Sue Iannone

To the shock and dismay of many corporate leaders, training isn’t easy. Learning leader Sue Iannone spent 25 years in the commercial pharmaceutical and biotech space practicing and mastering the craft to make it look easy. As a life science learning leader, Sue figured out and perfected what works best to help employees learn to do their jobs in a dynamic and demanding industry.

Microlearning is something Sue discovered along the way that can meet the needs of busy employees and satisfy the leadership that wants to ‘cut the training short’. She also just got tired of employees and managers complaining that training took too long…

Since 2016 Sue has been the Vice President and a partner of Bull City Blue, an end-to-end learning agency created to address the needs of training and talent development organizations within the life science industry. Sue holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and is a Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) since 2007—this unique combination makes her well suited to serve the learning needs of her life science clients.

Under Sue’s leadership, Bull City Blue has served a multitude of organizations to solve their complex learning and performance problems of local and global scale. Sue has helped learning leaders build strategic business plans for training teams, develop product launch learning processes and tools, create learning solutions for sales meetings, overhaul new hire learning pathways, and create training to meet countless other business needs. Sue has worked with several Fortune 500 organizations in the life sciences including AbbVie, Biogen, Philips, Sanofi, Merck, and Celgene.

Prior to joining Bull City Blue, Sue served as the Director of Inflammation & Immunology Commercial Training at Celgene and as Vice President for the Board of Directors of the Life Sciences Trainers and Educators Network (LTEN). Having worked for small, medium, and large biotech companies in her career, Sue has led the design and development of numerous learning initiatives—including more than 20 product launches. She has also led multiple performance-consulting initiatives designed to increase the effectiveness of the learning organizations in which she served.

Sue’s deep understanding of the life sciences training space informs the articles and workshops she’s crafted for both national entities such as ATD and The eLearning Guild, as well as industry-specific organizations like LTEN. Always interested in helping others succeed, Sue mentors life science learning leaders who are tackling challenging workplace problems and coaches aspiring learning leaders to identify knowledge, skills, and experiences to strengthen their career path. She also coaches CPLP candidates as they prepare for their certification.

A career in teaching others has come in handy when helping her kids. You can find her leading her daughter’s Girl Scout troop activities and is reminded often that microlearning is a great option when instructing nine-year-old girls on how to sell cookies. A career teaching in healthcare has helped her immensely when advocating for her son’s autism-related needs. As a parent of a special needs child, Sue continues to learn about navigating the healthcare system to ensure her son’s needs are being met.

After recovering from writing her first book, a second one just might focus on helping other parents who also struggle to figure it all out. Until then, Sue is celebrating the release of her first book.