Helping to move healthcare forward with DISQOVER

Interview with Tamara Stankovic, Senior Data Solution Specialist  

Tamara Stankovic is a data science expert with a background in bioinformatics and pharmaceutical engineering. She joined ONTOFORCE in 2019 as a customer data scientist. A lot has changed since then! ONTOFORCE has moved offices, expanded the wider team, advanced its product, and more. “When I first joined ONTOFORCE, the start-up culture was very present – everyone was wearing many hats,” says Tamara. “While there is still a lot of flexibility in my role and the Solution Enablement team, things are much more defined, which enables us to accomplish more.”   

A role tailored to strengths 

Tamara now works as a senior data specialist. In her role, she is the trusted partner of our customers, helping them to break the data silos that exist in their organization using the power of ONTOFORCE’s flagship product, DISQOVER and its patented data ingestion engine. While the generalist approach has gone out the window as the company has grown, the Solution Enablement team still enjoys a wide breadth of tasks and responsibilities. In this way, the team members have been able to carve out their own specific roles based on their strengths. For those with an appetite for all things technical, there’s plenty of opportunity to work on data ingestion, build pipelines and applications, and create custom dashboards. Team members more interested in relationship management focus on customer-facing tasks like onboarding users to the DISQOVER platform, hosting trainings, and managing projects. 

“We’ve had the flexibility to find our preferred domains so we can best serve our customers. It’s nice to know that as the team grows, we will play to newcomers’ strengths so that we can extend their expertise to our customers,” says Tamara. 

Helping to move healthcare forward with DISQOVER 

Tamara was motivated to join the ONTOFORCE team because of her interest in DISQOVER. She was previously working on a project that was centered on breaking down data silos to connect data from different sources, which is one of DISQOVER’s core functions. “It was the most unique product I had seen. Thanks to the work I was already doing, I was well aware of the gap that DISQOVER addresses for organizations.” 

After five years, her feelings haven’t changed much: Tamara takes pride in the unique value that DISQOVER brings to customers and the niche ONTOFORCE has created in the market.

What has changed in the meantime, however, is how ONTOFORCE and DISQOVER have evolved since Tamara joined the company a few years ago. Now doubled in size, ONTOFORCE has shifted away from the start-up culture towards a defined organization with clear planning and focus and bigger ambitions and goals. Thanks to this focus and drive, ONTOFORCE is now supporting more customers and offering more use cases to assist users across the entire drug development pipeline.  

Cutting-edge work and growing domain experience 

Tamara does a lot in her role, but one of her main responsibilities is working directly with customers on their data projects, something she is certainly passionate about. “I’ve really enjoyed building strong relationships with customers,” says Tamara. “There’s a lot of trust there and because of this trust, I’m often given the opportunity to work on projects with cutting-edge aspects. Finding solutions and overcoming challenges to deliver something innovative brings a lot of joy.” 

ONTOFORCE’s customer portfolio is mainly made up of players from across the life sciences industry. In this way, our teams benefit from growing their knowledge of the industry and seeing how different organizations approach similar problems. Tamara has also been able to grow her knowledge about the life sciences domain thanks to the variety of roles she encounters on the customer end, from IT teams to bench scientists, business leaders, and more.  

“I’ve enjoyed seeing how the platform has evolved over the years and how the wider team has consolidated all the knowledge we gain from customers to improve DISQOVER.” 

Your voice is heard 

Tamara has greatly enjoyed the value placed on collaboration and diversity at ONTOFORCE. Not only are ONTOFORCE colleagues diverse in where they come from (we have 13 nationalities represented in our wider team) but also in the expertise they bring to the table together. She attributes these as major factors powering the company forward on its path to success.  

Luckily for Tamara, the Solution Enablement team often sits at the heart of collaboration thanks to the nature of their work which is relevant to the R&D, sales, and marketing teams. “At ONTOFORCE, and especially in the Solution Enablement team, there’s a lot of opportunity to work cross-functionally with other teams. In this way, you can make an impact on how things progress. It’s nice to know that your voice will be heard.”