Unlike most things in life, including life itself, technology never stops. It goes through periods of evolution, innovation, and repeated examinations; however, it never ceases to stop.
Among one of the key reasons behind the ever-growing advancement cycle of technology are humans themselves.
Our willingness to find answers to our curiosity, placing no limitations on our imagination, evolving with time, and not giving up even in the most difficult situations are all major contributors to technological advancements.
This contribution is, however, not limited to scientists, researchers, or lab workers. Entrepreneurs, Investors, Artists, Business Personalities, Tech Students, Innovators, Societies, Governments, etc. are all drivers to this giant wheel we refer to as Technology.
Alvin Fu was one such curious leader who wanted to a part of this evolution chain. He recognized the sheer potential the industry carried and was determined to contribute towards its betterment.
Featuring in Exeleon Magazine as a Transformational Leader, we look into the story of Alvin Fu, a 20-year veteran in the industry and the CTO of Bryn Mawr Communications, a medical media, live, and virtual education, and marketing services company. It particularly lays focus on vision, cardiovascular, dermatology, aesthetics, and neurology fields.
A Curious Mind
For Alvin, his father was his guiding light. He recalls how during the weekends his father took him to a bookstore at MIT.
“He would find some books and study computer science, while I was engaged in the magazine aisles for anything related to cars, drivers, and motor trends.”
Back in grade-school, Alvin didn’t make much of these weekend trips. However, he soon realized, “My father was setting himself up for future success by taking initiative to transition his career based on where technology was headed. Thereby, migrating from his impressive educational credentials in industrial and mechanical engineering to becoming a self-taught computer scientist.”
This transition paved the path for his father’s successful career and is something that Alvin integrates in his approach as well.
As a kid, Alvin was one with the curious mind and imaginative eyes. “I was always a tinkerer, taking apart my toys and putting them back together, sometimes well, sometimes with a few parts’ leftover.”
Moreover, being good in math and science further strengthened his direction towards the tech space.
For him it was clear, “In the late 90’s wireless technologies were starting to make serious advancements and I knew I wanted to be part of the evolution that would one day be part of everyday life, which is indeed the case now.”
The Journey
Alvin graduated from Penn State University with a degree in Electrical Engineering, with specialization in wireless communications.
Following this, he spent a majority of his time working in startups, thereby allowing him to take on various roles and gain a wealth of experience at a number of professional areas and verticals.
Most of Alvin’s work responsibility focused on engineering, design, development, and testing wireless geolocation solutions, which was a niche field during the time.
He mentions, ‘Many of the solutions our teams developed were and still are state-of-the-art and best-in-class technologies providing geospatial capabilities and intelligence to various public and private sectors, as well as consumer devices.”
At the time, Big Data and Analytics were starting to create a lot of buzz in the industry. Working with globally deployed technologies, meant working with enormous amounts of data in various forms.
“Naturally, my work in location intelligence data shoveled me into working with data lakes, data warehouses, and data transformation and processing – cloud infrastructures were gaining traction and taking over the locally-hosted serve model.”
This led Alvin to Bryn Mawr Communications, wherein he was brought-in to design and execute a data strategy to begin the transformation of being a traditional publisher of medical media and content to a digitally focused multimedia powerhouse reaching and educating physicians worldwide through various channels.
Hands-on Leader
As the CTO of Bryn Mawr Communications, Alvin wears multiple hats. His primarily role is centered around data automation, data intelligence, research design, and integration of MarTech solutions. Moreover, his role involves finding innovative methods and custom solutions to reach the company’s target audiences.
“In addition to this I oversee Email Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Digital Advertising, Business Operations, and Data/Analytics Operations.” He further adds, “I am also heavily involved in supporting Business Development and Sales, and Support along with being a liaison between various departments and our web development company, Fyra. I am hands-on with all the above and wouldn’t want it any other way.”
Over the years, many of the people that Alvin have mentored and managed have gone on to attain management positions at large companies across the globe.
This further showcases the influence Alvin has had over his peers during this journey and is what rightfully makes him a transformational leader.
The pathway he has taken has enabled him today to lead a diverse lifestyle. His passion for automobiles has led him to own a small collection of cars. Moreover, he holds several small businesses and rental properties to his name.
However, the one thing that Alvin is the proudest of and grateful for is his family: his wife Erin, and his two little kids Brady and Makena.
Guiding Principles
According to Alvin Fu, a leader can be defined in a lot of ways and the definition, in itself, can be interpreted in a lot of ways. However, one thing that stands out for him is the willingness to always find a way, no matter how difficult it might seem.
“As a leader in the corporate world, I work under the assumption that nothing is impossible,” he asserts.
Moreover, Alvin notes down 8 effective guiding principles that have allowed him to attain continuous growth and expansion.
- As a leader, my job is to guide, not dictate; empower the talented people around you.
- Recognize there is ALWAYS room for improvement; apply continuous improvement via feedback loops in day-to-day operations.
- Lead by example: attitude, work ethic, morals, productivity.
- Put aside paper credentials and treat all colleagues with the same respect.
- Listen and learn from everyone around you, no matter their credentials or seniority. You’d be surprised what even the “quietest” professionals can produce when they feel their opinions and talent are valued.
- There is no “my team” or “my group”. A team is collection and collaboration of talent.
- Control what you can control and drown out the noise.
- Provide positive energy – it’s contagious.
It is fascinating for Alvin today to look at how high school kids write codes from scratch and build robots for competitions with ease. “Owing to the shift in curriculum and opportunities, students ranging from high school to college graduates today are much more technologically advanced than I was right out of school.”
In addition to the guiding principles, he advices these young tech aspirants to never assume themselves to be the smartest person in the room.
“Always look for ways to learn from others. Resources these days are plentiful; think outside the box and do your own research.”
The Future
According to Alvin, the talent pool at Bryn Mawr Communications is incredible and the company has always been at the forefront since its inception two decades ago.
He notes, “Since I’ve joined approx. 3 years ago, our growth trajectory from personnel, skillsets, to financial health is on a steep positive incline and revenues are the highest we’ve ever seen, driven by tactics and capabilities in digital.”
He further points out that the owners have made significant investments to forge ahead with the company’s continued growth.
In the coming years, the company will be working hard to streamline its processes and continue to innovate its offerings at a rapid pace.
“We expect Bryn Mawr Communications to continue to be the leader in physician education in our medical specialty focus,” he concludes.
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