Tiffani Shaw of Clarivate: Five Strategies Our Company Is Using To Tackle Climate Change & Become More Sustainable
Personal motivation. Motivate young people to figure out how they can individually contribute and serve a personal role by helping them make an impact.
As part of our series about how companies are becoming more sustainable, we had the pleasure of interviewing Tiffani Shaw.
Tiffani Shaw is Chief of Staff at Clarivate. She leads the Customer Delight program designed to improve our customers’ experience and create scalable customer-centric models globally, M&A integrations and Sustainability. Tiffani is also responsible for the Customer Care, Sales Experience and Operations teams. She joined Clarivate from the University of Iowa Center for Advancement, where she was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, overseeing operations and leading the strategic vision to advance the institution through engagement and philanthropy. Prior to that, Tiffani was the organization’s Chief Financial Officer for 10 years. Tiffani serves on the board of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, as well as the Council for Graduate Schools.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I’ve always wanted to make an impact on the lives of others, on a global scale, and have a strong passion for advancing education, research and healthcare. I also believe our paths don’t happen by coincidence. We come across a certain number of people in our lives that inspire us to change our life trajectory and guide us towards where we can make the biggest and best impact. My career path has been guided by mentors, who, at opportune times, have helped me make the right decisions and life choices to help me grow and use my natural curiosity to make the greatest impact possible. Chuck helped me understand the role of a servant leader, and he guided me to realize my own talents and potential, shaping my career path throughout my life in a way I never thought would be possible.
I was attracted to Clarivate as the company mission, vision and values align very closely to my own personal values and I’m now in the exciting and humbling position where I can genuinely help a large colleague and customer population of tens of thousands of people to better understand what we need to do in order to build a better future for everyone.
What is the mission of your company? What problems are you aiming to solve?
As a global leader in providing trusted information and insights to accelerate the pace of innovation, our vision at Clarivate is to improve the way the world creates, protects and advances progress. We do this by partnering with our customers to deliver critical data, information, workflow solutions and deep domain expertise.
Our bold mission is to help customers solve some of the world’s most complex problems and reduce the time from new ideas to life-changing inventions. Those challenges include, for example, improving water quality, predicting cancer risks and analyzing the bioplastics landscape as a potential solution for a more sustainable future.
When it comes to sustainability, it is not just something we do. It is everything we do. In 2022, we are focused on continuing our efforts to address climate change, committing to set a science-based target and achieving carbon-neutrality by 2024 on our journey to a net-zero future.
We believe we can achieve this by weaving sustainability into the fabric of our corporate culture worldwide, making it fundamental to every decision we make whether it involves our global footprint or supplier relationship. We have created an interconnected, shared purpose and a strong operating philosophy that guides the actions of our leadership and colleagues worldwide. All these elements are built on the foundation of our clear purpose, vision and mission, underpinned by our values to guide our colleagues in everything they do — so our collective focus is growth for the greater good.
Our solutions and deep domain expertise help our customers solve some of the world’s most complex challenges, including the development and launch of life-changing drugs and treatments, helping leading academic institutions educate the next generation of pioneers, helping companies innovate world-changing technologies and advancing sustainable resource use.
Our customers are some of the world’s leading researchers and problem solvers. More than 45,000 universities, non-profits, funding organizations, libraries, corporations, law firms, government organizations and independent researchers trust us to help them reduce risk and accelerate the pace of discovering, protecting, and commercializing new ideas.
Can you tell our readers about the initiatives that you or your company are taking to address climate change or sustainability? Can you give an example for each?
In 2022, we are focused on continuing our efforts to address climate change, committing to set a science-based target and achieving carbon-neutrality by 2024 on our journey to a net-zero future.
One of our most valuable milestones when it comes to driving responsible business practices at Clarivate is our framework for quantifying our contribution towards the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). This highlights our product portfolio’s contribution to SDGs, helps us focus on where we can drive maximum impact now and enables us to further accelerate our contributions by embedding sustainability into our culture and long-term business strategy.
By mapping our solutions to the 17 UN SDGs, we have gained a clear view of our current state, identified four key focus areas where we can make the biggest impact and uncovered opportunities where we can continue to embed sustainability into our business strategy to broaden our impact worldwide. These focus areas include UN SDG 3 Good health and well-being; UN SDG 4 Quality education UN SDG 9 Industry, innovation and infrastructure and UN SDG 12 Responsible consumption and production.
One example is our commitment to helping to achieve UN Global Sustainability Goal 3 (Target 3.4) centred on reducing premature mortality by one third by 2030.
The medical community, governments and other public groups are grappling with major public health crises as well as other significant health threats. Intervention at the point of care — through a pharmacist or a physician — can enable patients to better manage medication adherence. Clarivate data shows that a significant percentage of patients with serious chronic conditions do not adhere to their prescribed medications which can result in devastating consequences. To achieve UN SDG Target 3.4, patients need access to trusted insights and information, which can be highly effective at reducing anxiety and confusion and ultimately lowering the number of premature deaths across the globe.
Clarivate will collaborate with global partners to distribute 100 million digital messages to our network of pharmacists to help prevent premature deaths in people suffering from conditions including: cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease, diabetes and diseases of the central nervous system.
How would you articulate how a business can become more profitable by being more sustainable and more environmentally conscious? Can you share a story or example?
We are boldly integrating sustainability into everything we do, ensuring our strategic priorities are focused on advancing a more sustainable world through our customer impact and by operating sustainably through responsible business practices. I believe being a sustainable company is key to long term success and therefore profitability. By mapping our solutions to UN SDGs, we support our customers to be more profitable and more sustainable.
We are proud that 46% of our global revenue is aligned with SDGs. 70+ of the most recent health technology assessments we supported have expedited life-saving drugs. 51% of companies ranked in the Down Jones Sustainability Index work in partnership with us. 2.5M+ inventions in our Derwent World Patent Index relate to green energy technologies. 2.4M+ citations in our Web of Science are related to SDG research areas. We have improved medicinal understanding for more than 80M patients with chronic diseases. And 48/50 of the top R&D companies work with us to accelerate innovation.
An example of how an entire industry can improve is the Future Water Association (FWA) in the U.K. Water is a very complex problem. It’s essential for survival and for sustainable development. The U.K. water industry has always aspired to be at the forefront of innovation, but they haven’t always had the data to prove their position. Partnering with Clarivate, FWA set out to do something different — drive transformational change through data-driven recommendations. Their CEO, Paul Horton, said: “Clarivate helped us understand where we stood in terms of innovation. We used that data to knock on the door of government and policy makers. Without data, nobody listens.” You can watch the entire story here.
The youth led climate strikes of September 2019 showed an impressive degree of activism and initiative by young people on behalf of climate change. This was great, and there is still plenty that needs to be done. In your opinion what are 5 things parents should do to inspire the next generation to become engaged in sustainability and the environmental movement? Please give a story or an example for each.
As a parent, the five things I believe we need to do in order to inspire the next generation include:
- Lead by example. The most important part of engaging young people is to lead by example, making sure we do what we say.
- Teach the basics, then further education at every opportunity. Teach young people the basics of what it takes to look after our planet together.
- Personal motivation. Motivate young people to figure out how they can individually contribute and serve a personal role by helping them make an impact.
- Community volunteering. Helping young people to find community-based projects that are closely aligned with their values and passions.
- Advocacy. Inspire young people to become true advocates for living sustainable lives.
To weave together all of the above, I’m currently working with colleges and universities to help progress their student entrepreneurial programs. We’re looking at how to collaborate and work together to help these start-ups, lead by young people, be successful in the sustainability space and I’m very excited to help make an impact on a local level.
On a personal level this is fantastic timing as I’m also helping my two sons with their future thinking. My youngest is currently looking for his first job and has expressed an interest in working with supply chain related companies that have a sustainability lens so we’ve worked together to find a list of suitable companies, preferably late-stage start-ups that are moving at great pace and have a growth path, so that he can have the greatest impact
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
- The importance of mentorship
- Align passions with work
- Take a servant leadership approach
- Be a visionary and believe in making the impossible possible
- The importance of culture and values
These all can have a transformative impact, so to have awareness about their importance at an early age can help anyone have greater success in the world and along their personal career paths.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I agree 100%. Mentors were the key to my personal success. I have been incredibly lucky to have had a fantastic mentor in Chuck Kierscht, former JAG attorney, University of Iowa Center for Advancement board member and CEO of Kemper in Chicago. He called me every week for 20 years until he passed away from cancer and I was privileged to speak at his funeral. He was influential in teaching the importance of servant leadership and listening, forming my career path, to an executive, C-level.
I also have the privilege of being mentored by our current Clarivate CEO, Jerre Stead, who has been a friend and mentor for the last 15 years.
You are a person of great influence and doing some great things for the world! If you could inspire a movement that would bring the greatest amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
This is a great question, and if possible, I would like to inspire a movement around enhancing access and outcome to education for everyone. Education is crucial to transforming our world and bringing people together, but we have to transform our approach to ensure people don’t drown in debt, or don’t see the value. In addition, mental health challenges are at an all-time high. I believe we have to provide better access to education and mental health support so our students can flourish and create a curriculum that meets the needs of students today. By inspiring and engaging students and providing support to under-represented students so they can achieve the same outcomes, we can provide an excellent foundation for changing our future to create a better world together.
Do you have a favorite life lesson quote? Can you tell us how that was relevant to you in your own life?
My favorite quote is:
“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
– James Baldwin
Change is a major imperative for us being able to stand together to adapt our ways for the climate and our future whether that’s on a global scale or a personal level. I’ve always remained open to, and welcomed change as a conduit towards progress and a better future.
What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?
A great place to start is with our latest annual sustainability report, which provides data-driven examples of what we have achieved so far and lays out our ambitious plans for the future.
We’re active across many social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, and we love to engage with people that way.
You can also check out our newsroom for the latest news and insights from our experts, or read our blog for a deeper dive into topics across our industries — from Academia and Government to Life Sciences and Healthcare, and from Professional Services to Consumer goods, Manufacturing and Technology. We also have several podcast series which are well worth a listen.
Personally, I’m active on LinkedIn and I’m currently trying to share more information about building sustainable businesses. You can follow me on linkedin.com/in/tiffani-shaw/
This was so inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Tiffani Shaw of Clarivate: Five Strategies Our Company Is Using To Tackle Climate Change & Become… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.