Why Your Unconventional Path Might Be Your Biggest Asset
When people ask how I ended up running a clinical research consulting firm, I usually get puzzled looks when I mention I started on Wall Street. The path from financial services to founding Armani Consulting Group wasn’t exactly linear – it involved five companies, four major pivots, and lessons that changed everything.
But here's what I've learned: sometimes the most "accidental" career paths create the most valuable skill sets.
The Foundation: What 20+ Years in Financial Services Really Taught Me
Most people think financial services is just about numbers and transactions. What they don't realize is that it's fundamentally about trust, relationships, and solving complex problems for clients who often don't fully understand what they need.
Sound familiar to anyone in clinical research sales?
In financial services, I learned that success comes from:
Deep listening – Understanding not just what clients say they want, but what they actually need
Long-term relationship building – Transactions are one-time events; relationships drive sustainable business
Consultative selling – Becoming a trusted advisor rather than just a vendor
Risk assessment – Understanding the real implications of decisions, not just the immediate benefits
Complex stakeholder management – Navigating multiple decision-makers with different priorities
Little did I know these skills would become my secret weapons in clinical research.
The First Pivot: Greenphire and Learning an Entirely New World
My transition into clinical research wasn't planned. When I joined Greenphire, I was simply looking for a new challenge. What I found was an industry I knew absolutely nothing about – and prospects who could tell.
Those first few months were humbling. I'd walk out of meetings with research sites having no idea what half the terminology meant. What's a protocol deviation? How does IRB approval work? What's the difference between a Phase II and Phase III trial? I was drowning in acronyms and regulatory concepts that everyone else seemed to understand intuitively.
But here's where my financial services background became crucial – not because of what I knew, but because of how I learned.
This was before AI could answer questions instantly. So, every night after client meetings (with the Philadelphia Phillies game on the TV for background noise), I'd spend hours scouring the internet. The FDA website became my textbook. The NIH site was my encyclopedia. I devoured white papers, regulatory guidance documents, and anything else I could find to understand not just what clinical research was, but why it mattered.
I wasn't just learning to sell a payment platform – I was learning an entire industry from the ground up.
But something interesting happened during those late-night research sessions. I started to see patterns that my finance background helped me recognize. Greenphire's payment solutions weren't just about processing transactions – they were helping solve workflow problems for sites, sponsors and CROs while also helping the research participants get their stipends faster.
More importantly, I learned that before Greenphire was founded, research participants were being paid in cash – creating security concerns for sites – or they had to wait weeks for checks to arrive in the mail, which made participants frustrated and sometimes led to dropouts. Research sites weren't just buying a payment platform; they were buying a solution to real operational headaches that were affecting participant retention and site security.
The financial services foundation taught me to ask the right questions:
-What keeps you up at night?
-How does this impact your cash flow?
-What are the regulatory implications?
But also:
-How does this affect your participants' experience?
-What happens when participants get frustrated with payment delays?
We spent hours developing out new value propositions until we found those that worked best for each industry segment and particular situation.
The Second Pivot: Bio-Optronics – Breaking Into Uncharted Territory
Bio-Optronics was turning the CTMS market upside down. Prior to their launch, CTMS solutions were locally housed on individual PCs with only one user able to log in at a time – imagine trying to manage a complex clinical trial when only one person could access the system! Bio-Optronics created the first web-based CTMS system designed specifically for private practice and single-site research facilities.
But they had bigger ambitions. They developed Clinical Conductor Enterprise, a solution designed to support multi-site trials managed by research site networks, health systems, and academic medical centers. These were much larger, more complex organizations than their typical single-site customers.
That's where I came in. I was hired to figure out how to break into these enterprise-level organizations – how to prospect effectively, navigate complex stakeholder groups, and ultimately close deals in a completely different market segment.
This challenge was exciting, and it taught me something crucial: clinical research professionals speak a different language, but they have the same fundamental business needs – efficiency, profitability, and risk management.
-My finance background helped me translate between worlds.
-When a site coordinator complained about protocol deviations, I heard "process control issues."
-When a principal investigator worried about recruitment timelines, I heard "revenue recognition challenges."
-When a site network director stressed about audit readiness across multiple locations, I heard "compliance risk management at scale."
But more importantly, I learned to speak their language while understanding their business drivers. A health system wasn't just buying software – they were investing in standardization across their research enterprise, better data integrity, and the ability to take on more complex, higher-value studies.
This wasn't about imposing financial concepts on clinical research – it was about recognizing that good business principles are universal, whether you're managing investment portfolios or managing clinical trials.
The Third Pivot: Schulman IRB to Advarra and the Journey to Sales Leadership
I joined Schulman IRB in territory sales, covering Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. This was my introduction to the IRB world – helping sponsors and CROs navigate the complex regulatory approval process that every clinical trial requires.
For four years, I worked the territory, building relationships with pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms, and CROs who needed IRB services for their studies. Then I became a player-coach for the entire East Coast team, balancing my own sales responsibilities while helping develop other salespeople. In 2019, after Schulman merged with Chesapeake IRB to become Advarra, I was promoted to VP of Sales to manage the entire IRB sales function.
Leading a sales team also meant instilling this same philosophy across the organization. We weren't just selling IRB services – we were selling regulatory expertise and peace of mind. Every salesperson needed to understand that our clients' success depended on our ability to deliver what we promised, when we promised it.
The result? Stronger client relationships, better retention, and more referrals than we'd ever seen. But just as importantly, we built a sales culture based on integrity and expertise rather than just closing deals.
The Fourth Pivot: Helios and a Hard Lesson in Market Timing
As head of sales at Helios, I thought everything was finally clicking. I was leading a team, building client relationships, and applying almost two decades of experience in an industry I'd grown to love. The financial services foundation – relationship building, consultative selling, long-term thinking – had become second nature in the clinical research context.
But 14 months later, I was laid off. The company had to make a number of difficult organizational decisions due to the challenging market conditions, and I was among those affected. The primary reason was industry-wide turbulence that no amount of sales skill could overcome.
In 2022, sponsors began reassessing their therapeutic areas and drug pipelines. They were asking hard questions about which indications they wanted to pursue long-term and which they wanted to exit. While they figured this out, many put studies on hold rather than spend money running trials for drugs in therapeutic areas they might abandon.
It was a perfect storm of market conditions that made selling clinical research services incredibly challenging, regardless of your approach or experience. This situation affected many companies across the industry, not just Helios.
This experience taught me something invaluable: even the best sales skills can't overcome fundamental market headwinds. Success isn't just about what you bring to a role – it's also about market timing, industry conditions, and factors completely outside your control. Sometimes you can do everything right and still face challenges that have nothing to do with your capabilities.
The Final Pivot: Armani Consulting Group and the Power of Authenticity
That challenging experience led me to the most important question of my career:
“If I could design the perfect role for myself, what would it look like”?
The answer was Armani Consulting Group and our primary brand, ACG-Clinical.
I wanted to work with growing companies in clinical research – research sites, site networks, technology companies, small CROs – who needed strategic sales leadership but weren't ready for a full-time executive. I wanted to leverage my unique background to help these organizations build sustainable growth strategies.
Most importantly, I wanted to work authentically – using the consultative, relationship-driven approach I'd learned in financial services, applied to the clinical research industry I'd grown to understand deeply.
Giving Back: Building the Future of Clinical Research
Success in any industry comes with responsibility. For the past five years, I've served on the Board of Trustees for ACRP (Association of Clinical Research Professionals), where I've been passionate about developing a more diverse workforce in clinical research.
This isn't just about doing the right thing for humanity – though it absolutely is that. It's also about better research. A more diverse clinical research workforce naturally leads to more diverse clinical trial participants, which means better data, more representative studies, and treatments that work for everyone.
To support this mission, I developed the Ride4Diversity – an annual six-day cycling challenge where 3–6 riders cover more than 250 miles to raise funds for diversity initiatives. Over four years, we raised more than $250,000 for programs that help bring underrepresented groups into clinical research careers.
Those long days in the saddle, mile after mile, reminded me of something important: meaningful change requires sustained effort, just like building a career or growing a business. You don't get there overnight, but if you stay committed to the journey, you can achieve things that seemed impossible at the start.
The Lesson
Sometimes the most valuable career advice isn't about finding the shortest path to your goal. Sometimes it's about embracing the journey, learning from every stop along the way, and trusting that your unique combination of experiences is preparing you for something you haven't even imagined yet.
After all, I never planned to start a clinical research consulting firm. But I can't imagine doing anything else.
What unexpected turns has your career taken? I'd love to hear your story and discuss how your unique background might be your greatest professional asset.
If you're reading this and feeling like your career path has been too random, too unfocused, or too full of "wrong turns," I want you to consider a different perspective.
-Maybe those weren't wrong turns.
-Maybe they were building a unique skill set that nobody else has.
-Maybe that "irrelevant" experience from your previous industry is exactly what your current industry needs.
-Maybe the role that didn't work out was teaching you something essential about you and your next role.
The clinical research industry needs people who can think differently, bring fresh perspectives, and challenge conventional approaches. It needs people who understand business principles, relationship building, and strategic thinking – regardless of where they learned those skills.
Your non-traditional path isn't a bug in your career story. It's a feature.
What's Next?
Today, ACG-Clinical works with innovative companies across the clinical research industry – research sites, technology companies, and growing CROs. We help all of these organizations with operational optimization, go-to-market strategies, and sales leadership support.
But more than that, we bring a perspective that only comes from taking the long way around – understanding both the business fundamentals that drive sustainable growth and the clinical research expertise that creates real value for our clients.
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