Rising Stars of the Profession 2021: Hannah Yee

When Hannah joined Halloran two years ago, she was instantly recognized as a rising star. Her passion, energy, and drive are matched by her ability to learn, adapt, and apply her skills to servicing her clients. Clients consistently praise her and regularly ask that she be assigned to their projects knowing that Hannah will rise to any challenge.

Hannah has supported large-scale, high-profile projects valued at over $2M across several multi-billion-dollar pharma, biotech, and medtech companies. She takes the time to learn about clients' missions and needs to best advance their initiatives and accelerate clinical innovation to get much-needed treatments to the patients they serve. She recently managed a multi-workstream, multi-year program to upscale a global clinical development and medical affairs organization. She worked across multiple time zones, multiple business units, and with over 100+ stakeholders to steer the teams through the design and implementation phase of a new 300+ person organization in less than 12 months to deliver on their mission to become a global, leading medical organization.

Hannah's passion extends to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Hannah recently pursued an exclusive interview with CEO and President of Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) and former FDA CDRH Director, Dr. Michelle-McMurray Heath to learn more about promoting ED&I initiatives within our biotech community. Hannah Yee is one of the brightest and most agile thinkers I have met and a future leader of tomorrow.

Hannah attributes her current success to date to her upbringing, "I'd say my success is due to the communities in which I was raised. I'm fortunate to be someone who's really attached to my hometown, college community, grad school community, and now, my home in Boston. Throughout my life, I've always had abundant mentors, friends, and family members in my corner. I'm grateful to say that I've felt that support at Halloran too. The leadership, Consulting Ops team, and each of my project teams have been instrumental in enabling everyone to achieve success and beyond. The success is certainly not mine, alone."

What does Hannah enjoy most about her career in the consulting industry? She tells us, "It definitely comes back to the people. I love that I can work on multiple projects at once and that each project has a different composition of team members. Everyone brings something different to the table, and I learn from my colleagues – both internal and on the client-side – during each and every project."

"Working in consulting is an incredible opportunity to network with others and get a behind-the-scenes look at how different companies operate. Sometimes, you think you're working with a client to solve a problem, but then you uncover a nugget of new information like an innovative process, novel content, or just a different way of thinking that you can use to build your own base of knowledge and draw upon in the future."

"Consulting brings a certain breadth of experiences and a mix of clients that, together, always keep things interesting. I love that my job isn't one task I do on a loop – my day-to-day changes widen and deepens."

Hannah was unable to identify just one piece of advice she found influential, so she shared her top four with us.

• "When I started at Halloran, my manager told me to say yes to everything. Since then, it's been my go-to mantra in consulting, whether it's internal work or on the client-side. There are always ways to deliver at least partially on what someone is asking for. This attitude has carried through in my life outside of work, where even if it would be easier to say no, saying yes will result in a greater reward."
• "I grew up playing sports, and one of the lessons I was taught was to control only the controllable. In sports, this meant I couldn't control the other team or the weather, but I could control how I showed up every day. This translates to consulting, where if there's a wrench thrown in my plan, I can still control my new approach and how I adapt."
• "Nurture all your relationships, both old and new. For instance, networking is important for business development, and it can be easy to get distracted by all the fancy new connections you can make at a conference. However, there are also legacy clients and contacts that deserve attention like the new ones. The same goes for family and friends. By staying in touch with old and new connections, you're constantly building a coalition around you that is important to your success and happiness."
• "A hand-written 'Thank You' card goes a long way."

What does this recognition mean to you?

"I wouldn't view it as validation of my personal success; rather, it would validate the success, thoughtfulness, and backing of all my support systems throughout my life. In consulting, you can't have success without your project team, and I owe a lot to the incredible people I've worked with to accomplish the goals and objectives of my projects. I'm also a child of an immigrant family, so it would mean pride for my family and the investment they made in me. I would love to be able to share this amazing recognition with them."