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Eyes on Medical Breakthroughs
It's the lessons she's learned from life, not just as a businesswoman and a physician, that have allowed Dr. Marlene Krauss to see opportunities other venture investors missed.
HBS taught Krauss (MBA 1967) how to lead and how to communicate—but also that, as a woman, she'd have to work harder than her male classmates to succeed. From her father, a Hungarian immigrant with no business training who bought New York City's Chelsea Hotel and turned it into one of the Big Apple's most famous addresses, she learned to take risks and work hard to see them pay off. At Harvard Medical School (MD 1979), she learned not only about the workings of the human body, but also about the value of relationships and collaboration.
It all added up to make her one of the savviest health care sector investors in the country. In the early 1990s, Krauss saw the potential in a new laser eye surgery tool being developed by a tiny company in Massachusetts; her investment in Summit Technologies helped the company to become the first FDA-approved LASIK technology provider. Laser eye surgery is now a multi-billion-dollar industry.
"When I discovered it, the device was being developed in a garage," Krauss says. "It was only because I was trained as an ophthalmologist that I saw the potential there."
Eye surgeons had been correcting vision by reshaping the cornea for some time when Summit came along, but the accuracy of the computer-aided laser promised to make the surgery safer and more accessible. "I could see that it was not as dangerous and not cutting as deep in the cornea," she said. "It just made sense."
What didn't make sense—at least to some of Krauss' professors at the time—was a woman attending business school in the mid-1960s. Krauss still vividly remembers being scolded by one professor for taking the place of a male student who needed to support his family. She shot back: "Why can't I support mine?"
"It was lonely; the women were very few and we didn't really bond together," she says of her HBS days on campus. (Well, mostly on campus—in those days, HBS women lived across the river at Radcliffe.) "HBS has this old archival picture [of her class]. I showed it to my kids and said, 'Don't I look terrified?'"
When it came time for job interviews, recruiters typically brought male students up to their hotel suites to talk. Women were interviewed in the lobby. Krauss was offered research jobs at the same big firms that were hiring her male classmates as executives. So she opted for a job at a small investment bank that came with a lower salary, but also a chance to prove herself.
"They gave me the chance to earn a bonus based on the work I did and the business I brought in," she said. "In my second year, I made $100,000, which was an enormous amount at the time."
Krauss' career in investment banking lasted about a decade. Seeking a more personally meaningful career, she enrolled in Harvard Medical School and trained at two Harvard-affiliated hospitals in Boston—Beth Israel and the Deaconess—as well as Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. She completed her training as a vitreoretinal surgeon at New York Hospital, where she has also served as a clinical instructor of ophthalmology.
After two decades as a practicing physician, Krauss brought her two Harvard educations together as a health care investor. As managing director of KBL Healthcare Ventures, she has invested in a number of groundbreaking companies, including Summit Technologies and the Candela Corporation, now a leading maker of advanced aesthetic laser systems. She also cofounded Lumenos, a health plan provider to self-insured employers that was later sold to health benefits giant Wellpoint.
Krauss's relationship with HBS is much improved since her student days. She's supported the school financially, put HBS professors on the boards of her companies, and served on the Board of Dean's Advisors. She was honored with an Alumni Achievement Award in 1996.
"I wouldn't be where I am without Harvard Business School," she says. "I would definitely have fewer options."
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