Dr. Bonnie Henderson wears many hats. She is the President, CEO, and the Head of Global Innovation & Technology at HelpMeSee, a nonprofit organization, as well as a Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology at the Tufts University School of Medicine and the Past President of the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery. HelpMeSee makes a profound global impact, but Dr. Henderson attended Harvard Kennedy School’s (HKS) executive education program Driving Nonprofit Performance and Innovation (DNPI) to gain more specific strategies to advance and refine the organization’s output.
HelpMeSee’s mission is to combat the leading cause of blindness worldwide, cataracts, by equipping more doctors with the skills needed to perform successful cataract surgery. Despite being treatable, over 17 million people suffer from cataracts, in part due to ophthalmologists not receiving sufficient cataract surgery training during their residency, leading to what Dr. Henderson calls “a non-infectious pandemic”. HelpMeSee uses high fidelity virtual reality simulators to bring this education to ophthalmologists worldwide, particularly in low-income countries.
“One of the most challenging problems facing our organization was how to measure our impact and assess our performance,” she said. “Although we offered simulation-based training courses at no cost in areas where surgical education was desperately needed, we did not see a significant decrease in the prevalence of cataract blindness. I was thrilled to learn about the DPNI program to help answer some of those questions.”
The lessons taught in the DPNI virtual classroom resonated deeply with what she was experiencing back at work. “Professor Leonard was articulating what I was thinking but couldn’t find the proper words to describe,” she said. “In one of his lectures he said, “Leadership is about change and innovation. If you are not changing, then it is just management.’” His words rang true when I returned to my organization and started to redefine our mission and enact some drastic but necessary changes. By defining what strategy meant and showing us how to think about the elements of a good strategy, Professor Leonard’s advice helped me structure our organization’s path forward.”
The program also provided her with more technical skills and information that she was able to utilize immediately. “Another memorable session was Professor Mitchell Weiss’s brilliant lecture about technology in the nonprofit sector,” she explained. “He led a discussion about generative AI that exemplified the benefits of the case-based method. Even though the program was virtual, the discussions were robust, interactive, and seamless. Additionally, his insight from his lecture on experimentation, failure and success about creating the minimum viable product helped shape a new approach for a new surgical module that I am implementing in my organization.”
With the work of her organization being so intensive, Dr. Henderson acknowledges that it can be difficult to prioritize opportunities like executive education. However, the value that comes from immersing yourself in one of these programs becomes instantly evident. “It is easy to get so entrenched in your career that you keep your head down and can’t see the forest through the trees,” she says. “For most executives, the combination of managing daily financial and operational responsibilities makes it difficult to lift one’s head to think creatively about the strategic mission. Participating in an executive education program such as DNPI allows one to interact with colleagues from different industries and hear different approaches. This broadens perspectives so that the challenges and solutions that might be utilized in a different industry may be that solution that the executive was searching for in her own institution.”
As she continues to grow and scale her organization to make as widespread an impact as possible, Dr. Henderson will continue to implement the leadership and strategical skills she honed through DPNI. “At HelpMeSee, we are attempting to expand the numbers of training locations worldwide rapidly to address the growing health crisis. I hope to utilize the management skills that I acquired from the DNPI program to guide our team to make the most of their efforts and the most of our technology. In my opinion, participating in HKS’s executive education programs is the best return on investment in professional activities.”