Decoding Disruptors: Cindy Eckert, CEO at The Pink Ceiling

Michael Gervais (0:09)

Okay, welcome to Decoding Disruptors. This is a special edition of the Finding Mastery podcast, and it is presented without interruption by Microsoft. And I couldn't be more excited to partner with Microsoft to bring this series to life. Decoding Disruptors takes a deep dive into the minds of extraordinary women who have disrupted the narrative in their business, their industries and their communities.

And I had the chance to interview nine amazing women for this series. And every conversation was filmed and is currently available at decodingdisruptors.com. And along with those videos on the website, you can also take the disruptor assessment. And the Compete to Create team was so inspired by the insights of these women that we're running a pilot assessment to spark awareness for you of some of the psychological skills related to the path of disrupting the narrative in your own life. And all of that's available for you to explore, to play, to learn, to generate some insights from the assessment and the videos. It's all available at decodingdisruptors.com.

Now, the second Decoding Disruptors conversation is with Cindy Eckert. Cindy Eckert is a self-made serial entrepreneur.

In the past 10 years, Cindy has founded and sold two billion dollar pharmaceutical businesses.

Just like a modern day Erin Brockovich, Cindy took on the FDA and won to get approvals of the first ever drug for low sexual desire in women dubbed the female Viagra by the media. And at the time, there were 26 drugs on the market for low sexual desire for men and not a single one for women. So talk about disruption, right? But this conversation and Decoding Disruptors is not just about, okay, coming in and disrupting an industry. It's really much more subtle. Of course, it's about the psychology of disruption. And in Cindy's view, she had to battle a gender bias in healthcare that wasn't about whether women needed drugs for low libido, but the question that was posed to her, does women's sexual pleasure even matter? I mean, come on. Cindy's company, The Pink Ceiling, champions the interests of women through its Pinkubator. And they're providing funding and mentoring to help female entrepreneurs break through the Pink Ceiling, as she calls it. And if there's a rule that exists for no reason other than societal narrative, Cindy will break it. And she'll do it wearing blazing hot pink. So punch over to decodingdisruptors.com to watch the videos and take the assessment. And with that, let's jump right into this audio version of Decoding Disruptors with Cindy Eckert.

Cindy, how are you?

SPEAKER_2 (3:03)

Doing great.

Michael Gervais (3:04)

Yeah, thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_2 (3:05)

Thanks for having me.

Michael Gervais (3:06)

I'm really excited because you have really held a banner for a very disruptive way of being in healthcare. And so thank you for this.

SPEAKER_2 (3:19)

I appreciate it. I don't know that anybody, my peers like claim me as one of their own, because I have been very disruptive to what we think we know about pharma.

Michael Gervais (3:27)

Yeah, what does that mean with your peers?

SPEAKER_2 (3:29)

You know, I think that I'm a buck sort of conventional norm, which doesn't always well received inside of an industry, but that's okay.

Cindy Eckert (3:36)

There's always room for originality.

Michael Gervais (3:38)

Do you see yourself as more of an insider or an outsider?

SPEAKER_2 (3:41)

Oh, outsider, absolutely.

Michael Gervais (3:43)

And then has it been that way for a long time for you? Or is that something just in the pharma world?

Cindy Eckert (3:48)

No, I think really my whole life. So I had an unusual childhood and I grew up, so I'm from upstate New York, Rochester, New York, practically a Canadian. And my dad comes home one day and he says, hey, do you wanna go to Fiji?

And I'm gonna say this was before, I don't wanna date myself too much, but this is before Fiji Water and Five Star Resorts. And so I did what every average middle-class American kid would do. I ran into the living room, I spun the globe, and I was like, where's Fiji? Oh, it's the other side of the world.

And I thought that'd be fun. And he said, great, cause we're moving there. Like you naturally do, right?

SPEAKER_2 (4:23)

If you're from upstate New York, you move to the Fiji Islands.

Cindy Eckert (4:25)

And so in that sense, I moved that year and that was the fourth grade. And then every single year through my senior year of high school, I changed schools.

And so outsider, perpetual new kid, totally.

Michael Gervais (4:37)

So you've had to figure out on your feet how to adjust to environments.