A VP at a $2.5 billion startup reveals exactly how she asked her boss for a big promotion at just 33 years old - and got it

Emma Court

Aug 9, 2019, 00:48 IST

A VP at a $2.5 billion startup reveals exactly how she asked her boss for a big promotion at just 33 years old - and got it

Courtesy of Emily Drabant Conley

Emily Drabant Conley is 23andMe's vice president of business development.

Emily Drabant Conley has worked for the personal-genetics startup 23andMe for nearly a decade.
She started off running the startup's research and moved over to business development. Then, in 2015 and at the age of 33, Drabant Conley got a big promotion to be VP of business development.
To snag the role, she asked her boss for both the title and the autonomy, something she described as "a very pivotal moment in my own career trajectory."
We named Drabant Conley to our list of the 30 people under 40 who are transforming healthcare. Click here to see the full list.
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Emily Drabant Conley was in a position that may sound familiar.

Conley works for the personal-genetics startup 23andMe. Four years ago, another employee was technically in charge of the company's business development efforts.

But he didn't have the science background of Drabant Conley, who holds a doctorate in neuroscience from Stanford and joined the then-small startup right after, in 2010. That left her "kind of doing all the work," she recalls, laughing.

So she went to her boss, 23andMe co-founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki, and asked for a big promotion.

"I think that to traverse the career ladder the way I have at 23andMe is unusual, and hard to do, and the only way to do it is by advocating for yourself," said Conley, who has now worked at the company for nearly a decade.

Today she's the vice president of business development. She negotiates partnerships with big drug companies like Genentech, Pfizer, and, last year, GlaxoSmithKline, that give them access to 23andMe data - with personal information removed - to find new targets for their drugs. She has also helped 23andMe raise money from investors.

In recognition of the work Conley is doing in healthcare, Business Insider just named her one of the 30 young leaders transforming the industry.

Here's how Conley asked for a big promotion, and her advice for others looking to do the same.

'It can't just be because you want the bigger job'

Hollis Johnson/Business Insider

23andMe sells DNA testing kits.

Conley started at 23andMe when it was so small that "you get to do anything."

After being hired to run neuroscience research, that morphed into business development when research inquiries from outside organizations got passed along to her.

That was the genesis of 23andMe's business development department, and moving over to it was a natural evolution for Conley. She said the new role brought together her interests in business, science and people.

"I felt like this was exactly what I was meant to do," she says.

Moving into the VP role was "a bigger jump" and required some petitioning. Going to her boss, Wojcicki, Conley was very candid about her reasons for the ask, saying that she was doing all the work and should have both the title and autonomy in the role, she recounts.

Importantly, "it can't just be because you want the bigger job," she says. "You have to put yourself in the position of the company."

That means considering what's in the company's best interest, and using that to make your best case, she said.

Identifying mentors to learn from

Kimberly White/Getty Images for Vanity Fair

23andMe co-founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki.

Conley also recommends finding mentors along the way. Wojcicki has been, and continues to be an incredible mentor, she says.

Another key mentor: Ashley Dombkowski, 23andMe's onetime chief business officer and a longtime entrepreneur who now runs a consumer-focused company called Before Brands.

"So finding people like that that you can really learn from. That's why I've stayed" at 23andMe, Conley says.