Becoming a leader through the Project Management Academy

Gaining on-the-job experience to become a clinical project manager is now a lot easier with the Labcorp Project Management Academy. Launched in early 2019, with the mission to identify and develop potential clinical project management leaders of the future, the Project Management Academy (PM Academy) is not just an educational program – it’s a position that interested candidates apply for on our career site as they would any other role. 

“The Project Management Academy is a community set up like an ‘incubator’ learning environment,” said Cris Howard, Executive Director & Global Head, PM Academy, Project Management Center of Excellence. 

“The PM Academy is designed for natural leaders with a strong scientific background. People who have some experience overcoming barriers and leading teams successfully through a challenge are great candidates to apply for the PM Academy.” 

Relying on a web of support

Once hired or “enrolled” in the PM Academy, employees typical start as Project Coordinators (PC) working closely with a Project Lead. Supporting rotational assignments aligned with a specific therapeutic area, their career path is set up to help them gain leadership competencies along with diverse exposure and experience. 

PM Academy employees are also part of a “web of support,” which involves peer mentoring, working with local and global subject matter experts and attending presentations at global meetings, scientific indication forums and client forums.

“Each PM Academy hub establishes a local community plan to network with and learn from other functional groups and project leadership in the same geographic area,” explained Cris.   “As a result, people have multiple places to go for questions, support, guidance and inspiration.” 

Kacper Posyniak, Project Coordinator II, agreed. “The PM Academy allows for free and easy exchange of these experiences in many forms: subject matter expert meetings, project coordinator brainstorming sessions or just simply during lunch conversations. With such a free flow of information all gaps in knowledge are quickly eliminated, which prevents anyone from ‘stumbling alone in the dark.’”

"As part of PM Academy, I feel that people in Labcorp are very supportive, positive and open-minded,” said Amanda Power, Project Manager I and PM Academy participant. “I feel inspired and appreciated."

Advancing in a career pathway after the PM Academy

After building up knowledge of Good Clinical Practice Regulations as a Project Coordinator, the PM Academy moves employees into the Senior Project Coordinator role to run part of a study on their own. From there, they can apply to become a Project Manager and work up to roles of increasing responsibility, all the way to Executive Director. 

“The PM Academy has offered me opportunities to take risks,” said recent graduate, Jennifer Roberton. “The risk to be taught something new and the opportunity to apply it and to teach others. The risk to fail and gain experience has revealed new lessons. That knowledge has led to subsequent successes which has opened the door to new possibilities.”

“The best thing about PM Academy is the people,” added Cole Scheidegger, Project Coordinator II and current participant. “Having the opportunity to work with such a diverse and motivated team inspires me to continually better myself.”