive change on those value levers? And so it's a really unique opportunity. I go get to work with the CRO or the CFO and say, what are these key initiatives and how are we actually going to change the profitability of this business to hit?

whatever investment thesis we had. So it's kind of a cool role because you work with both the investing team and the management team. And I'm sure, Laura, you see this too, where there's sometimes like the board view and the investor view is very different than the on the ground manager view. So I think your role is a bit of a go between on where can we drive change? Where are there real executional reasons why like this number the board wants is unreasonable? So we're kind of that go between to help take ideas that sound good in theory and figure out how do we actually implement those in practice.

Laura Francis (09:34)

Absolutely.

Katharine McLennan (09:49)

Laura, you grew organically. have you been involved with the KKR like instruments and investments? So it's always been organic.

Laura Francis (09:58)

No,

it's a, that's a whole other world from my perspective. So I, I, I started to focus my career at a certain point on, um, high growth healthcare is, or life sciences, maybe is the right way to put it. So I really like companies. I'm not really a startup person, um, because I'm, I feel that I add more value in a company that is commercial stage.

But companies anywhere from, you know, $20 million to a billion dollars, right, is probably my sweet spot. And so I actually like taking companies that are private, and that was similar with Si Bone, private company, grow the company, take the company public and manage the company as a public company too. So I've been CFO here, COO.

CEO. And then I've sat on the board, I sat on the board of a company called Shockwave Medical. They did 12 million in sales when I first joined the board, they were pre IPO. And last year, they were bought by J &J and they did probably a billion dollars in sales. So this kind of rocket ship sort of a and company. But I've always done more venture capital backed or public company backed. Not

private equity, although private equity is becoming so pervasive. I think there's three times or four times more companies that are backed by private equity than they're publicly traded in the United States. it's interesting. And I do have some friends that work in the space and I'll usually just ask to get educated on it. But I'm more really an expert in VC and more recently,

investors.

Katharine McLennan (11:50)

when you talk to KKR, when you graduated, I love that operations position. my gosh. I wish that was available for us because like you, started as a

consultant and I think I missed that to be inside the company. what was it about that that caused you

Aislin Roth (12:11)

Yeah, I mean, I think I was thinking through, do I want to be an investor? Do I want to be an operator? And my skill set and what motivates me at work, think, does lean more operations focused. I really enjoy working with people and being on part of a team instead of I find investing is more individualistic.

And then I think I also just thought I like implementing projects and having an end date and something that you can see at the end of the tunnel. So I wanted to be more of the execution person. And then it became Laura's question of, this an early stage company that I want to operate? Is this a public company or something in the middle? And I think I recognized my skill set isn't necessarily the build from scratch. It's the take something and figure it, figure out how to optimize it, how to make it better. And so I wasn't going to go super early stage. I had tried that with this hospitality company I was at. And then I think.

also going public when you're fresh out of school, thought I might be just stuck because I might be a mid-level manager in the middle of a big bureaucracy. so not to say that's not where I'll be sometime in the future, but I think the private equity felt like the right stage where you have an established business, but it's a business that's maybe been operating the same way for 50 years. And there's a lot of ways you can make the business run better, but it's still small enough that I can go in there and actually make a difference and see the results of my work and work with other.

people who are really inspired to see change. So I think that was the middle ground for me. I private equity is far from perfect. sometimes the timeline's a little short, but I thought it was quite interesting.

Katharine McLennan (13:31)

Well, be able to, well, the time

is short. So, so Laura, got, the listing and the shareholders are so diversified, Laura. Tell us a little bit about the quarterly.

pressure that you have particularly since 2018 when you listed on NASDAQ.

Laura Francis (13:51)

you know, I'm pragmatic about it where I understand that you kind of need to position yourself to meet, beat and raise every single quarter, right? That's what's expected and.

And, but at the same time, what I really do try and think about is the longer term growth of the business and sustainability of the business as well. Right. So you, you have to be pragmatic about what's expected quarterly. And sometimes that's just making sure that you're positioning the company in the right way with investors. But then it's also what.

really gets me up every single morning is how do we innovate, right? How do we develop new procedures and new products that address on med clinical needs? And so you're thinking about the three to five years out with those sorts of activities. that's what we do and that's the fun part of all of this. But being a public company, you just have to understand,

what's expected and, and, you know, how to do that successfully. So given that I had been the CFO and the COO of the company before becoming the CEO, it was, it was helpful to have had that perspective. Cause I would say one of the things that does frustrate a lot of CEOs that I talk to is they'll say, just, the public company side of it, the investor side of it. It's just not my cup of tea.

Whereas for me, I see all the benefits of being a publicly traded company, specifically the access to capital and the ability to grow in the way that I'm talking about.

Katharine McLennan (15:31)

And 2018, there was a decision. Was it a tough one to list or not to list, Laura? Or was there no other option?

Laura Francis (15:39)

No, gosh, hope it's never it should never be we have to do this because we need money. If you're doing that, you're doing it for the wrong reasons. Because then you have to be a public company. And if you are not positioned properly to do that, it's it's just a disaster. There's a lot of companies that they just become zombie companies at a certain point because they're a product. They're not really

a company. And so I think that being public is something that the CEO, the executives, the board need to really be thoughtful about. Why do we want to do this? And, you know, why does it make sense for the company long term? You really need to be a true company. You have to have the ability to grow and be standalone. You have to get the profitability. You have to start generating cash flow. And

You know, the way that we thought about it in 2018, I started with the company in 2015 and we were not ready for around three and a half years. had reimbursement challenges because we had a completely new therapy and you have to have payers who are going to pay for the patients to receive this therapy. And I had one Wall Street analyst, he was the top Wall Street analyst at the time that I talked to.

about going public earlier than 2018. And he was a very wise person and I'm still good friends with him. He's no longer an analyst, but he said, you can only go public once. So make sure that you pick the right time to do it and set yourself up for success. And I think that's what we did.

Katharine McLennan (17:26)

What's the right time, Laura?

Laura Francis (17:28)

I think that you have to have a lot of the building blocks in place. And by the way, it changes depending upon what the timeframe is. At the time, I think we had around $50 million in sales. Think that you have to have, for a company like ours, I think that you needed to have a significant amount of sales and you needed to understand what are you using the money for?

In our case, what we were trying to do was accelerate our ability to access the market, right? And it was especially hiring salespeople, but it was clinical trial work and it was R &D development and it was professional education. And, you know, those were the sorts of things that we knew we needed to raise money from preferably public sources in order to really drive the growth of the company. So I think.

think you have to be positioned the right way. Shockwave was early. Shockwave had only done 12 million in sales, but it was so clear the ramp that they had and the place that they were going that it made sense for them when they went public too. But the timing is important. Don't go too early for sure. I think later is actually okay. I think going too early can really be a disaster.

Katharine McLennan (18:45)

And when KKR comes in, I don't remember. I've only had KKR experience here, where they come in, buy from the owners, and then sell to another private equity company.

so KK, is that right to say that KKR usually sells? They don't usually list.

Aislin Roth (19:05)

So it depends. think they could take the company public. Normally, KURO would seek to hold the business for five to 10 years. And so that's the timeline thing I was mentioning to Laura is you're investing in the business to start. then you obviously, need to see a return, not immediately. You don't need to see a return every quarter, which is sometimes the pressure when you're public. But you do want to see the return on that investment within that five to 10 year period when you're.

Katharine McLennan (19:06)

It depends. OK. Yeah.

Aislin Roth (19:27)

Your investors also want their money back. So KKR will, I think it's more, a lot more common now to sell to other private equity firms, but otherwise they might, there might be a strategic M &A buyer, someone else in the healthcare industry, a bigger healthcare player buying a small healthcare company, or they could take a company public. So it just be one of those three ways to exit their stake in the business. And we'll have to see which type I get to experience, but I'm normally more involved. Our team would be involved like earlier.

soon after a company is acquired as opposed to towards the end typically because that's when you're making more changes.

Katharine McLennan (20:00)

It's fascinating too, Aislinn. I've watched many people take it in your position because You're working for KKR and the company may look at you a bit suspiciously. And so you'll have to work in a very balanced way. How's your diplomacy?

Aislin Roth (20:17)

You

Definitely.

I think PE has a bit of a bad reputation. so if I was one of the people in this company, I would have some concerns around like, you're coming in, am I about to lose all my budget? all the cash going to be stripped away from the company? I K-Hera tries to take a different approach. Like NetNet, we're trying to invest more in the business and grow the business. But at the same time, they're going to like optimize the model and then scale it. And so I think it helps to say that we're all on the same team. Everyone is an owner in this business and everyone wants to see the business

business get more profitable in the end. And so my job isn't to destroy this company, it's to build it up to be better in the future. And so I think my role is also to bring some of the concerns back to the investing team if there's an idea that looks good in theory but is unreasonable on the ground. So it's definitely an act in diplomacy and playing both sides. want to build trust with the company, but you also are acting on behalf of the investment firm. So it'll be a balancing act. You'll have to ask me a year from now how it's going.

Katharine McLennan (21:16)

Is it,

would you take a position on the C suite or you are the internal advisor?

Aislin Roth (21:22)

With the KKR model, you're not in a position, a formal position on the C-suite. You'd be working on a specific project, but probably for a year at a time, I'd be working with one specific company. And so this summer when I interned there, I was working with the CRO and channel sales strategy for a portfolio company. So I guess it's like a temporary position.

Katharine McLennan (21:23)

Yeah. Yeah.

Aislin Roth (21:42)

I guess between being a consultant and being fully embedded in the business. So it's a good way to learn and then most people go on to then work in portfolio companies afterwards or work in other businesses. So you're kind of an in-between with the end goal of eventually joining one of the companies.

Katharine McLennan (21:54)

It's.

Gee, Laura, I wish this option were available when we graduated. Laura, where were you up to 30 years ago?

Laura Francis (22:01)

Yeah.

Well, so to start out, I had my first child four weeks before I graduated from Stanford. I don't know if you remember that.

Katharine McLennan (22:11)

Wow.

Aislin Roth (22:11)

Wow.

Laura Francis (22:15)

gave birth to my son four weeks before I graduated from Stanford. And he's the joy of my life in addition to his sister who came along three years later when I was working like crazy at McKinsey. So there's no good time to do these sorts of things. But I took off a little bit of extra time after I graduated. I didn't start working until the following January.

Katharine McLennan (22:19)

Goodness.

Laura Francis (22:40)

And I took a job with McKinsey in Chicago actually, because I had family close by and I was starting a family. And I chose McKinsey because I had actually started my career in public accounting. am a CPA and that's how I started. So five years in public accounting, went to Stanford and then I went to McKinsey to broaden my background.

Yeah, I'm a person that gets bored pretty easily. So I liked the idea of every few months I was working on a different client, a different problem. And I think it's why I love high growth companies that are a little bit smaller because I always had the opportunity, even though maybe my title was Chief Financial Officer or Chief Operating Officer.

I was always able to take on a lot of different responsibilities. So McKinsey played very nicely to all of that. And in addition to this financial expertise that I had developed over early in my career, then what I did is I established this strategic mindset and understanding of implementation. And then kind of similar to what Aislinn was saying, I really wanted to be inside of a company and I wanted to build

companies and I wanted to be a part of them. And so I took all of that financial expertise and strategy and I applied it inside of the businesses and helped to build those businesses and I find it incredibly rewarding.

Katharine McLennan (24:15)

Which is amazing. I'm just kind of sitting here in awe of having a baby six weeks before graduation. ⁓

Laura Francis (24:24)

You know, it seemed like a good idea at the time,

Catherine. It was planned.

Katharine McLennan (24:28)

But there's no good time, right?

Laura Francis (24:30)

No, there's no,

there's no good time. And I, you know, I, I had said that I'm working harder now than I ever have in my career. And I think part of it is that my career has had different phases to it. There have been times where I've had to, I've always worked. never, I never took off time, but there were times where I was more focused on my family and less on my career. And then other times where.

You know, it's right now, right? My kids are grown though. My kids are adults and they're amazing. And I'm so grateful that I had that time with them and I have an amazing relationship with both of them. I'm very close to both of them, but I partly think the reason why I was so hungry with

my company and the board work that I'm doing is because I had to step back a couple of times in my career. And I really appreciate the responsibility that I have that the board has given to me. I consider it an honor to be leading my company and sitting on the boards that I sit on. And I don't take it for granted.

Katharine McLennan (25:42)

Laura, it's such an interesting journey for women still.

Laura, I don't think we ever had feminist rights or or anything like that when we were at NBA. it was usually a third women and two-thirds men. And I think it's gradually crept up, Aislinn, I think you guys are even.

How much do you see that on the Stanford experience?

Aislin Roth (26:04)

I definitely think being a woman is a key part of my identity and we have a lot of GS, women at GSB groups here and what's up, and how people identify. But at the same time,

Katharine McLennan (26:10)

you yes, we did. We did.

Aislin Roth (26:13)

the class is, it feels really gender balanced. I'm sure compared to when you were both here, there was fewer women in your class. And so I don't think it's felt like my gender has held me back in any way at business school. I do think in finance, the investing team is-

Katharine McLennan (26:18)

Yeah.

Aislin Roth (26:28)

predominantly male. The operating team that I sit on is a lot more even. I do think that is partially because the work-life balance is slightly better. You still work a lot, but for me, and I don't know, Laura, how you feel, like I can work a lot if I have predictability over when I will need to do the work. And so I can still make...

Laura Francis (26:29)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Aislin Roth (26:44)

I need to get x amount of things done by Friday. I will 100 % accomplish those things, but knowing I could leave at 5 o'clock on a Wednesday because I have some important commitment is really meaningful to me. I think maybe women, I at least optimize for just predictability and a degree of flexibility a bit more in the role. Instead of investing, I think you're to have things that are on fire. And this might stop me sometimes, but it happens more often where your entire weekend is gone and last minute you need to be working super late. So maybe for me, it was those two elements

that are different.

that I do not have children, but I do see some older women at work who think, well, if I'm on this private equity team, it's a lot easier for me to step back and actually go on Matley for six months because I'm not part of a company and they'll choose to wait to leave.

KKR to take an actual CEO position, CFO position until after they've had their kids because then it's harder to step away. So I think that's interesting how women, I think they're sometimes more thoughtful around that career transition timing and no one's telling them they can't. It's just it's a lot harder to be CFO for like nine months and then leave for six months and come back than it would be with this role where I'm stepping into a portfolio company and stepping out of it.

Laura Francis (27:34)

Yeah.

I know. I know. Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (27:52)

fact that you even know that whole psychology is like, I would never have been aware or thought about it because I was just going to be CEO right away, And then all of a sudden having children was a bit of a whack, you know. Oh, they didn't tell

Aislin Roth (27:56)

with

Katharine McLennan (28:10)

us.

Laura Francis (28:12)

No, they didn't tell us that we were going to have two 24 by 7 jobs, right? And, you know, time is a limiting factor, you know? I didn't sleep a lot for quite a few years to try and keep up with both sides of it. So, you know, the thing that I usually, I get a lot of women that will contact me and kind of go, how did you do this? You know, I mean,

Katharine McLennan (28:17)

That's it.

Mm.

Laura Francis (28:38)

Right now, I think if you look at publicly traded companies, 6 % of publicly traded companies are run by females.

And I work in an industry, I work with spine surgeons and around 6 % of spine surgeons are female.

Katharine McLennan (28:53)

when the proverbial question then comes, why, what's your answer, Laura,

Laura Francis (28:58)

I think the answer is the CEO job is, it's a 24 by 7 job. And it just is what it is. so it's not impossible, but it's very difficult, I think, to be raising a family and doing what I do.

Katharine McLennan (29:22)

And the role of the mother then takes over those men who are also many of them fathers.

Laura Francis (29:28)

I'll tell you, my husband is amazing and I got married right out of college. I was 21 years old when I got married, which my parents thought that was waiting. I'm coming from a working class family, just very different sort of a situation, but he's incredibly supportive. But the reality was I wanted to take primary responsibility for my children. I just wanted to be there for them, right?

It's, you know, sometimes we talk about gender roles and stuff like that, but it was what I wanted to do. So you can have everything. What I usually tell women is you can have everything. It's just hard to have it all at the same time.

Katharine McLennan (30:07)

It's hard to have it all at the same time. it's a pretty exciting stage, as I recall. Anyway, what is it about Stanford

that gets you ready for KKR world. What are the things that surprised you in the last two years that sort of opened up the world as a, cause you came in from BCG. Am I right?

Aislin Roth (30:30)

I love BCG and gone to work in this travel startup for a year. But I think I was still, I guess for me, I was coming from Toronto. I had never lived or worked in the U S before.

Katharine McLennan (30:31)

that's right. That's right. That's right. That's right.

Aislin Roth (30:40)

And so I think Stanford for me really just like expanded my horizons and people talk about Stanford being a place where it feels like anything is possible. And I thought that was a bit of an overstatement, but I think you get here and that's really true. If you want to go become a founder, if you want to raise your own venture fund, basically whatever you want to do, just dream big and try. And so I don't think this is a job I would have tried for back home. I didn't even know it existed. And so I think I credit Stanford with maybe just like expanding my horizons of what opportunities exist out there and having bit more confidence to

think there's no harm in trying. I didn't know if this role would work out. There's, countless other roles, but why not give it a shot? I think Stanford, especially for international students, can give you that shot. It helps get you the visa to start out in the US. So for me, I was really just learning more about what existed.

I think the best part for me has been meeting people who have done so many different things before and just come from such different backgrounds. So who knows what I'll do. Like this is one step in my career. I don't know where I will end up, but it exposes you to so many different options that at least there's all these things that I didn't know about before and I have someone I could reach out to if I'm interested. And so I think it's that exposure that's made the biggest difference.

Katharine McLennan (31:46)

And I wonder Laura, if the exposure that I hear in your classes is extraordinary. You are travelers. have, what's the percentage for example of non-American, let's say you're not overseas, but non-American students in your class.

Aislin Roth (32:01)

I think it's around 40 % international.

Katharine McLennan (32:03)

Whoa,

I think it would be very difficult for an American to get into Stanford, But that is, we had no percentage like that, Laura. I mean, we certainly had wonderful people that were not American, but not like that. Do you remember that?

Laura Francis (32:20)

to

remember what percentage were international. I think in our class it was only 26 % female. it was very, and that was down even from where it had been.

But I wanted to say international is around 10%. I think it was 10 if I'm recalling it. But what a rich experience for the students today to have such a diverse group.

Katharine McLennan (32:35)

That feels feels right.

of the things...

And this is where it's interesting to watch it. is I've always been I should have studied sociology and been a sociologist really, because I mean, I just love the cultural aspects and that's what I've been doing for the last 25 years. But for you guys, obviously in a different world, Laura, I always try to remind these guys that we were just exposed to the Internet. We didn't even have a retail Internet. One of our classmates started eBay and another one founded Hotmail.

This is all new to us. The exposure that you guys get and that the word is important. You use the word, Aislinn. I'm not sure exposure

Laura Francis (33:16)

And.

Katharine McLennan (33:25)

for us was as important as education. I spent a lot of time being educated in the classroom. You guys spend a lot of time being exposed and tell us a bit because it's not just your classmates. You see the world. You guys travel.

Laura Francis (33:29)

Okay.

Katharine McLennan (33:41)

the two years. One of your classmates told me she wanted to holiday in Kazakhstan as you do, right? So what is the exposure that you've gotten in the last two years? What types of

companies, travel, all that that have really stood out?

Laura Francis (33:54)

Wow

Aislin Roth (33:58)

Yeah, I mean, it's been incredible. the travel front, I love to travel. think I'm at 60 countries. I spend all my free time backpacking between every job. Between every job, I take three months off, and I go live on a shoestring budget somewhere around the world. It's my break time, figure out what I want to do next. And so I think I have taken advantage of that at the GSB. I run our travel and hospitality club here. I'd love to work and travel one day. But

Katharine McLennan (34:06)

What?

Aislin Roth (34:23)

I just got back from China and Tibet over spring break.

Laura Francis (34:24)

Nice.

Aislin Roth (34:26)

and bringing it back to the exposure question. was because there was a Chinese student who was able to help us get those visas. I also led a global study trip to Saudi Arabia with a classmate from Saudi. And that's never somewhere I would have gone on my own otherwise. So I think from a travel perspective, there's incredible exposure.

I have another really good friend from Spain who built his own motorbike and drove it from the tip of Chile all the way up to Alaska before business school. So

think there's a lot of life experience learning and then there's the learning in the classroom. I was also a business undergrad and so I think for me that's maybe why I'm speaking more to some learnings beyond just the pure classroom business education since I come from that background.

And then more set other more academic exposure. I'm part of our view from the top lead student leadership team here. And so just last week I was interviewing Doug McMillan, who's the CEO of Walmart, that my parents got to come down and meet him. This was like crazy for my parents and my grandparents to have exposure to someone like that, even to be on the phone with the two of you. So I think there's been exposure both to very senior leaders and then just to people from different backgrounds all around the world, different career paths.

that just opens your eyes to so many things.

Katharine McLennan (35:34)

Remind us.

I don't think it's called view from the top tell us a little bit about that.

Aislin Roth (35:38)

so V from the top is a speaker, the Dean speaker series here at Stanford. believe when it first, I'm not sure exactly what year it first started, but it first started, the Dean would invite different CEOs to come and speak for an hour over lunch about their role.

And then they began innovating to say, what if it wasn't just someone at the very top, a CEO speaking about their role, but instead it was more of a conversation, kind of what you're doing, Catherine, between current students and those who are at the quote unquote top of their careers. We can argue about the naming convention that you're always kind of on the up still. But so anyway, I'm fortunate to be one of the four students and every year we invite eight.

CEOs or other purpose-driven business leaders to come and speak at Stanford. And so we have an opportunity to come up with what is a slate of speakers that people in our class would be really excited to hear from. And then we reach out to those speakers, we invite them, and we use the big SemEx auditorium. They're on YouTube, so it's just a great way to learn from purpose-driven leaders and for us to have that opportunity to speak with them instead of the dean doing the interviewing. I think it's pretty unique compared to other business schools.

Katharine McLennan (36:44)

I'd love to watch that. So here's a reflective one. Laura. if you were invited to speak with Aislinn, what, what, or the view from the top?

What would be the topic that you'd most want to cover?

Laura Francis (37:00)

I think we've covered a couple of them already.

Maybe just kind of a day in the life, week in the life, month in the life of a CEO, and then maybe the journey to get there. And those are the things that I think about a lot. What I'm asked by other people about all the time is being a female in the role that I'm in. My sister is a big Harry Potter fan, and she

I told her this, said, you know, what I think my meaning is, what my sense of purpose actually is, is actually different from I think what a lot of other people's sense of purpose think it is for me, if that makes sense. And she made a comment from Harry Potter where she said, the wand chooses the wizard, which basically means your sense of purpose is what other people think it actually is.

And as I said, for me, I am contacted constantly by other women, sometimes at Stanford, people at Stanford. I went to the University of Wisconsin, it can be Wisconsin, it can be other women in the industry. And actually I work a lot with female spine surgeons because there's such a small number of them too. And so those are some of the areas where

you know, I have impact and where I tend to speak about those fairly regularly.

Katharine McLennan (38:23)

Is that exhausting to be asked about the female representation? I'd almost start to get a little exhausted.

Laura Francis (38:29)

You

know, it's really interesting. It's an interesting question. When you get to the stage that I'm at, I was actually talking to a key opinion leader, female spine surgeon, and we got into this kind of in-depth conversation where we talked about who supported us to get to where we're at from a career perspective. In both of our cases, it was men because there were so few women.

that could even be mentors or sponsors to us. And when you get to the pinnacle of your career, right, it's not like there's any place else I'm really wanting to go. can build my company to be larger or something like that, but I've kind of reached the pinnacle of my career. It's typical for a lot of women to just not really help other women, you know?

I got here, I got here without the help of other women. It's a lot of time, it's a lot of work, and why am I going to do it? And she and I were just talking about how, why don't we kind of break that cycle and let's just be helpful? so what I try to do is look at it from a positive perspective. It's relationship building, it's connections. These are the things that make life worth living. They make the work that I do,

meaningful. so you're right that you reflect sometimes and go, maybe I don't need to do that anymore. And then I go, you know what, that's not the right thing to do. How would I want somebody to talk to my daughter? My daughter's 27 years old and what does she aspire to? And I would hope that other women would help open doors for her too.

Katharine McLennan (40:06)

It's funny Laura, my daughter is also 27 and she's getting married this year. one of the things she said to me is, mom, I do not want to work as you do. she often says I've learned from.

Laura Francis (40:09)

my goodness.

Katharine McLennan (40:18)

from you about what not to do.

Laura Francis (40:20)

No, you know what's

interesting is my daughter from the time that she was very young, and I'm talking five years old, just had a sense of what I did was not right. I should not have been traveling all the time. I shouldn't have been working all the time. A bunch of her friends had stay at home moms, and she was very clear with me, just like, shouldn't be doing all of this today.

Katharine McLennan (40:43)

It's so funny.

Laura Francis (40:47)

As a 27 year old, she has followed almost to the letter in my footsteps and she works in public accounting. She's the CPA. The only difference is she works for a different firm than I worked with, you know? And so I don't know what all of that means. She had the exposure to me and she understands what the life looks like. But I think

I think that she has a different sense of what I've accomplished as an adult woman versus as a child.

Katharine McLennan (41:22)

I've always hated work-life balance. What is that? And what does it mean to you guys? There's no division. Do you guys think about that when you think about life? Is life separate?

Aislin Roth (41:35)

think you can keep the two separate as much as you want to, at least even when I was at this startup. I remember the stress from the startup was seeping into my day-to-day life so much. And that's how I knew where my personal risk tolerance was, is like, I can't keep the two separate. So I think I've tried to recognize that. And a lot of us do here. I know when I took this job at KKR, their much bigger office is in New York, but they also have an office in Menlo Park. And I'm someone I love cycling and running and hiking and skiing.

And so even if you might say career wise, you should go to New York, I chose to stay at the Menlo Park office. And I think that's.

a career life and life decision of my life is a lot happier here. People in the office, I find, also have a lot of hobbies and interests outside of their role. And so I think I'm trying to think about the two as more integrated. And the other piece of advice I've heard from a lot of the leaders who come to me from the top, I'm interested in hearing not just about their professional life, but kind of the personal side and how do you balance the two. And a lot of them speak about you kind of need to like manage your personal life to the degree you manage your work life as well. And having KPIs, I need to be home, X many nights for dinner.

or only this many days traveling a month and while that sounds crazy, if you don't set those limits for yourself, it's too easy to deprioritize the personal. And so I think just making sure if you're setting goals, it's not just work goals, but it's also personal goals is really important in this high achieving environment or you might forget about it and all of a sudden time passes you by.

Katharine McLennan (42:58)

What's number one for you as a hobby wise or personal goals? Do you have one?

Aislin Roth (43:03)

Last night I signed up for my first triathlon, the Escape from Alcatraz one. I literally have gone swimming in the pool once and so I guess I'm trying to go swimming

let's see if I make it. But that would be my personal goal that I'm trying to accomplish while being a student.

Katharine McLennan (43:15)

Far out.

When is that? When does it happen?

Aislin Roth (43:22)

June 1st, so I need to start training more.

Katharine McLennan (43:26)

What about you, Laura?

we're empty nesting, so to speak. What's left? You know, do you have room for the non work?

Laura Francis (43:34)

I try, you know, I think Aislinn's comment is right on. I do think about work-life integration, right? And I was talking about the week that I'm going to have this week and then the week I'm going to have next week. And I traveled a lot in my career.

And a lot of people listen and they go, oh gosh, that sounds so exciting. You're going to all these places. But for 20 years, I would travel all over the world and I would see airports, planes, a roadway and some sort of a building. And I could have been anywhere in the world and all I did was work. And...

More recently, what I do is if I'm going to travel, how do I enjoy that travel or how do I include things that are important to me? Like I had a work trip on Friday. I went to Minneapolis and my sister lives there, spent time with her, went to see my parents in Wisconsin, came back, going to DC and I'm meeting my family in

Las Vegas. I'm flying from DC to Las Vegas to celebrate my son's birthday, my daughter passing the CPA exam Mother's Day. And then when I'm in Europe, I'm going for around 10 days and over the weekend, I'm actually, my husband is going to join me and we're going to spend a few days just enjoying a little slice of Italy, right? So I've kind of learned.

Like find the joy in all of this and it's just, you you got to try and get good night's sleep in between all of that and you're good.

Katharine McLennan (45:20)

Laura, we had the luxury perhaps of not having technology pervasive yet. When we graduated from 95, the internet was just going. I don't even think mobile phones were around.

many of us did not have laptops Laura making decisions not to turn that technology on. And now we're hitting the

crazy

thing called AI, which you guys have been right in middle of it. So how do you see that? The pervasive technology and now with AI, how does that influence the way you guys live?

Laura Francis (45:46)

Okay.

Aislin Roth (46:00)

I mean, I technology and especially AI has the potential to make us a lot more efficient. And if you see it from that lens, it could give you time back. I think the question is what we choose to do with that time back. Is it we choose to use that time to do even more work or

do we use that time to actually spend time with your family instead? And so I think I try to be thoughtful around how can I use AI to make my life as a student more efficient? That's definitely been the case here. And like, when do I need to read the full thing? When can I read the summary? But I also

I'm pretty conscious on just taking time to disconnect. My phone like automatically goes on do not disturb mode at a certain time. I like to travel partially. I like to on these hiking trips where I have no cell service and I'm forced to get away. So maybe it's forcing yourself to step out of areas where technology is so readily accessible. But I think it's important to important to have that balance.

Katharine McLennan (46:49)

But here's the thing, you raised an interesting

question, which is what will happen with AI and will we use it to find more time? What have you learned with using AI and the way that your minds work in terms of engaging in the class discussion and does it give you more, the richer?

Conversation?

Aislin Roth (47:11)

I think AI can allow you to collect background information faster.

But at the same time, I think you still need to be able to have a conversation without AI at the ready and without that assistance. So I'm supportive of classrooms with no computers. Still, I think I pay attention a lot more when I have my laptop in front of me. I'm too tempted to look at something else. So I think AI is a very helpful preparation resource, but I still I don't think it entirely replaces the need. It's still in business. It's equally valuable to learn how to connect with other people and hold the conversation. And so at least in the near future, I think learning how to use AI.

is

a very important skill in your job, knowing how to carry a conversation and interact with others is an equally important skill. So I hope business school continues to toe the line and teach both of those things.

Katharine McLennan (47:55)

Amen. it's device free classroom.

Aislin Roth (47:58)

For the most part, I have a few classes that allow laptops, but for the most part, no technology in classrooms still. But you can use AI to help prepare for the class

Katharine McLennan (48:06)

Laura is AI influencing the day-to-day activity of your company,

Laura Francis (48:10)

I formed an AI committee this year and I'm the sponsor of the committee. the reason why I wanted to start it was a few reasons. First of all, I didn't want my company to be left behind. So artificial intelligence is being used in the medical device space in a number of different ways.

especially in imaging, looking at preoperative planning and once you do that planning, can you develop patient specific solutions or anatomy specific solutions? So from a product perspective, it has some very potential significant implications for the business. But then also what was happening is we had a lot of people that were

kind of going off and identifying their own solutions and starting to use it. And I said, let's be thoughtful about this, right? If we're gonna use a large language model to do research into unmet clinical needs, how many different ways can we use that platform? So we've kind of identified, and then efficiencies, right? Can you drive a significant reduction in cost by using artificial intelligence? And then from my perspective,

I use it every day at this point, just writing emails to people, creating presentations, asking questions, whatever, doing deep research, all of those things. So I think it's fun to work with these different technologies.

Katharine McLennan (49:39)

I haven't heard one Stanford person say they're looking for a purpose-led organization. So what does that mean to you, Aislinn,

Aislin Roth (49:48)

I think I'd characterize as purpose-driven leadership as opposed to an organization. And so I'd be looking for people who inspire me, who I think would do the right thing when times get tough, who are thinking about the success of the business, but also the success of people around them and how they can build those up, the impact of their business on society. So I think it's more like the type of leader that I'd want to work for. And for me, finding that type of leader and the type of leader I would like to be one day is motivated by a larger purpose. Maybe Laura has some of that in the medical

space as well.

Katharine McLennan (50:19)

Laura, do you wanna help us wrap up the conversation by talking about purpose to you?

Laura Francis (50:25)

I think it's very important. You spend most of your waking life at work and there's a certain point where it's not about the financial side. It's really about what are you doing that's making the world a little better place.

quite frankly, right? And so that is what I try to do every single day. We've impacted the lives of over 100,000 patients at this point, you know? And these are people that were in tractable pain that now they can pick up their children, they can sit at their desks, they can sleep in the same bed with their spouse. It's basic functionality and

Our mission is to help patients rise up, which is that functional element, and reach for the stars. So, you know, what is it that they really want to do with their lives? And so for me, it's about the patients, but then I talked about the surgeons and the work that I do with them, but most importantly, probably my employees, right? Because those are the people that I work with every single day. And how do I positively impact

their life too. And it makes me a better person, by the way. know, lot of CEOs can be really tough and sometimes you need to do that. But if you understand the outsized impact that you have on people's lives every single day, it should be humbling and it should be something that you take as a responsibility.

Katharine McLennan (52:00)

Bless you guys.