Biotechnology demands a particular tolerance for the unknown. Drug development timelines stretch across years, clinical trials produce unexpected results, and market conditions shift beneath carefully constructed business plans. Leaders who thrive in this environment share a common trait: comfort with ambiguity and the patience to navigate through it.
For Leen Kawas, Managing General Partner at Propel Bio Partners, motherhood provided an unexpected education in precisely these skills. Raising two young children while building companies taught her lessons about uncertainty, timing, and leadership that no business school curriculum could replicate. Her experience suggests that the capabilities developed through parenting may be among the most undervalued preparation for executive roles in complex industries.
The Parallel Demands of Parenting and Company Building
When Leen describes her life outside biotechnology, the parallels to entrepreneurship become immediately apparent. “I have two young kids, so in my free time, I’m with my babies,” she shares. The daily rhythm of parenting—responding to unpredictable needs, making decisions with incomplete information, adjusting plans moment by moment—mirrors the operational reality of leading a startup through drug development.
Both environments require what Kawas identifies as a critical leadership trait: resilience developed through navigating challenges that resist straightforward solutions. Female leaders, she observes, often demonstrate exceptional resilience precisely because they’ve managed professional and personal demands simultaneously. They consider setbacks minor inconveniences rather than insurmountable obstacles, helping inspire team members to keep moving forward.
This perspective didn’t emerge from abstract leadership theory. It came from the lived experience of balancing board meetings with bedtime routines, investor calls with pediatrician appointments, strategic planning with the thousand small decisions that parenting requires daily. One of the best pieces of advice Kawas received early in her career speaks to this resilience: “If you’re able to survive the low, you’re gonna be very successful.” Parenting, with its relentless series of small crises and recoveries, builds exactly this capacity.
Learning to Read What Isn’t Said
Motherhood sharpens a specific kind of intelligence that proves invaluable in executive leadership. Young children communicate through behavior, body language, and emotional signals long before they can articulate their needs verbally. Parents who respond effectively learn to interpret what isn’t being said directly.
Leen Kawas points to this same capability as essential for biotechnology leaders. Successful executives understand and value others’ feelings while recognizing non-verbal cues, she explains. This emotional intelligence enables them to empathize with team members and cultivate supportive workplaces where innovation can flourish.
In biotechnology, where teams include diverse specialists—molecular biologists, regulatory experts, manufacturing engineers, clinical researchers—the ability to read emotional undercurrents determines whether collaboration succeeds or fractures. A scientist frustrated with timeline pressures, a regulatory specialist concerned about overlooked compliance issues, a team member struggling with workload—these situations often present through subtle signals before they become explicit problems.
The pattern recognition that parenting develops translates directly to organizational leadership. Kawas emphasizes that this awareness must be genuine, advocating for authentic leadership where executives integrate their professional and personal attributes rather than adopting artificial management personas.
The Long View That Children Require
Drug development operates on timelines that test patience. A promising compound might require a decade of work before reaching patients. Clinical trials unfold across years. Regulatory approval processes demand sustained attention to detail over extended periods. Kawas puts it plainly: “It’s not gonna be a straightforward, straight shot.”
Parenting instills similar long-term thinking. The results of today’s decisions—educational choices, values communicated, habits modeled—reveal themselves years or decades later. This temporal perspective proves remarkably useful when guiding companies through the prolonged uncertainty of bringing therapeutics to market.
Leen advises entrepreneurs to find investors who understand the complexity of their technology and the timeframe of the industry. Communicating effectively about timelines becomes essential for maintaining stakeholder confidence through inevitable setbacks. Children teach this lesson viscerally. Development doesn’t follow predictable schedules. Milestones arrive when they arrive, not when parents prefer. The capacity to remain committed to long-term outcomes while accepting short-term uncertainty—this is parenting’s core curriculum.
Inspiration That Reshapes Purpose
Beyond tactical skills, motherhood transformed how Leen Kawas thinks about her work’s ultimate purpose. Her daughter, she shares, serves as her biggest inspiration—shaping aspirations that extend beyond personal achievement.
“I want her to be the first person to do something—not the first woman,” Kawas explains. This distinction reveals how parenthood can clarify professional motivation. Building companies and backing innovations becomes less about individual success and more about creating conditions where the next generation faces fewer arbitrary barriers.
This orientation influences investment philosophy at Propel Bio Partners, where Kawas evaluates companies based on their potential to address genuine health needs. The firm has backed ventures in reproductive health, infant microbiome research, and global diagnostics—areas where innovation can improve outcomes for vulnerable populations. When evaluating whether to fund a company developing infant health technologies or reproductive diagnostics that could help families struggling with infertility, the personal stakes become vivid rather than theoretical.
Building Without Barriers
The integration of parenting and professional life shaped how Leen Kawas approaches team building. She describes constructing teams that didn’t think about barriers—only solutions and how to serve key stakeholders. This mindset emerges naturally when leaders have navigated the logistical complexity of managing caregiving responsibilities alongside demanding careers.
Women who successfully balance these demands develop what Kawas identifies as collaborative instincts. They encourage cooperative workplaces rather than highly competitive environments, promoting innovation and facilitating easier problem-solving. For biotechnology companies facing complex scientific and commercial challenges, this collaborative approach to leadership produces tangible advantages. Problems requiring input from multiple disciplines get solved more effectively when team members feel supported rather than threatened.
Leen Kawas didn’t pursue motherhood as leadership training. Yet the experience equipped her with capabilities that proved essential for biotechnology entrepreneurship and investment: comfort with uncertainty, skill at reading unspoken signals, patience for extended timelines, clarity of purpose, and collaborative instincts. The skills developed through caregiving—often dismissed or hidden in professional contexts—may be precisely what demanding industries require. For Kawas, the connection between raising children and building companies isn’t metaphorical. It’s practical wisdom earned through daily experience, now applied to identifying and supporting the next generation of health innovations.
