Episode 1: From Combat Leader to Biotech CEO - Dave Esposito on Purpose, Presence, and Fighting Blindness

EPISODE 1: DAVE ESPOSITODave Esposito is the CEO of ONL Therapeutics, a biotech company developing treatments to slow blindness from glaucoma and macular degeneration, diseases affecting 4-5 million Americans.But his path to biotech leadership wasn't linear.West Point grad. Combat platoon leader in the Gulf War at 22. Pharmaceutical sales. Multiple startups. And now, leading a Phase 2 clinical trial that could change millions of lives.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━IN THIS EPISODE, WE DISCUSS:→ Leadership lessons from leading troops in combat at age 22→ Why having a plan matters, but adaptability matters more  → The transition from military to pharmaceutical sales to biotech→ What it takes to build a biotech company and raise capital→ Why purpose-driven work matters more than the product→ The defining moment with his daughter that taught him about presence→ What he'd tell his 30-year-old self about being present→ Advice for anyone navigating a major life or career transition━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━KEY TIMESTAMPS:01:03 – ONL Therapeutics: Fighting blindness from glaucoma and macular degeneration02:19 – Why West Point? The calling to serve04:38 – Combat leadership lessons: Direction and adaptability09:30 – Getting into pharmaceutical sales16:20 – Starting ONL Therapeutics: The problem they're solving22:15 – The hardest parts of building a biotech company28:45 – Leadership lessons from the military applied to business47:37 – "Be present": The lesson he'd tell his younger self50:22 – The moment with his daughter that changed everything52:33 – Advice for anyone in transition━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━KEY QUOTES:"You need a plan, but you have to be able to adjust when things change rapidly and keep moving forward.""Be present. Not just at home, but in the workplace. When you're with someone, you've got to dial in.""Purposeful work isn't building a widget to sell a widget. It's solving problems that truly matter.""Don't worry as much. Stick to your principles, have faith in the process."━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT DAVE ESPOSITO:Dave Esposito is CEO of ONL Therapeutics, a biotech company focused on developing treatments for eye diseases. A West Point graduate and Gulf War veteran, Dave led an infantry platoon in combat before transitioning to pharmaceutical sales and eventually biotech leadership.Connect with Dave:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidesposito2/  Website: www.harvesttimepartners.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT THE HOST:Andre Moxie helps midlife professionals navigate major transitions with strategy and purpose. New episodes every Tuesday.Connect with Andre:Website: rewiredwithmoxie.comLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/andre-moxie-7b1989aInstagram: @moxie_andreFree Clarity Compass: https://book.rewiredwithmoxie.com/midlifeclaritycompassebook━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Subscribe to Midlife Rewired with Moxie for weekly conversations about leadership, transition, and building a life that matters.