Aligning career purpose with personal values and lived experience

Executive overview

When work is disconnected from personal values, it lacks staying power. Kwame Marfo, a director at Genentech, built his career around a single formative experience: watching his father die of kidney failure in Ghana without access to adequate treatment.

His path — from engineering pharmaceutical manufacturing to advancing inclusive clinical trial design — shows how a clear why creates direction across career pivots. Deliberate reflection, community, and a willingness to sit with complexity rather than seek shortcuts are the practices that sustain it.

Clarity on your values is not a one-time event — it is the filter you apply to every career decision.

From personal loss to professional purpose

• Father died of kidney failure during Kwame's high school years in Ghana
• Lack of access to treatment options left a lasting impression
• This experience anchored two core values: service and generosity
• Service to others requires empathy; generosity multiplies what was given to you
• These values became the lens for every career decision that followed

Navigating career pivots toward access

• Entered Genentech through engineering, focused on pharmaceutical manufacturing
• Reasoning: if the medicine isn't made efficiently, no one gets it
• Over time, realised making medicine is only part of the access equation
• Moved into roles focused on health equity and inclusive clinical research
• Now works on diversifying clinical trial populations to better reflect affected communities
• Health disparities in the US were a surprise — wealth does not eliminate them

Building relationships as a learning strategy

• Frames networking as forming relationships and staying curious, not transacting
• Consistent practice: ask people "what are you reading, watching, or listening to that changed your mind?"
• This question surfaced the Coaching for Leaders podcast via a friend
• Father modelled this: built his path to college through community and mutual encouragement
• Deliberately surround yourself with people who have things you don't yet have

Finding your voice across cultural contexts

• Grew up in Ghana's Ashanti tradition, where communication follows formal hierarchy
• Arriving in US business settings required building a new communication muscle
• Self-imposed rule: be the first person to ask a question in every meeting
• That rule broke the ice and got momentum going — no longer a weak muscle

Practices for continuous reflection and growth

• Daily weekday journaling using two fixed prompts — not essays, just responses
• Reviews key life areas each morning: relationship, family, spiritual, emotional, physical, social
• Uses checkmarks and Xs — no trend tracking, but patterns surface over time
• Audio learner: heavy podcast and audiobook intake
• Deliberately cultivates relationships with people who are further along or differently skilled

Don't trust the summary

• We live in a world of complexity — shortcuts are often a false economy
• A LinkedIn profile or resume is a highlight reel, not a person
• The insight you need is often buried deep in a conversation, not in the abstract
• Engage fully: actually listen, actually empathize, don't lead with assumptions

Two mindset shifts

• Environment over individual agency: your environment shapes your decisions more than willpower alone; design it deliberately — physical space, emotional space, who you spend time with
• Inspire, don't motivate: you cannot directly motivate people; your role is to understand their world deeply enough to inspire them to access their own motivation