A Q&A with Mike Kotecki, Director of Partnerships

Cornerstone AI is publishing a series of Q&As with team members to provide more information and context on their role at Cornerstone AI, as well as their professional background. This is the thirteenth post of the series. Visit our blog to see previous posts in the series.

Your background is in business/finance and, later, healthcare market intelligence and data—can you tell me a little about why you chose to go into those fields in the first place?

I think I chose international business in college rather than general business because it allowed me to live in Europe for a while, and that was attractive to me at the time. But after that, I started my career in financial services. Early on, I was working for a company that was providing data to both finance and life sciences companies. I was working on the finance side, but over time, I started to realize just how much more interesting I found it to be able to learn about new therapies before they came to market, and the ins and outs of drug development. I went to the founders of the company and asked them if I could switch my focus over to the life sciences side, and I was fortunate enough that they said yes to that request.

The rest is sort of history, but as I spent more time in the life sciences industry, I became increasingly interested in not just what data is needed to make decisions, but what comes after that, and helping companies unlock the value of the data through technology has been a focus for me for a long time now.

You worked with companies including Norstella and Citeline (formerly Pharma Intelligence) before coming to Cornerstone AI—was there anything in particular that compelled you to make this change?

Working for those companies, I had a front row seat to see the challenges that sponsors face when they're trying to generate insights from data that is pretty complex. Data has become a lot more accessible over the years, but that's introduced new challenges around how to integrate it and how to extract value from it. What attracted me to Cornerstone specifically was the opportunity to address one big roadblock that's presented itself, which is how to translate the data into real insights. Companies are spending a lot of time and money on cleaning and standardizing data before they can start any real analysis, and the team at Cornerstone is tackling that in an innovative and technology-forward way.

Aside from all that, I really loved the team, as well as the culture and the sense of mission that I've found here. We're working with sponsors to solve all sorts of hard problems, and Cornerstone manages to consistently execute while still having fun along the way. It’d be hard to find a group of individuals that are more passionate about cleaning healthcare data than the team at Cornerstone.

On a day-to-day basis, what does your work look like? What drives you to continue the work each day?

Well, it's definitely a cliché, but working for a smaller company, no two days are the same, which is something that's really enjoyable about my current role. I spend most of my time meeting with sponsors, data providers, and other strategic partners to understand their challenges and identify opportunities to work together. What motivates me is the opportunity to solve meaningful problems, and the nuances of the challenges that we run into with sponsors are endless, so that keeps it interesting. I love that I get to work with so many smart people across tons of different companies, and working to find win-win solutions for both sides is super rewarding.

What does the future hold for Cornerstone AI?

I think we're still in the early stages of uncovering what AI can do for healthcare data. Companies are realizing that AI initiatives are only as good as the data that supports them, and as a result, I think there's growing demand for tech that can improve data quality at scale. We're in a really good position to play a role in that. As we keep growing, I think we'll not only work with more customers, but we'll expand the range of types of data that we're able to improve and ultimately unlock value in a lot of areas that we haven't even seen yet.

What are you most proud of in your professional and/or personal life?

Professionally, it's the relationships that I've built over the years—whether that's with customers or with colleagues, I always try to have a long-term focus  on creating partnerships and friendships that are built on trust and shared success. It’s cool to look back at how many of those relationships have endured across multiple companies and multiple stages of my career, over many years.

On the personal side, I would say I’m most proud of some of the youth sports coaching that I do on the side and on my weekends—helping young athletes to develop both their character and their abilities on the field. Watching them build confidence and learn new skills and seeing their efforts pay off is super rewarding for me. I have learned a lot for myself in coaching kids, like patience and leadership and communication, and hopefully I've taught them a few things along the way too.

What are you passionate about outside of work?

You'll usually find me on a soccer field, either playing or coaching, or sometimes on some sort of body of water, trying to catch a fish—one of my other hobbies. As I mentioned, soccer has been a big part of my life since I was a kid, so I still enjoy playing whenever I get a chance - though it’s at a slightly slower pace than I used to.

For me, fishing is a really great way to disconnect, spend time outdoors, and take a break from the fast pace of technology and business and startups and all that. I also do a lot of carpentry projects for sort of the same reason—it forces you to slow down. “Measure twice, cut once,” is a phrase which I think has a lot of applications elsewhere in life, too.