This year the theme of World Intellectual Property Day is “Women and IP: Accelerating innovation and creativity.” Clarivate helps companies accelerate innovation, achieve long-term growth and realize sustainable success. We are happy to join the global celebration of World IP Day by spotlighting our women IP experts, whose ingenuity and talent pave the way to major breakthroughs. Here is our next story in the series spotlighting Irmina Stroud, Senior Vice President of IP Global Sales at Clarivate.
Walking several paths within the IP ecosystem
On her path to becoming a senior leader at Clarivate, Irmina Stroud worked in three highly interconnected sectors within the intellectual property (IP) ecosystem: law firm, corporate and service provider.
As a paralegal in a prominent IP law firm on the west coast of the United States, she learned the core fundamentals of the IP business. This included learning every necessary step for a patent, trademark and copyright to be registered and protected, as well as the inner workings of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) from the prosecution side. Working on infringement meant an understanding of the federal and state court system was essential, which then led her to work on high profile patent and trademark litigation cases.
At the next stage of her career, Irmina worked in the legal departments of a well-known eyeglass manufacturer and then a real estate franchise company. She honed her knowledge of business lawsuits and the strategy needed for IP assets to be commercialized and yield revenue expectations from R&D, marketing and brand promotion.
A strategic approach, as Irmina explains, is critical to working with the right local agents, law firms and vendor partners, especially with high infringement and counterfeiting situations in specific markets. The cost of litigation is staggering and from a business perspective, the validity of claims makes a significant difference.
The most recent stop in her exciting journey through IP was service-side, as she now leads sales and customer success teams to deliver data and workflow solutions across all industries.
A leader fostering the growth of future leaders
Irmina is motivated to do her best every day to develop and advance her colleagues.
“I believe our role as leaders is to develop other leaders to seed our teams with the acumen and talent necessary to continue our evolution and advancement as a business. This requires fostering an environment and culture where everyone is growing and developing or sharpening skills. We are never done growing as professionals.”
Irmina’s motivation for fostering growth extends beyond her team at Clarivate. Recently, Irmina interviewed Kathi Vidal, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, for the Clarivate IP Forum 2023. During the conversation, Irmina and Kathi explored the challenges of today’s IP ecosystem, providing IP professionals with new insights on how innovation and IP are evolving.
As someone who has had experience as an IP professional in both law firms and corporate, Irmina is uniquely positioned to have a complete understanding of the high value of Clarivate solutions. She sees IP as at the heart of the innovation that advances societies and communities and is proud that Clarivate is a trusted partner to customers to advance their success with enriched data, insights, analytics and workflow solutions.
The key to success at Clarivate, as Irmina puts it, is in continuity. “We seek feedback on the markets, what’s working, what’s not, and we try different approaches. It’s important to continuously experiment and learn.” She adds that some of the best solutions, products and ideas, as is usually the case in life, come from experimentation and failures, but the point is never to give up and keep trying every day to drive improvement.
Collaboration leads to innovation
Irmina believes that diversity and collaboration with people from a variety of different backgrounds are essential for innovation. People are the ones who create, innovate, register, protect and commercialize. “As people collaborate more across cultures and industries, different perspectives are gained, which in turn leads to creative answers to our global or local issues,” she explains.
Irmina recommends that people should look to their natural talents, interests and skills which bring them joy and spark curiosity, in order to thrive and excel in the IP industry. “So whenever giving career advice, I start with the task: write down actions and situations which excite you, raise your curiosity, bring you fulfillment and make sense to you,” she says. “No matter what the profession is, it’s important to recognize within yourself what your talents, skills, characteristics and attributes are. Then as you explore professions your passion will be already within you.” Her own personal driving forces were her love for law, the structure of the legal system, rules, processes and imminent outcomes as well as her natural curiosity that brought her to the world of IP.
Join us in celebrating World IP Day and read more from our blog series on Clarivate women experts.
To learn how our experts help you maximize your IP potential, contact us.
