Helping healthcare innovation move beyond the pilot
Global Lead, Health & Life Sciences, Microsoft for Startups
Sally Ann Frank helps founders and enterprise leaders turn healthcare innovation into a business that earns trust, wins customers and can scale. She brings more than 25 years in technology and her work as Global Lead for Health and Life Sciences at Microsoft for Startups to the decisions that determine whether a promising solution moves beyond a pilot.
For the people responsible for adoption and growth
Founders and investors
Digital health, health AI, medtech, biotech and life sciences founders, investors and accelerator leaders moving from product development toward enterprise growth.
Healthcare and enterprise leaders
Executives responsible for innovation, digital strategy, AI, partnerships and new ventures, along with clinicians and scientists building companies.
Consider Sally for industry conferences, founder summits, portfolio events, executive meetings, innovation forums, women in technology programs and university entrepreneurship events.
Signature keynote
From Innovation to Impact
What It Really Takes to Build and Scale a Winning Healthtech Company
A breakthrough idea is only the beginning. Healthcare founders face long buying cycles, complex stakeholder needs, clinical expectations, integration demands and pressure to demonstrate value. Drawing on her work with founders and the lessons behind her two books, Sally examines why promising companies stall and what leaders need to build around the product to support adoption and growth.
What your audience will be better prepared to do
Identify the gaps between a compelling product and a company ready for enterprise adoption.
Map the buying system: champions, decision makers, influencers and blockers, and the evidence each needs.
Connect the growth story to workflow change, trust, measurable value and a credible path to scale.
What Digital Health’s Breakout Companies Can Teach Us About Mission, Timing, Leadership, and Scale.
From Pilots to Performance
Why Health AI Stalls and What Leaders Must Do to Create Enterprise Value.
The Death of Anti Aging
How AI, Longevity, and Consumer Agency Are Rewriting the Relationship Between People and Health.
Her perspective
The patterns behind the companies that grow
Over the past decade, Sally has worked with hundreds of healthcare and life sciences startups. She saw companies with strong teams, funding and promising technology take very different paths. Some grew; others stalled. That experience shaped her focus on the conditions around the product: trust, timing, clinical workflow, evidence and stakeholder alignment. Those observations became the foundation for The Startup Protocol and The Unicorn Protocol, and now help her audiences examine why a promising pilot may never become lasting adoption.
Ways to work together
Choose the format that fits your event
Keynotes, workshops, moderated panels and fireside conversations are offered in person or virtually.
Keynote
30 to 60 minutes
Audience, industry, event theme and desired level of practical detail.
Workshop
60 to 180 minutes
Value proposition, stakeholder mapping, enterprise readiness or market strategy exercises.
Panel moderator
30 to 60 minutes
Informed questions, relevant examples and useful audience takeaways.
Fireside conversation
20 to 45 minutes
Founder journeys, leadership lessons, healthcare AI adoption and growth.
Virtual session
30 to 60 minutes
A focused briefing, founder masterclass, executive discussion or questions and answers.
Sessions can be tailored to your audience’s experience, industry, geography and event goals.
Experience across the healthcare innovation ecosystem
Sally leads health and life sciences strategy, programs and portfolio engagement at Microsoft for Startups. Her experience spans technology, business development, sales and marketing. She is the author of The Startup Protocol and The Unicorn Protocol, and was included in Becker’s Healthcare’s 2026 Women in Health IT to Know list.
She holds an MBA from The George Washington University, an MS in Systems Management from the University of Southern California and a BS in Marketing and Computer Science from Virginia Tech.
Her sessions address innovation and adoption strategy. Clinical, legal, regulatory and technical certification decisions remain with the relevant specialists.
In this interview with The Big Unlock, Sally discusses enterprise adoption, the value customers need to see, and why a successful pilot needs a clear path into production.
Interview · 24 minutes 18 seconds · The Big Unlock Podcast
Bring a practical perspective to your innovation event
Tell us about your audience, date and the adoption or growth challenge you want to address. We will discuss the right session and confirm availability.
