When Robert A. Winn was named director of the University of Illinois Cancer Center in 2015, he knew that the skills required to be a successful cancer center director were very different from the skills he drew upon to be a successful scientist. So, he formed an informal, personal mentorship team.

“I know they got tired of me, but I called them almost once a month,” Winn said.

In this episode of The Cancer Letter Podcast, Winn spoke with Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter, about the program Winn started to address this gap: the Executive Leadership Academy for Cancer Centers.

“Not every cancer center director even has [a personal mentorship team] or even is knowledgeable that they should do that,” Winn said. “By having this ELAC program, it will not only give them leadership skills about having a network, how do you do it, how do you run your finances? Not just how do you do your own science, but how do you now transition to figure out how to create science themes for an institution i.e., a cancer center, and how to actually be familiar with the CCSG? I think that it just makes all the sense in the world.”

Winn established the Executive Leadership Academy for Cancer Centers in order to set cancer center leaders up for success.

“Cancer center leadership has really been done by apprenticeship, meaning that you find someone who's a good scientist and you say, ‘Yeah. Of course, they're going to have good administrative skills,’” Winn said. “And then, we put them in roles like program leaders or we put them in roles like associate directors and deputy directors. And when they struggle, we sort of scratch our head, like, ‘Why are they struggling?’”

Cancer center leaders have unique responsibilities—including preparation and submission of Cancer Center Support Grant applications.

“[I realized] there was not really any single training specific to the CCSG aspects, the cancer center support grant, as well as the cancer center that we actually had in the United States. And so, I had a big bold idea and an ‘Aha!’ moment that, why not actually fill in that gap with an actual leadership academy that focuses, not on just leadership, but actually on CCSG knowledge and content, and start with a good solid foundation of that pool of future leaders?”

A transcript of this podcast is available: https://cancerletter.com/podcastc/20250903-robert-winn/