Kathy shows up for her interview and is a breath of fresh air. Humble, funny, intelligent. We talk well past the allotted time and I am convinced she will be a great fit with Gillette.
Just as I'm putting together my list of people for second-round interviews (with Kathy at the top of the list), my secretary (that's what they were called then and she could barely do the job) Carole comes into my office and says, "You got a thing from that person." Carole's sentences always contained two unknowns like a math equation that could not be solved.
The "thing" was a thank you letter. The person was Kathy. Carole had opened it up for me.
The letter had holes in it. Literally. It was a typewritten letter from an IBM Selectric typewriter (pre personal computers) with mistakes that had been erased to the point of having created holes in the paper. Two of them.
What do you do? I reluctantly take her name off the list.
A week later, the President of the Personal Care Division makes a rare appearance on the floor and pays me a visit.
Bill: When you were at Harvard Business School, did you interview someone named Kathy?
Me: (feeling sweaty). Yes, why?
Bill: Well, I got a call from the head of the marketing department there saying we missed the boat on this one and that she is the best-qualified person they have.
Me: I thought so too, but take a look at this letter she sent.
Bill: Mmm. I see your point. I would have done the same thing. Let me talk to the professor and tell him what's going on.
Turns out that Kathy's dumb-ass boyfriend Kevin mailed the letter for her but put the draft version in the envelope. The clean version never made it to me. And Kevin the Schmuck never told Kathy about his mistake until confronted by her.
We hire Kathy and she is fantastic. She ends up on my team when we were assigned the umpteenth restage of Silkience Shampoo. We snag Kim Alexis, a top fashion model, for the commercial. USA Today runs an article featuring the print ad saying: "Silkience Chick Ad a Hit!"
Kathy eventually leaves Gillette and works for G.D. Searle in Chicago. She finds a great guy, Paul G, . We dance at her wedding, celebrating the fact that she has finally gotten someone worthy of her
A few years later, when Kathy is struggling to conceive her second child, she is given a medical explanation that will change her life. She has a rare cancer of the blood called Multiple Myeloma. She is thirty-seven years old and given three years to live.
If I were given that kind of death sentence, I would most likely hunker down with my family. But Kathy does more than that. In typical fashion, she throws herself into this cause, creating a foundation to generate awareness of this disease and raise money to help find a cure. She goes one step further which is to leverage all her business and marketing acumen to bring discipline to the scientific community with regards to how they build databases of patient populations with similar diseases (versus working with small sample sizes) and gets scientists to collaborate in an unprecedented way. She even solves the issues of intellectual property ownership when discoveries are made.
Not only does Kathy help Multiple Myeloma, she helps create a model for collaboration in the field of oncology.
Her twin sister, Karen, donates bone marrow for a transplant for Kathy. Karen is general counsel at Sports Illustrated which runs an article about the sisters.
After a harrowing ordeal, Kathy survives the bone marrow transplant. I last see her on The Today Show being interviewed by Ann Curry, talking about the disease and her journey. I remember sitting in my bedroom watching Kathy on the show and thinking how extraordinary she is to have dedicated so much of her time to helping others fight cancer.
Last year, I pick up a copy of Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World" issue. Kathy is one of the people. Katie Couric writes the tribute to her.
The 2011 TIME 100
Kathy Giusti
Research Advocate
What if you were told, at 37, you had three years to live? Kathy Giusti, diagnosed with multiple myeloma, decided to make memories for her 18-month-old daughter Nicole so she'd know she had a mom. But at the same time, marshaling her determination and knowledge of the world of pharma (she was the former head of Searle's worldwide arthritis franchise), she created the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. Today, 165 million research dollars, four new approved drugs and 13 years later, Kathy is in remission but still pressing scientists and the FDA to work together efficiently. Now Nicole and her brother David not only know they have a mom; they know she's a hero.
Couric is the anchor of CBS Evening New
Harvard Business School honors Kathy at this year's commencement. With all the mucky-mucks they have to chose from, they choose Kathy.
Last week, I am invited to a symposium co-hosted by Harvard Medical School and Harvard Business School. I see that Kathy is on the panel. I haven't seen Kathy in 13 years. The last time she hosted a fundraiser in Boston, I was at my peak weight and so ashamed of how I looked that I didn't go. I sent a check instead.
I arrive for the panel two minutes before it starts. A staff member guides me to an open seat smack in the middle of the auditorium. I am seated three rows directly in front of Kathy. She looks up and sees me and gasps audibly. Then we both laugh.
Kathy is brilliant on the panel. When it's over, people rush the stage to see her. Esteemed scientists and members of the venture capital community are clamoring to see her. They want to talk about her business model for fundraising and collaboration. She is a rock star.
I wait to see her and we hug. She asks if I'm going to the luncheon and I say yes. She asks if we can sit together.
We catch up on each others' lives. Everyone else wants a piece of her. But for one hour on this one day, we are just two old friends and mothers who love our kids more than anything else in our lives. This is what we talk about.
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