Dr. Sahar Hashmi

Rising woman leader in the world of artificial intelligence and digital transformation

Dr. Sahar Hashmi

#BOSSLADY DETAILS

Name & Surname: Dr. Sahar Hashmi

Strengths: Determined, Creative, Passionate for Innovation, Skilled to View a Vision from Multiple Dimensions (Medicine, Healthcare, Biotech, Business, Design, Digital, AI and DataScience)

Country: Boston, United States

Industry: Business Consulting

Favorite quote:
"Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. It shouldn't be that women are the exception." "Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG)

Please give us a bit of background about you and your business?

Myriad Consulting LLC is a female led boutique consultancy firm backed by an extensive network of highly educated, skilled, and renowned advisors and sub-contractors from both industry and academia globally. I am the founder and serving as the CEO of Myriad Consulting LLC. I started with the mission to provide an advising strategic platform to VCs, startups, futurists alike to enable them to transform their visions into a palpable reality regardless of many factors that sets brilliant ideas back. As such, we started off by taking on many consulting projects for free. I value passion, potential and the genuine goal to enrich and improve the lives of the population at large and that has been my go-to metric since. Furthermore, we at Myriad Consulting value humanness, and use a very customized hands-on interactive approach and what I believe sets us apart from the many consulting firms that currently exist. We slowly developed into a boutique consulting firm with a team of brilliant minds of various expertise — MDs, PhDs, MD-MBAs, & MBAs from Harvard and MIT who believe in Myriad’s mission to give back to the community through an innovative and transformative approach.

How is this business unique?

Myriad is unique in many ways — we can quickly assemble a team based on any given project’s need/requirements by pooling the best from my vast network of MDs, PhDs and Industry consultants (former Google, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, McKinsey, BCG, Bain consultants, world renowned physician specialists for example, endocrinologists, psychologist/psychiatrists, hospitalists, scientists and professors, all from Ivy leagues) from around the world to provide top quality services. One of the other unique features of my firm is that we provide /offer our client a complete package from design, to strategy, to implementation plan, to partnership development to completely transforming the vision into a reality for our client — all at a competitive cost without compromising our standards and high-quality performance.

What advice do you have for startups?

As business scientist leaders in the world of AI, we all agree on one thing: meta-data or big data or practically speaking any type of ‘data’ that is collected and used to build an AI application is the key to its success or the cause of its failure. The data needs to be of quality and relevance. A common saying amongst AI data experts: “rubbish in leads to rubbish out” We are also aware of the possibility of harmful consequences of meta data if it is misused. I strongly encourage and advise all my clients including VCs/developers/startups to include data bias prevention techniques as part of the design process of any technology/device/app development. This will save them a lot of time and money in the long run.

What are some of your accomplishments?

I am an MD with a PhD from MIT’s School of Business Management and IDSS. I also did my masters’ in System Design and Management from MIT where I applied the systems design approach in the hospitals operation management setting. I am grateful to have been recognized through numerous leadership awards from MIT and the Global Counsel of Technology in the United States. To mention a few, I received the Larry G. Benedict Institute Leadership Award, Graduate Women in Excellence Award, the Sloan Business School's Graduate Teaching and Mentoring the executive MBAs (e-MBAs) Apple Award (one of the most prestigious MIT awards), MIT’s Bridge Builder Award, which honors civic leaders who have formed partnerships across racial, social, economic, and geographic barriers, for the betterment of their communities, and the Best Innovative Project Award from Global Community of Technology (USA). I recently designed and taught a unique AI course for graduate students at Harvard on Artificial Intelligence, technology innovation and digital transformation in the business world. I really enjoyed incorporating creative online teaching techniques such as using jam board exercises and learning about each of my students’ unique journey through regular check-ins, which added for a more interactive and engaging sessions. The hard work paid off as my students expressed how much they learned from my course and how they felt an “on campus” Harvard University experience over zoom. This happened when Harvard went completely remote like most universities in the world due to the COVID19 pandemic. My course and students ‘experience was published in an entrepreneurial magazine recently. Link add: https://magnitt.com/news/ai-and-human-interaction-52901 Whenever I am asked by my students about my next course that I plan to design and teach so that they can pre-enroll in my class, or whenever I hear how my students applied what I taught them in my class to their businesses/journey and the positive impact it had on them, it brings a smile on my face and gives me joy that I am able to give back and pass on to my students what my professors gave me: a pathway to grow and harness using the knowledge tools necessary. Similarly, whenever I hear from clients and see how their businesses have excelled and boomed from Myriad Consulting’s expertise and the positive impact patients or population at large experience as a result, it is truly humbling.

Do you believe in luck? Has it played a role in your career success?

I believe in hard work along with passion, patience and perseverance — I also believe the excerpt from the book ‘outliers’ by Malcolm Gladwell; “the tallest oak in the forest is the tallest not just because it grew from the hardiest acorn; it is the tallest also because no other trees blocked its sunlight, the soil around it was deep and rich, no rabbit chewed through its bark as a sapling, and no lumberjack cut it down before it matured. We all know that successful people come from hardy seeds. But do we know enough about the sunlight that warmed them, the soil in which they put down the roots, and the rabbits and lumberjacks they were lucky enough to avoid?” The same holds true for a leader / visionary as well. I believe that I am lucky and blessed to have been surrounded by such a strong and sincere support network from my male and female colleagues, friends and family members in my journey as a female leader in healthcare.

What are your hobbies/what do you do when you are not working?

I love and appreciate the arts and I am a big fan of the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA). Much of my inspiration from art is transformed into my painting such as mosaic and marble art painting. You can find me horse riding during my favorite season of autumn in Boston where the fall foliage makes the horse-riding experience almost magical and enchanting. I am a shameless techie-nerd and love indulging in a good AI, leadership, tech & business, business & healthcare type book on a cold snow day with a warm cup of chai.

How many times has someone told you: You can’t do something? How did you deal with it?

I come from a family of highly accomplished siblings, lawyer and doctorates, from Harvard and MIT, who happen to be all female, and from a minority (Southeast Asian/India Pakistan) heritage. We faced our fair share of criticism on focusing on our education from many, even today, but I give full credit to my parents, God bless them, who went above and beyond to enable and encourage us to continue to dream big, despite all the societal, cultural, and familial pressure they received from both ends. Our parents told us that everyone faces hardships in their lives but it’s how individuals deal and view those challenges that sets them apart from others. They taught us to forge ahead even when matters became challenging in our lives while growing up as young girls working hard to seek knowledge. As much as it’s a challenge to be a woman leader entrepreneur in a newly established field of AI and digital transformation, I find inspiration from female leaders such as the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) and her inspirational story of being a strong woman leader in a male dominating field. I still have a long way to go, and I am forever grateful to all those who were there for me during my humble beginnings and continue to support me to grow. I believe I have been very blessed in that I found support from the most unexpected people/places in my life. My goal is to have a positive impact on patient lives and save millions of patient lives at once and through innovative AI platforms this vision can be a reality one day

Dr. Sahar Hashmi

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