We sat down with Greg to learn about his background and how he finds balance in his role as Vice President of Professional Services at Viedoc.
Growing up in New Hampshire, just 45 minutes from Boston, Greg never would have guessed the future would include time in the Washington D.C. region, followed by a rural lifestyle with property large enough to house his two daughters, a flock of chickens, and multiple beehives. But in Virginia, Greg and his family have found the perfect mix of rural and urban.
Greg and his family appreciate all the activities that come with living so close to nature, including biking, hiking, and making the most of life on their property. With land to support an herb garden, vegetable garden, and fruit trees, there’s no shortage of hobbies to enjoy. In his spare time, Greg has also taken up beekeeping, a pursuit that his youngest daughter has become interested in, too. So, weekends are busy at the Tullo household, but it’s fulfilling work for the whole family.
- It’s a lot of fun. We haven't bought eggs in six years, which is nice. I mean, for somebody who grew up on less than an acre of land in New England and didn't have anything more than a vegetable garden, it's been interesting for me to learn and get back to the land. And now that my kids have grown up with it, it's just normal for them. And we still take trips into the city, so they have had this well-rounded childhood of getting to see the rural farm aspect of life and appreciate where their food comes from and also the urban aspect of life.
Greg’s wife owns a holistic wellness center focusing on more holistic approaches to wellness, like herbal remedies, yoga, and mindfulness. And he’s been proud to support her journey, as she did for him at the start of his career.
- My wife supported me during the early phases of my career, and now it's my turn. Watching what she has built in our community has been very inspiring.
Greg has found peace in a more rural lifestyle—and the perfect work-life balance in his position at Viedoc.
After graduating from university, Greg’s first significant career move took him to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he worked in a malaria vaccine research group and tackled his first major problem as a burgeoning clinical data manager (CDM).
- I made my step into data management while at the NIH when it was clear that there were large amounts of data being produced every day which were not easily queried and were missing connections. So, I created a system that integrated this data and allowed the team to reduce the time to cross-reference and search the data sources from literal days to mere seconds. From there, I helped implement the department’s first electronic data capture (EDC) system, which reduced the open query rate from 30% to 0.1%, the time from data collection to availability for analysis from weeks to a single day, and worked to create the CDM position at that facility.
Greg’s next career move took him into the private sector, working for a medical device contract research organization (CRO) based out of Washington, D.C., as the Director of Biostatistics and Clinical Data Management. In this position, he was tasked with evaluating a number of EDC vendors to find the perfect fit for the types of studies being conducted by the CRO. After considering and testing many solutions, Greg selected the option that had all the features his team wanted while remaining cost-effective—and that vendor was Viedoc.
- We said, well, it's more powerful than other systems, it looks better, it's easier to use both from an end user’s perspective and a designer’s perspective, and it's really competitive pricewise. Let's give it a shot. So, we did. I was able to build our first study over the course of a weekend, probably 8 hours of total work to get the study up and operational. The sponsor loved it, and perhaps even more importantly, our monitors, who had used just about every EDC system you can imagine, were blown away by the power and simplicity of Viedoc.
From there, the CRO began to use Viedoc for larger and larger studies, phasing out other EDC systems that had been tried out and making Viedoc the primary solution for all studies.
Just prior to the start of the pandemic, Greg transitioned from his role at the CRO to a tech startup, where he was tasked with creating a clinical data management unit. While he had a great experience with them, he still had a great appreciation for Viedoc’s suite of solutions, and he was missing his interactions with the Viedoc team—and that’s when Greg received a call from Johannes Molin, Viedoc’s Global Head of Professional Services (P.S.). Johannes told him that Viedoc was about to expand the overall offering in the United States (U.S.), and they wanted Greg to head the P.S. team in that region. While leaving the tech startup meant leaving a great team of very talented people, this opportunity seemed like an excellent challenge and next step.
Now, as Vice President of Professional Services for the Americas (the interest in Viedoc turned out to be much greater than just within the U.S.), Greg’s primary duties involve managing the day-to-day operations and responsibilities of the P.S. team in the Americas; responsibilities which include providing technical demos, ensuring client success via technical support and subject matter expertise, and managing studies.
The team is currently located across the U.S., from coast to coast, and covers all four standard time zones in the contiguous U.S., ensuring access to the P.S. team throughout the day, irrespective of time zone.
- I am a huge advocate for this concept of a modernized CDM role. Historically, CDMs did tons and tons of query work, general data, preparation of reports, etc. With a modern system such as Viedoc, the CDM can actually automate the vast majority of those processes by designing a smarter database, which gives the CDM time to do, frankly, more interesting things. The entire P.S. team in the Americas shares this view and works to ensure that our clients are working 'smarter, not harder,' and maximizing their ROI by using Viedoc’s suite of solutions to the maximum benefit.
Greg became a fan of Viedoc from the day he built his first study—and he truly believes Viedoc is one of the best tools out there. Working with Viedoc, he can apply both his enjoyment of technology and problem-solving and his passion for clinical research.
- Staying within the clinical space where I know that I'm not impacting just one company with one drug or device that's going to market, but many. And that makes me feel really fulfilled, that I'm having some level of impact on many, many different people's lives potentially.
As a global company, Viedoc has the power to give opportunities to the right people, no matter where they’re based. Sometimes, this means employees need to adapt to a hybrid work model and work mostly remotely. Having worked in a hybrid position for ten years before the start of the pandemic, Greg had no qualms about hybrid work with Viedoc.
While Greg sometimes works from home, he also rents a private office in a coworking hub that he shares with another family. They even coordinate taking their kids back and forth to school.
Balance is easier to find these days. Joining a Swedish organization means there is a massive amount of respect for personal life, and Greg says this is one of the greatest benefits of working for Viedoc.
- It actually took me probably close to a year to adapt to the fact that at 5 PM, people aren't working anymore. That's it. They're done. I think from that perspective, Viedoc is very unique in that you’re encouraged to be done when you're done. It’s been a great shift from the 'always on' culture I had grown used to.
When Greg and his team aren’t working with clients directly, they’re focusing on future innovation. So, when we asked what comes next for Greg, both in this role and in the future, he elaborated on the intel they gather from clients to guide future development.
- Our immediate goals are to continue to brainstorm, using a lot of the ideas that we're getting from not just existing clients but prospects about the direction Viedoc should take as we continue to explain our offering. What other tools do we need? What should we enhance? What, maybe, are we thinking about that people just frankly aren't interested in?
Want to see Greg in action? Make sure you don't miss him in his upcoming webinar.
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