JoJo Platt | Platt & Associates | From Accounting to Neurotech, Leadership, & ”Good-Natured Revenge”

Our very first guest, JoJo Platt, is a longtime consultant serving the neurotech community through the commercialization process. In this episode, JoJo discusses her eclectic background, views on leadership, the future of neurotech, and how good-natured "revenge" is one of her primary motivators. 

Guest links: http://theplattassociates.com/ | https://www.joyventures.com/ | https://neurotechreports.com/ | https://skrapspodcast.com/ 

Charity supported: Polaris Project 

Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at podcast@velentium.com. 

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Host: Lindsey Dinneen
Editor: Tim Oliphant
Producer: Velentium

 

SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Episode 002 - JoJo Platt

Lindsey Dinneen: Hi, I'm Lindsey with Velentium and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world.

Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them.

Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives.

Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives.

Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives.

Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference.

Hello and welcome to the Leading Difference Podcast. I'm your host, Lindsey, and I'm excited to introduce you to my guest today, Jojo Platt. Jojo is a longtime consultant serving the neurotech community through the commercialization process. She works with academic labs, neurotech startups, and others to advance neuro technologies into the hands of patients. Jojo is the US Partnership's lead for Joy Ventures. She works with Neurotech Reports, co-hosts the Skraps podcast, and serves on many organizing committees of the industry's most influential conferences and meetings. And I am so thrilled that she is joining me today. Welcome to the show, Jojo. Thanks for being here.

JoJo Platt: Thank you for having me on. I'm really excited to be on the other side of the mic this time.

Lindsey Dinneen: Oh yes, that's right. Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your background to get started, if you don't mind.

JoJo Platt: Sure. I work specifically in the field of neurotechnology that's even more narrow than medical devices.

I prefer to think of it as a different focus than just pure, broad speaking neuromodulation and I've been consulting to academic labs, startups, government offices, universities, kind of everybody in the neurotech space for about 15 years now, and a lot of people find it challenging to really fully understand what I do.

So I keep it broad because I do a lot of different things. I like to think about all of the scientists and technologists who have spent their entire lives honing and perfecting their science and technology skills. And I come in on the other side of that and help them on the business side. So if they're ready to translate, if they're thinking about creating a spin out, if they wanna optimize their research for future licensing and spin out, there are things that can be done even at the academic level that can make a big difference into how technology or therapy commercialized. And I do everything except for accounting and housekeeping.

Lindsey Dinneen: Amazing. So I am curious, do you mind delving a little bit more into how you help bridge the gap between a company or an individual who is looking to develop new technology? And what have you found is the most needed aspect of that sort of bridging the gap process or how do you feel that your consulting and your services are able to help these people? Because I know you're making a difference, but I'm curious as to what things you find are the most common, and where people can use that assistance from a different perspective?

JoJo Platt: The field overall, especially the commercialization side of the equation is still relatively young. I know, spinal cord stimulators coming out Tom Mortimer's lab and all of that in the sixties and some of the cardiac pacemaker technologies, those have been around for a long time. But when you get into some of the neural interfaces, be it in the central or peripheral nervous system, those are on the newer side.

So we still have a lot of technology founders or technical founders, or scientific founders, which is fantastic. There's nobody who knows the technology and the science better than these folks. But like I said before, they're classically trained on the science and technology side of things. So there are tons of resources out there that can help prepare them to be a CEO or a founding CEO. But they still need a lot of support and whether they find that they need help in making their business case as they're pitching for financing to VCs, helping them hone that pitch, whether it's in support of market research, helping them determine what's the best path to market sometimes. I primarily like to focus on FDA cleared or FDA approved devices and I definitely favor implanted devices over wearables, but there are definitely fantastic wearable technologies. That's all to say that direct to consumer is something I can appreciate and admire, but that's not an area of expertise for me. So I'll help them look at the regulatory pathways, reimbursement pathways. I either do that on my own or I also work very heavily with a team at Neurotech Reports, Jim Cavouto and Jeremy Koff, who both have excellent track records in Neurotech as well.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. That is wonderful. And so when you are helping these folks, these scientists-- I think we talked in a previous conversation about how sometimes the business aspect, like you said, you can learn a lot about how to be a CEO and there are certain things that maybe come a little bit easier than others, but in terms of, say the marketing side of things or how to translate the science into a more widely understood-- if you're going to explain it to your grandma kind of thing.

You have a really interesting background that didn't necessarily start in the science field. Do you mind exploring a little bit about how that helps you translate between the two?

JoJo Platt: Sure. I have a very long sort of meandering journey into a lot of different areas. I started out my first, I like to call it my first real job, my first office job was a one person of a two person accounting team at an internet backbone technology company. And that's to say, because this was in the mid to late nineties, it wasn't part of the dot com boom so much as it was, anytime you watch video on the internet, that call and response of the video packets that get delivered to you are still done even now, 25 years later on the internet backbone which is video delivery optimization.

So we were basically solving how to stream video on the internet when the internet was operating at basically a 14 4k speed. So accounting, I thought that's what I wanted to do. That was my degree program at the time, and I was in school and working and being a single mom and all that. And we went through an IPO, which was an amazing learning experience, but it was a lot of work.

I'd go to the office at six in the morning. Work till six at night. Go to class, go home, see my daughter, go back to work until about two o'clock in the morning and they go back at six and it burned me out. We were a startup and the hours were long, so, after the IPO I was processing some expense accounts and I kept seeing all of these marketing expense reports come in. I'm like, "you guys went to dinner where? You spent what? You did?" And I'm just like, "wait, let me get this straight: you're having this much fun and I'm sitting here behind a desk processing your expense reports." So I said, "this is over. I'm going over to marketing." And so I was still in school, so I changed my major and finished that up on the comm side of things.

I don't tend to refer to what I do now as marketing or communications. Because it's only a part of what I do, and also because those words tend to scare a lot of scientists. They don't believe in self-promotion. And they just find the marketing and communication side of things, PR and that sort of thing, quite unsavory. So I don't talk about it in those terms, but that is a little bit about what I do and especially, my own, I guess you'd call it a brand. I don't know that it's brand so much, but it just happened. So yeah, from accounting to marketing, I went through the dot com bubble in the early two thousands with the community site that was the early competitor to MySpace and earlier than Facebook even. So we raised a lot of money. The founders burned through all of it. That crashed. I decided at one point I was gonna kinda have an early retirement 'cause I had done well with my IPO and then got bored.

I've done consumer electronics, was working with a technology company trying to solve the whole Napster problem with copyright protection for music. And we were a finalist in the industry competition that was gonna lead to an industry standard of content protection. And then just a month or so before it was all finalized, iTunes came out with a 99 cents song, which between the lawsuit against Napster and an affordable easy, one click way to get music, that pretty well solved the problem for the most part. So that one went away.

 then from there I ended up, this one's a really strange one. From there I ended up going and working at a nonprofit that had, before my arrival, they had fallen afoul with the IRS and it wasn't-- the nonprofit needed some closer management. For the most part it was doing okay. It was doing what it was supposed to be doing. For, again, for the most part, its problem was that the founder was a person of interest in his other business dealings. So IRS and the Department of Justice figured they were gonna "Capone" this guy. Basically go after him and get him for anything that they could, whether it was directly related to the insurance schemes that he was running or if they could get him some other way. So I jumped in, became the court appointed trustee for the foundation and helped the DOJ and the IRS Criminal Investigations Division actually put this guy in jail. So that was kind of, it was a little scary at times. But it was fun. And at the end of the day, I got to help give away 47 million dollars to a lot of different charities.

And one of the things that we wanted to look at was sepsis research, because one of our board members, his daughter passed away very quickly and very unexpectedly from sepsis. So we wanted to support sepsis research. And found out that Kevin Tracy at the Feinstein Institute in New York was doing a lot of really exciting work in sepsis and I started helping them out on a consulting basis on some of the sepsis activities and then some Parkinson's research initiatives that they were working on. And as they were getting ready to launch the Center for Bioelectronic Medicine, they just kept pulling me on board for project after project and kept consulting on that helped them launch the center with some very good friends of mine. I'm glad to say it's still a very successful research entity and putting out amazing work. And we launched a journal by the same name. And part of my responsibilities there were to really understand and know the players in the field of neurotechnology and find out what they were working on and see if I couldn't help to facilitate collaborations, whether it was research or further down the road into the commercialization spectrum. And that's how I fell into neurotech. It's a very long, very circuitous, bumpy road.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yes. But it's an amazing backstory and it has led you to a whole new chapter really, and new opportunities that you probably couldn't have imagined when you first were even in school. Thinking ahead, what's my life gonna look like? So that's...

JoJo Platt: I'm still waiting to find out what it is I'm gonna do.

Lindsey Dinneen: That's amazing. Yeah. Well, I'm curious, is there a particular moment that stands out to you because it clearly confirmed that this chapter was the right next step for you? I know you had mentioned the importance of working on the sepsis research and supporting that initiative and things like that. Obviously that was something that was important to you, but I'm curious, as you've continued along this path, is there just something that stands out where you thought, "yes, this is the right next chapter for me" and why?

JoJo Platt: I don't think there was a single moment. I think somebody asked me a similar question at a conference earlier, I guess last fall, and, "Why are you doing this?" And, "What got you involved or what keeps you here?" And I think part of it is still really true. That part of it is revenge. Don't get me wrong, I went to a very excellent high school, but my science teachers saw in me a very, very strong lack of scientific ability. I didn't apply myself in my science classes and they all begged me never to take a science class again-- just get through this one and don't take any more science than is required. So I think the part that keeps me here most is that I'm not a scientist and I'm not a technologist. I've definitely learned a lot from everyone that I've had the good fortune of working with or seeing some of the amazing talks that I've seen over the last 15 years. But I can have an impact and not be a scientist or a technologist. And I think that inspiration keeps me going.

And I'll be on stage with some of the world's most important neurotechnologists, and I always make sure and take a picture and then send it back to my science teachers and say, "See, I did okay".

Lindsey Dinneen: I love it.

JoJo Platt: Yeah. There might be a little spite there, but just, all good fun.

Lindsey Dinneen: Good natured.

JoJo Platt: Yes. Yes.

Lindsey Dinneen: That is seriously amazing. I definitely have a little bit-- I'll put it this way-- I have enough rebel in me where if someone says that I can't do something, then I have to prove them wrong.

JoJo Platt: Right.

Lindsey Dinneen: It's just -- we're gonna figure out how to do this, might not come easily, but we'll figure it out.

JoJo Platt: Yeah. And I don't think I would've gone out of my way to do that had I not stumbled into this field, but the fact that I'm here now, I'll leverage that a little bit.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Well, how would you define leadership? Or what does leadership mean to you?

JoJo Platt: To me leadership is not so much telling people what to do, but making sure that your team is inspired to follow you. And I think that difference is one thing that's really important between a boss and a leader. Also why I don't have employees. I think that bringing on the right team members for the right problems and empowering them to do their jobs is probably, a pretty inspiring leadership principle. And the people who have that gift are people toward whom I gravitate, just sort of in, in my own personal fandom of that capacity. And when I see that I like to highlight that and foster that. But I think I know my own weaknesses, which are anything in the area where HR would have jurisdiction, I'm the worst nightmare. And I love being a collaborator, but being a leader is a gift that I think I'll let others take the helm for that one.

Lindsey Dinneen: Oh, that is fair. I appreciate that perspective. Well, what is your best piece of advice for someone interested in obtaining either a leadership role within the med tech industry, or since you talked about being in more of a collaboration role or a collaborator role, what is your best piece of advice if someone's looking to do something similar to what you do in helping bridge this gap in helping assist these amazing people bring their ideas to reality?

JoJo Platt: I think one of the greatest parts about the neurotech field is that we're still young enough that there are opportunities everywhere, and I know we're going into a bit of a shrinking right-sizing economic exercise, and that some of that will include some painful moments for a lot of people. But I think from my experience, it's better to correct than to crash. So I'm optimistic about where we are in that, and I think that we are truly at the point in the field where there's a legitimate reason to say, if your dream job in neurotechnology doesn't exist, go and create it. And I think this space is open to so many different areas of expertise. So we need people in finance and business management, administration, operations, systems management. And yes, marketing is actually starting to become a legitimate and respected division of a lot of different companies. So that's good to see. But you can really come from any field and contribute to neurotechnology. And one of the things that I see a lot are people who have a hybrid blend of expertise. So they might be neuroscientists by training who went through an MBA program or an MBA candidate who has strong engineering background.

Those are the kinds of cross talented people that we're really gonna need. And I think we are seeing a lot more interest from the sort of traditional business categories of contributors to the point of we need more qualified CEOs in our field, and we need more people in finance that really understand what the technology implications are.

A lot of my clients really are focused on and need regulatory and reimbursement experts. There's a need for people who have organizing backgrounds. For instance, next week in DC, Paradromics has been instrumental in putting together our BCI days going to talk on Capitol Hill about export controls on brain computer interfaces so that sort of organization and lobby expertise. So I think that if you have a passion in terms of what it is you want to do and you want to apply it to the field of neurotechnology, there are so many opportunities that didn't even exist even 24 months ago. So I think we're growing quickly and it's exciting to bring new people into the field and help accelerate and propel these fascinating and really potentially hugely impactful technologies.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. What do you see as being some of the most exciting trends in this field moving forward?

JoJo Platt: Well, brain computer interface is definitely one. There are some really great players in the field. BlackRock Neurotech has been the leader in the field and out of the, I think we're-- I think we're right around 40 or 40 plus humans who have been implanted with brain computer interfaces. And well over 30 of those people have BlackRock technology implanted. But we're seeing some really great newcomers with novel ideas, novel technologies. Paradromics, who I previously mentioned, is one and Synchron has been getting a lot of attention for their vascular approach to a BCI.

Precision Neuroscience just closed a big round last week. And Motif Neurotech is exciting. That's a new technology out of Rice and it's a minimally invasive brain computer interface. And their first indication is major depressive disorder. Inner Cosmos is going after the same indication with their minimally invasive approach. They're both exciting to watch. And I think BCI obviously gets so much more attention because of Elon Musk's involvement in the field.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Well, I am excited to also continue to learn about the new developments coming up. It is a crazy time. I joke about this a lot, " what a time to be alive." But seriously, it is so exciting to see what's coming up, what's possible these days just is amazing. It's mind blowing. So thank you for sharing some of your insights with that.

JoJo Platt: My pleasure. It's a fine line. You wanna talk about the potential, but you also have to be reasonable in managing expectations, especially with a patient population that needs the therapy. Promising and underdelivering is something that everybody is very focused on maintaining that integrity.

There was a talk couple weeks ago where the CFO of BlackRock Neurotech said, "we like to focus on the "art of the possible" and being sure that we're not over representing what is today possible and what will may eventually become possible." And I like that. That to me, is very responsible communications.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm curious, how do you prioritize your continued learning and growing as a leader, as someone of influence within your industry. How do you prioritize your continued growth?

JoJo Platt: I've just been so lucky to meet and engage with so many really exciting researchers, whether they're on the science or technology side. And I'm at the point where a lot of what comes in front of me, people will send to me directly and they're like, "Hey, Jojo, this just came out." Or, "this is a publication that's coming out next week. Let's see if we can amplify it." So a lot of my sort of choices are spoon fed to me. And then that sends me down a rabbit hole. I mean, there's so much to discover. Anywhere you look it's out there. So I should be more strategic about it. If you have something that you think is really important that you think the community wants to know about, I do invite people to send it to me. And if I have a chance to amplify it and call attention to it in any small way, then I'm grateful for that opportunity. It helps me see different things that I might not otherwise.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Well, and that's a great segue into, I'd love to learn a little bit about your podcast. Is that one of the tools that you use to amplify some of those things? Or is that completely separate?

JoJo Platt: It's a little bit of both, so. Okay. The podcast is scraps with a "K," S-K-R-A-P-S, and that's because a lot of scientific exploration and inspiration comes at the bar talking to your colleagues and you write your idea on the back of a scrap of piece of paper. And the other reason it's called Skraps is cuz it's "spark" spelled backwards. Anyhow, my co-host for that is Arun Sridhar and he's the former head of Discovery at Galvani Bioelectronics. So he brings the scientific rigor to the podcast and I'm the cheeky monkey who gets to be a little sillier. But we've done a little bit of everything. It is a hobby for us and we like to highlight people that have inspired us in different ways. But we also are sure to try and make it fun.

So we've done everything from human composting. Shortly after Covid hit, we had the graphic artist who did the rendering of the Covid molecule, the gray ball with the spikes that is everywhere, which was a fascinating story. She literally got woken up outta bed in the middle of the night in January 2020 and they said, "We've got something, you've gotta come down here and draw this for us." So that's an interesting thing. Okay? So I'm like, "You wanna just put me on speed dial next time you get one of those calls and tell me about it?" But we've done everything. They're incredible leaders in, in science and research.

On the show we did a 10 part series on psychedelics in research. That was about a year and a half ago now. So that was at the vanguard of the psychedelic research revolution. So we did a pretty comprehensive history back to early human use all the way through the obvious fifties, sixties, seventies with MK Ultra and then what's happening in research today and how some of the people who are benefiting from psychedelics and psychedelic therapy.

And then now we're in the middle of a series on the vagus nerve in neurotechnology. So we just do a little bit of everything, whether it's a topic or a person or a personality. We try and keep it fun.

Lindsey Dinneen: I love that. That's awesome. Okay, well, for fun, imagine someone offered you a million dollars to teach a masterclass on anything you want-- doesn't have to even be in your industry. What would you choose to teach and why?

JoJo Platt: Oh, that's a good one. I don't know that I would be qualified for that. I've always thought of myself more of a jack of all trades, master of none . I'm a boy scout. I'm prepared for anything, but I'm maybe not the master at any one thing. And I think that's what I love about so many of the people that I encounter, is that they've dedicated their whole educational career, their professional career to one particular thing and they can teach the master classes and I'll sit back and watch and then post about it.

Lindsey Dinneen: What a fun answer. Okay. Well, do you think you could then teach a masterclass on how to be prepared for anything because you never know what will come your way?

JoJo Platt: I do have my shortcuts, like when I really get in over my head with a neuroscientist, I can start talking about engineering, and same thing if I get in over my head in an engineering conversation, I'll switch over to neuroscience or something. And if I get really flustered, I'll just say "The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell!" and walk away.

Lindsey Dinneen: Brilliant.

JoJo Platt: So yeah, you always wanna have a couple catchphrases that'll get you into or out of any conversation.

Lindsey Dinneen: All right. I like it. Yeah. I need to develop a few more of those, I think. What is the one thing you wish to be remembered for after you leave this world?

JoJo Platt: I hope that when I'm gone that the people that I've known and had the privilege of being associated with, either professionally or personally, oftentimes both-- that they always knew that I was there if they needed help or if there was some way that I could contribute to their success, that would be the greatest highlight of my day. I'm not the one doing the hard stuff, so I'm here to help the people who are, and if that's how I'm remembered, I wouldn't hate that.

Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. I love that. Well, final question. What's one thing that makes you smile every time you see or think about it?

JoJo Platt: But one of the things that, I find wonderful, full of wonder, fill me with wonder, are really the pieces of science that you don't realize, or mathematics or engineering that are all around you all the time, and if you know where to look or how to find them, you start to see. I have a fascination with Fibonaccis. So if you start to read and learn about the Fibonacci Sequence and how it's applied and where it's found in nature, where it applies in mathematics, how it affects what we view as aesthetically pleasing-- there's "The Great Wave of Kanagawa," which is a Fibonacci Sequence. It's an old Japanese block print that is perfectly aligned with the Fibonacci spiral. So things like that. Things that blur the line between mathematics and science and beauty. I think that's pretty inspiring. That makes me smile.

Lindsey Dinneen: Oh, I love that. That's beautiful. Well, I just wanted to say thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for sharing about your background and all the fascinating things that you have done that have led you to where you are right now. And who knows what you're gonna do in the future, but it is so fun to hear about it. So thank you for being so open sharing all those wonderful things. And we are honored to be making a donation on your behalf as a thank you for your time today. It's going to Polaris Project, which was Jojo's choice, and that is a non-governmental organization that works to combat and prevent sex and labor trafficking in North America. So thank you for that, Jojo. Thank you so much again for your time. We wish you just the most continued success as you work to change lives for a better world.

JoJo Platt: Thank you. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.

Lindsey Dinneen: Of course. And thank you also to our listeners for tuning in, and if you're feeling as inspired as I am right now, I'd love it if you'd share this episode with a colleague or two, and we will catch you next time.

 The Leading Difference podcast is brought to you by Velentium.

Velentium is a contract design and manufacturing firm specializing in the development, production and post-market support of diagnostic and therapeutic active medical devices, including implantables and wearables for neuromodulation and other class three indications.

Velentium's core competencies include electrical design, mechanical design, embedded software, mobile apps, contract manufacturing, embedded cybersecurity, OT cybersecurity, systems engineering, human factors and usability, and automated test systems.

Velentium works with clients worldwide from startups seeking seed funding to established Fortune 100 companies.

Visit velentium.com to explore your next step in medical device development.