Karen Knudsen did not grow up in a scientifically centered home. She grew up in a military family. But at an early age, as a “naturally curious” kid, she came to love the experience of discovery and gravitated toward math and science. That led Knudsen to assume she would one day become a medical doctor. But her career went in another scientific direction, starting with a stint as a summer research intern working in the lab at the National Cancer Institute during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s.

“There was so much interest in trying to understand retrovirus like HIV, and so I went to a lab that was actually using retrovirus as a way to study cancer,” she recalled in a recent interview with CNBC’s Julia Boorstin for the CNBC Changemakers Spotlight series (Knudsen was named to the inaugural CNBC Changemakers list in 2024). “It got me very interested in that direct line. How does what I’m doing right now in the laboratory have an opportunity to impact a life, and I got hooked, and I never looked back,” she said.

Knudsen’s experience as an oncology researcher at large health care systems, and seeing many mergers taking place around her, led to the realization that it might help to know more about the business of health care. She chose to pursue an MBA. “I’m not sure I’ll forget the look on my husband when I came home one day and said, ‘I’m going to get my MBA’,” Knudsen recalled. “That was probably one of the more unexpected decisions.”

Ultimately, it led to Knudsen becoming the first female CEO of the more-than-century-old American Cancer Society, though she says it’s even more important that she was the first CEO for the organization to come from oncology research. Under Knudsen’s leadership, ACS’s revenue increased by over 30%.

Recently, Knudsen assumed the CEO post at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy — created by Sean Parker, Facebook’s first president and the tech entrepreneur behind breakthrough ideas like Napster — where a new philanthropy-meets-venture-capital business model that aligns with Knudsen’s lifelong interest in discovery is being built.

The mission hasn’t changed: “In the U.S., we have 2.1 million Americans that are going to get a new cancer diagnosis this year, and unfortunately, 600,000 plus people who will die from one of the 200 diseases we call cancer,” she said.

While there has been a 34% decline in cancer mortality since 1991, primarily attributed to earlier detection and preventative health practices, Knudsen’s new role places her at the forefront of efforts to fund a new generation of breakthrough cancer drugs.

Knudsen spoke with CNBC’s Boorstin about how she reached this stage of her career, and the lessons she has learned from a lifetime devoted to experimentation. Here are some highlights from the full video interview.

The scientific method and business thinking reinforce each other

As a scientist, Knudsen says, “You get very comfortable with hypothesis generation and testing,” and that is in some ways similar to a business executive trying to figure out what is going to come next in their market, and how to remain successful as conditions change.

Scientists get comfortable developing a set of success metrics that enable them to know quickly whether it’s time to quit on a hypothesis or move ahead. Knudsen says that is part of the “overlapping mindset between being a scientist and being a business person” which has helped her to succeed as she moved from research into executive leadership.

“It made the process of developing a set of success metrics and creating a business strategy that tells you when you may be onto something, or not, fairly easy,” she said. 

Be bold in identifying what you should and should not be doing

As a researcher within health systems who saw firsthand how a wave of consolidation could reshape entities and raise the question of how every person, process and practice might need to change, Knudsen says you need to be ready to identify not only what works but also what needs to go away.

Coming into the CEO post at ACS was “like coming into a fresh merger that was in need of business transformation,” she said. “Finding opportunities and fixing what needs repairing is often the hardest part of leadership,” she added. 

Knudsen took a hard look at a bureaucracy that over more than a century had grown into 12 separate organizations, with 12 CEOs and 12 strategies, and she made significant changes to streamline the operation. It wasn’t all about rooting out the inefficiencies, though. “I was on the road 49 weeks of the year for four years in a row, because you really needed to be there to see what was so good in these various areas, and apply that to the rest of the organization,” Knudsen said.

Her larger point is that a lifetime in research has made her a leader who sees change as a constant. “Because medicine is changing, science is changing, technology will change … It’s okay to transform and to constantly iterate,” she said.

Work with people who aren’t afraid to ‘fail fast,’ and fund them if you can

Sean Parker comes out of the Silicon Valley “move fast and break things” world of success, and Knudsen says she had learned to be “a little more confident at risk-taking” over the years.

Working with Parker, who was the first president of Facebook and co-founder of Napster, is the culmination of the risk-taking business side of her mindset.

“He’s unafraid of thinking differently,” Knudsen said, adding that he still embodies the idea that “if we’re failing, let’s fail fast.”

More specifically, she said Parker identified that lack of access to capital was a major impediment to progress in the fight against cancer, and that was holding the risk takers back from doing what they do best.

“The whole philosophy of the Parker Institute is to, step one, collect the best brains. Give them investment in funding to do the high risk, high gain, cutting-edge research, which could fail but could also dramatically transform cancer therapy,” she said.

Founded in 2016 by Parker to turn all cancers into “curable diseases,” the institute supports clinical testing, startup formation and incubation, and drug commercialization. In all, PICI has supported the work of 1,000 researchers and helped to create a $4 billion venture capital portfolio that includes 17 biotech companies.

“I think it’s because we’ve de-risked the science from the very beginning,” Knudsen said. “We’re not waiting for someone to pitch for us. So I’m feeling very bullish about the ability to crank this wheel,” she said.

Create a ‘hot dial’ list of peers and mentors

Knudsen has had many mentors throughout her journey. One she cited was Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association, who she says was a “fountain of knowledge” to her. But as CEO of the American Cancer Society, she surrounded herself “with CEOs from all walks of life. I had a CEOs council that was hot dial,” Knudsen said. “There are some things you just really need to talk to other CEOs about.”

She also emphasized that women pursuing success in all fields should expect to have to fight even harder for female representation the higher they ascend up a professional ladder. Statistically, that is the case whether in the business or academic world. More than 50% of both MD and PhD programs are filled with women, but only 12% become full professors, department chairs or deans. In the business world, 10% of women hold CEO positions in S&P 500 companies; and approximately 12% in VC-backed companies and 13% at health-care firms. 

But whether it is related to gender, the inherent risk of failure in scientific endeavors, or lack of access to capital, Knudsen’s consistent mission has helped her to overcome any barriers.

“What I’ve always wanted to do, whether it’s as a scientist, whether it’s as a health executive, the CEO of the American Cancer Society or now the Parker Institute, it’s to get innovation to people,” she said. “We’re at this moment in time where there is so much discovery that’s happening, the pace of change is truly logarithmic, and yet, too many great ideas don’t ever make it off the laboratory floor.”

Watch the full Changemakers Spotlight video above for Knudsen’s insights on the field of drug discovery and the fight against cancer.