Natalie Turquado

Natalie Turquado is the first passenger on the Bluebird Podcast Train!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to Flat Pass. The podcast where we explore the journeys behind bold leadership, innovation, and impact. This is where we talk real career journeys. The bold models that we pivot. The blog twist that no one puts on like pivot. And the bold quest everything. We're still done with leaders. Innovators. Figure it out by doing the work. Learn the lessons. Sometimes ignore the map altogether. If you're navigating leadership, healthcare, tech, or just trying to figure out what's next without losing your mind. You're in the right place. So fasten your seatbelt. Adjust your altitude. Let's take flight.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

And we are doing a podcast train. So my first victim on the podcast train is Miss Natalie. Let me explain the podcast train and then Miss Natalie can introduce herself. So we are podcast training all summer, where I am kicking it off with this first podcast today, interviewing Natalie. And then she is going to then pick her next victim. Um and do the same with some fun questions and some rapid fire and just get to know people in a quick 15 to 20 minute interview. So thank you for accepting my uh train podcast, Natalie, and being the first victim. Uh the first victim. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

I am the first victim. I'm very do you want to introduce yourself? Sure. Um, I'm Natalie Turqueto. I am um a consulting partner for DXC Technology, and I lead the um healthcare and life sciences space or advisory X, which is DXC's um consulting arm.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

And so what is I'm a bluebird? Yes, you are. Oh my god, you do so much for Bluebird. Um and Natalie's actually on our um award winning committee to pick who uh wins the awards with a couple others. So you just picked uh our 2026 award winners, which was super exciting.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Yeah, very exciting.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

I think we have deserving people 100%. I think we had more than double the amount of entries as last year. So we're growing. That's great. Yeah, yeah, it's growing every year. All right, we're gonna kick off with a fun icebreaker if you're ready. So um, I want to know your summer personality beach, mountain, lake, or city.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Oh gosh. Um, city, because I live on a beach.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Yeah, I know. You're so lucky. Um I'm close to the beach, but uh okay. What's one thing people would be surprised to learn about you? I know where I'd go and pick for you, but go.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Um, that I'm a pilot.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

The fly planes, big ones, little ones, I don't know anything.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Small small planes, single engine, but I'm instrument rated, so I can fly. Um, yeah, like retractable gear, but not jets or anything.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

I find out you're more of a badass every time I talk to you. You're super into cars. Now you fly planes. Oh my goodness. Okay. Um, let me see. What was your very first job?

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Well, babysitting like everybody else, but um my real, my first real job, um, my parents were, you know, I talk about my mom a lot. So my parents were super um, like they made sure that I didn't take for granted what I had. So um growing up, my parents always made sure that if I wanted something, I had to figure out a way to either pay for it or earn it. So I wanted, I remember a really like cute pair of boots. They were maybe $75, which is a lot back then. Yeah, yeah, especially. My dad was like, okay, you can get them. And I was like, cool. And he came home with a Win Dixie application. And so I had to go and I was a cashier at Win Dixie at 15. So yeah, and I had to lie about my age to get the job. Oh, and I've been working ever since then.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

Yeah, I love it. My first job was Dunkin' Donuts, so nice, yep. Came home smelling like burnt coffee and like old coffee creamer. Like, oh, it was so bad. So bad. Donut grease, yeah, yeah. All right, uh, so let's switch over to some leadership and career questions.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

So I'm gonna tell you one thing. I have my first dollar I ever made sitting in my office. I literally had it framed and it's in my office. I just thought of that, yeah, sitting right there.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

That's so meaningful. When I take my puppy to puppy daycare, it's a new company, uh startup, and they have the same the dollar framed, and then like all of the employees are you know saying good luck and all that. So that's super cool, super cool. Okay. What is one challenge that shaped you into the lead leader that you are today?

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Um, I had very high achieving parents. I'm an only child. My parents were older when they had me. And um, my mom was very much um someone that um was like, don't follow other people. Um, you know, you you have to be the leader in the group. So you better learn some leadership skills. I was probably like seven when she said that. Um and yeah, and they just really instilled that in me to, you know, not follow other people and not follow other trends and you know, be go out on my own and you know, pave the path for other people.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

Not my question list, but I've spared off. So I love that about your mom. I do that with my girls too, but how are you able to not come off as like bussy or the one that like wants to control or be you know, always be the one calling the shots? Like it's hard.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Yeah, did I say that I didn't come off as bossy? Because like exactly, yeah. I can remember my third grade teacher, Mrs. Gay, sending a note home and being like, um, it said Natalie is very bossy to the other children, and she you really need to have a talk with her. And my mom was like, right on, like, good. No, but yeah, I mean, I don't know, like I uh I guess I just learned over time that it's um there's different ways of dealing with friends, especially, you know, being an only child, I was around adults a lot, and um, and just having to learn that um some people you push, some people you pull. Um, it's almost like managing a friend group when you're that young. You have to manage your friends and you manage them by personality. I don't know. Yeah, and I guess it's hard that just kind of grew.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

Yeah, teenage life growing up is is hard. I have to ask you, what did your parents do for work that like shaped you so much?

SPEAKER_01 7:10

So my dad um owned Colonial Life in Accident, which is still in business today, but he sold it. It's um in South Carolina. And my mom, as you know, my mom was a um a fashion model, like high fashion model, and put herself through college and medical school, and she was a hematologist, and then she sold her practice, she um went into research. So they were, yeah, my mom was a very high achiever.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Okay, so I think you might have already answered this, but who has been one of your biggest mentors or champions, maybe not your parents, because obviously they were at a huge impact.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Um, so I would say um there was a teacher in high school named Dr. David Roby, and he was my political science teacher um my senior year. And I would say he was my first mentor, and till this day, he is still a mentor for me. I still talk to him all the time. I do. Yeah, he it's funny because he started a group my senior year called Boca Alliance for Student Excellence. It was called Base, and it was very much like a bluebird, except for high school students. And we had like a sister city out in Los Angeles, and we all took a trip out there, and it was, I don't know, it was just very like it was very networking and um and you know, learning how to you know talk to people that are you know different than you and in other, you know, industries or classes, industries, you know what I mean? Networking. Yeah, so but it was yeah, so Dr. David Roby was for sure and still is one of my big mentors. That's awesome. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

Okay. What is the one career risk you're glad that you took?

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Ooh. Um, my dad got sick when I was in college, and I decided that a bunch of my friends were penny stock brokers and they were making like hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. And um, in order to afford to keep going to college, I was like, you know what, I'm gonna take my series seven and I'm gonna become a stock broker. Now, some not great things happened out of that, but it was a very good lesson for me to learn at a young age. So yeah, at 18, I literally started the day the market crashed. So yeah, yeah, I started on Black Monday. Um, and that was a huge risk for me to take. And um, I it taught me a lot.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

What advice would you give to your younger self entering healthcare or technology today?

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Um don't put up with any shit. Sorry, you can edit that out, Tim. Don't put up with any shit from um your bosses that try and blonde splain to you. Um yeah, that's what I would say because I you know, I came up a long time ago, because I'm a lot older than you, and I put up with a lot, a lot of garbage. Yeah, and um, and in the technical in IT, and yeah, so don't put up with it.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

That's like industry wide, it doesn't matter just healthcare or technology. It could be anybody, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Yeah, female dominated back then for sure. Yeah, yeah, still, yeah. Yeah, it's getting better.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Okay, wellness imbalance. How do you recharge outside of work?

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Um, besides shopping, um I like experiences. So um my husband and I like to travel a lot and we travel for experiences. So, like we will literally decide, you know what? We want to go eat at a three Michelin star restaurant, we'll make a reservation out of Linia and fly to Chicago. We'll, you know, I've always been like that. You know, I decided I wanted to spend a lot of time in Egypt, so I took off and went to Egypt by myself. So yeah, I would say experiences. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Um, in Boston, if you like sushi, we have uh uh Omakase place, it's 311 and they just got a Michelin star. So come on up, we can go together. It's like a six-month waiting one, but it's it's so good. We went my husband and I before they got any of their special stars. So um, okay, nice. Uh what's one non-negotiable in your self-care routine?

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Um well there's there's a whole list of them. Are you kidding? I would say um I have to I have to get my hair nails and lashes done. I have to. All the time. Yeah. All this time.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

I need to reserve more time for my so my little one um is asking who's about to go into sixth grade for everyone that doesn't know, but um, she wants tips for graduation on her little paws. I'm like, okay, promise that she could have tips, God help me. Oh my gosh. Wow, okay. Get them starting as young. I guess I'm like that's funny. I feel like her hands are like so like like young that like I don't even know if they're gonna stay on, but okay, we're gonna we're gonna give it a try.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

What do you do to handle burnout or when you know things get intense at work and you're feeling overwhelmed? What do you do to help regulate your body, mind, all of that?

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Um meditate. I'm very big into meditation. Yeah, I have to just get up and walk away from my laptop, or if I'm traveling, I'll just need to go back to my hotel room and meditate. Or uh I like to um, you know, touch grass. So I like to do it outside. Yeah, um, but right now it's very hot here.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

So um I know you'd have to go out at like 4 a.m.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, like Darren's out there in the he loves doing hot yoga outside. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, no, not doing that.

unknown 13:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

There's times where um, like I have like a stressful day or whatever, and the kids come home from school and we all get in the car and we go to the beach, is like a two-mile drive, and we're like cold plunge, because cold plunging here is like 365 days a year. So we're like immediately just jump and instantly it's like okay, regulated, like back down. Plus, we're all giggling because we're freezing cold and it just makes it like snaps you out of it.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Yeah. I like I do cryotherapy. That's I love I love the cold.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

I don't know. You sure you want to come up and feel our ocean? It's pretty, it's pretty cold.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

What's all right? What is something you're excited about in healthcare or innovation uh that's happening right now?

SPEAKER_01 14:27

Um, I'm really excited about agentic AI. And I know that sounds so lame, but um, we're doing some really cool stuff. And um I just uh I'll tell you what's really fun is doing like assessments with clients and they think that they are so, oh, we've got it covered, we know what we're doing, we've got a whole roadmap. And then like I give them just like a questionnaire or I ask them questions and start assigning like values to them. I'm like, you are nowhere near where you think you are. So it's fun to, you know, it's fun to like build out like a you know, a roadmap for you know, getting people to where they think they are or where they're stalled. And yeah, it's fun. Plus, I like to be right, so no, just stop.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

Oh, we learned that earlier. We learned that earlier. Yeah. Um yeah, I Mike Mosquito and I were on a client uh last year and we took them through a digital maturity model questionnaire, and we had every employee fill it out. And it's very interesting to see the scale of where certain people thought they were on the digital spectrum opposed to where others were. It's like so wide.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Um and then to where they really were, it's like always like a huge eye-opener. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

Yeah, yeah. Um, okay, what legacy do you hope to leave with the work that you're doing?

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Well, I have strong feelings about healthcare in the United States, and um I hope to be able to leave it in a better state than when you know, when I started in this business. Because um, I think that we are really far behind. I think that we think that we're not, but we are, um especially in the area that I live. So many people have moved here, and our healthcare infrastructure is uh terrible. It's terrible. We only have two hospitals who are in Boca. And there's so many people that live here, like it's and all the doctors have gone to concierge. And I think that there's a better way to do healthcare business um from the provider side, and then from the life sciences side, just I think innovation, um, you know, to help speed clinical trials is um, you know, I just want to leave it in a better state than when I got here. I you know, I'm one person, but you know, with a whole group of us working towards that, you know, maybe maybe it'll happen. But yeah, I'm cautiously optimistic.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Leave it, leave even if it's a little imprint somewhere to yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, we have summer rapid fire questions. Are you ready? Uh okay. Okay. Coffee or tea? Tea. Sunrise or sunset. Sunset. Favorite summer snack. Ooh. Um gelato. Um, my alley would love you then. Um, last thing you binge watched on TV or oh any any show.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

What did we just binge watch? Um well we just re-watched the last season of the bear because then it's getting ready to come back on. There you go.

unknown 18:04

All right.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

That was a good rewatch.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

That's okay. Yeah, you're you're getting ready for the next one. Um well, I know that you probably prefer the driver's seat here, but window or aisle on a plane now that we know you have Oh, aisle. Same. Yeah, for sure. Um, one word that describes your leadership style. Um adaptable. And then your favorite vacation that you've ever taken.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Oh, when I used to go to Egypt. I used to go at least once a year.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

That's crazy. I've been I went in high school. My um dad's twin lived there for 10 years, so we went and visited. And so we did Egypt and then we did the Red Sea, and we um yeah, we did a bunch of hiking and everything. So it was super cool.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

I have a good friend that is um, he is he just actually retired from the Ministry of Antiquities. So when I would go over, I would get to go on um live digs and um and into places that like your everyday person wouldn't get to go. So that was that was really cool. That was one of my past lives. So I my yeah, it was so that was you know, I was very connected to that.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

No, I just like every time we talk, I find out something like totally amazing that you didn't tell me before, and my mouth just drops. Like, what? Um, all right, what does the bluebird leaders community mean to you?

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Oh my gosh, bluebird people get so sick of me talking about bluebird. Everyone I knows know knows what it is, and like I've gotten so many of my friends that are in this business to join, and even people that um like aren't necessarily in healthcare.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

Like your husband, he's a bluebird, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

But he's in healthcare though. That's so he's he's but he's in a different kind of healthcare. Yeah, that's but um, yeah, like Laura Brazi, like she's you know, she's a quantum um, you know, guru, and he's so excited about being a bluebird. So well, it's it's there's it's such a um it's so different than other groups that I've been involved in because it's not like people aren't trying to like sell you on something and they're not it's not like this when you're networking, it's like you're networking like for friendships and not for and you know, business may come along with it, but it's really um it's really like a support system that I haven't had in a really long time, and it's yeah, it's it's it's really special. Yeah. I'm gonna start to cry. Oh my gosh. Oh my god, stop.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

Yeah, I mean, I've always said like I've always been in out of sales, and for me, it's it's always like, this is what I am, this is what I do, this is how I can support you. Okay, call me when you need me. It that you know, like yeah, uh, it's never like you have to buy this right now. It's just such a doesn't work. And so to have Bluebird and have that mentality, but then also just create all these phone friends and put you know that your coins in the bank knowing at some point, like it's gonna pay forward, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:28

That's yeah, and it's really cool how people click within um you know Bluebird. Like you and I like clicked like really fast and really strong. It was like a magnet. And um, and it's just it's you know, it's just a really um it's a really special group that you started. And yeah, I'm really thankful and I'm thankful to Tiffany Cuncha for you know bringing me into Blueberg.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

Yeah, she's awesome too. She's uh love having yeah, everyone has their own little like pods within. It's especially like depending on what you do, like security or clinical or whatever. So it's it's awesome to awesome to see. So um thank you for starting off our podcast train. Now I am um casting on you to uh have somebody uh an interview and make sure you record it and I'll send you all the questions. And um we want the train going all summer, so um super excited to have it. Yeah, it's just fun questions and find out about it.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

What a great idea.

SPEAKER_02 22:31

Then the regular stuff, right? Yeah. These I these crazy ideas, it's maybe it's my ADHD or whatever. It's like three o'clock in the morning, and I'm like, this is what I come up with. It's I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

It's an awesome idea. Yeah, it's so cool. I don't think it's dumb.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

So um, I'll send you this and thank you for being on. We will talk soon.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Thank you for having me.