Amani Mallory (B.I.S. ’16, M.I.S. ’19) is working on the technical side of health care at an Atlanta-based software company, assisting customers involved in clinical research with software implementation and driving user engagement.
By LaTina Emerson
Amani Mallory is making her mark on the health care industry through business and technology.
After graduating from the Biomedical Enterprise master’s program in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences in 2019, she landed a job at Florence Healthcare, a software company headquartered in Atlanta, and now works as a senior implementation associate.
“I’ve always been interested in software and technology, but I never saw myself working in the industry because I thought my experience and path didn’t align,” Mallory said. “Surprisingly, a lot of people in software and tech didn’t either and have some very interesting backgrounds.”
Florence Healthcare offers software products that cater to different types of customers involved in clinical research, such as pharmaceutical companies and organizations conducting clinical studies. The software allows users to digitize their workflows, so documents can be uploaded and electronically filed, saving time and eliminating the need to print hundreds of pages.
“A typical project for my team lasts around eight to nine weeks,” Mallory said. “We train customers on how to use the system, customize the system to fit their needs and ensure everything is compliant with either the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or a local equivalent (for international customers).”
Mallory prepares customers for onboarding, creates their testing space and communicates what is expected of them during implementation. She also drives user adoption and engagement to ensure long-term success and seeks opportunities to improve and scale processes that will accommodate rapid growth of the Florence Healthcare team.
She decided to join a software company because it provides a range of opportunities, encourages creativity, offers an optimistic environment with great benefits and has work that isn’t repetitive, among other benefits. Florence Healthcare also values work-life balance, and employees seemed genuinely happy and raved about the culture when Mallory was interviewing at the company.
Through the position, she has developed valuable translational skills and learns about the research studies being conducted by sponsors and contract research organizations.
The Ellenwood, Ga.,-native was the first in her immediate family to attend college or graduate school, receiving her bachelor’s degree in biology from Georgia State in 2016, and the first to pursue a science, medicine or research-related career. Her academic studies in the Biomedical Enterprise master’s program, now the Biomedical Science and Enterprise master’s program, prepared her for this role.
For instance, Florence Healthcare is involved in the drug development life cycle by aiming to digitize clinical trial workflows.
“A lot of the onboarding was learning about how clinical trials work, but I learned all of that in the graduate program,” Mallory said.
The software company must also comply with the FDA and local authorities for international customers. Mallory was introduced to some aspects of compliance during a graduate school course.
Florence Healthcare only had about 50 employees when Mallory started working there two years ago, but it’s quickly moving out of the startup phase. Since the company was rapidly growing, new ideas were strongly encouraged and thinking entrepreneurially was a necessity.
“One of the company values was ‘Experimentation is our superpower,’ and thanks to a course in the program, I could critically think about product/process improvements and effectively communicate my ideas to my team,” Mallory said.
Lastly, Mallory works under the customer experience department at Florence Healthcare, so keeping customers engaged during implementations is extremely important.
“The courses I took related to customer engagement and experience taught me how to walk through the customer journey and analyze what a customer may be thinking and feeling at specific phases,” Mallory said. “Keeping customers on track during implementation is very important because we have timeline goals. Keeping customers happy is important because we want positive survey responses and customer referrals.”
At Georgia State, Mallory also participated in research and completed an internship. Employers found both of these experiences to be assets when she was applying for jobs. Her colleagues at Florence Healthcare still set up one-on-one meetings with her to discuss her academic research experience.
“I talk about my experience in the program to this day,” Mallory said. “To me, it was the perfect combination of being challenging, educational and fun. It felt like the mentors really cared about our success.”
Her advice to current students and recent graduates is to make connections, perfect their resumes, start branding themselves and engage on LinkedIn.
In the future, Mallory would like to become a life science consultant and help clients in the pharmaceutical, device or biotech industries solve problems or reach goals through operational and strategy consulting. She plans to take on different roles in the industry over the next five to 10 years to achieve that goal.