Theresa Porcaro has had an eventful entrepreneurial journey, where she miraculously turned the tables by making her way to the SEO Content Writing profession as a layman and becoming a marketing leader at Pelvic Rehabilitation Medicine (PRM). Always having a passion for writing, she relentlessly searched for jobs that would allow her to write. Theresa kept herself at the edge of continuous learning by switching jobs at smaller startups. Taking every challenge to her wits’ end, she embraced continuous learning as the core philosophy of her leadership as a marketing expert.
With her superpower of building everything from scratch, Theresa turned PRM into a Direct-to-Consumer Company. Today, as the Senior Director of Marketing in the company, she stands as an epitome of resilience, perseverance, and growth, rewriting ‘passion’ in leadership with her unique approach.
Taking the Road Less Travelled
Theresa landed her first job in SEO content writing without any knowledge of what SEO was. Her professional journey was never easy, as she stumbled upon new challenges with each job and had to figure them out without any prior knowledge.
Making her way through a few startups, Theresa fulfilled her marketing dream with the global company UiPath. Serving as the leader of the newly formed America’s Marketing Team, she slowly worked her way up to the Global Marketing Team. There, she built a demand generation team responsible for the entire company’s marketing demand strategy. UiPath’s listing on the NYSE for its IPO was one of her notable marketing achievements.
After battling endometriosis, she left the B2B sector and pivoted her career into healthcare. She joined PRM after a job interview with the co-founders of PRM. Now, over 3 years later, she is leading its marketing team responsible for patient acquisition, provider growth, and brand nationwide. “I have been able to build the team and strategy from nothing, and has a team of six employees (and an amazing marketing agency and other vendors!) who are just as passionate about our mission as I am,” proudly shares Theresa.
Decisions that Shaped the Career
Allowing passion to be the thread of her career has been a pivotal decision in Theresa’s life. She believes relentless passion, never backing down from a challenge, and saying yes even in times of doubt can get one further than one has dreamt.
Managing her own chronic illness and working full time compelled her to make a choice of either staying in the current industry or moving into an industry where her personal passions and professional leadership abilities could flourish. During the process, her endometriosis misdiagnosis count was really high. Recognizing this medical condition as a global issue that was overlooked or dismissed altogether, Theresa decided to shift her career trajectory to healthcare.
Now with PRM she upholds the mission of reducing patients’ pain-bearing time through personalized, innovative treatments and ongoing support. “Not every leader can say that they have drank the proverbial ‘Kool-Aid’ and been a patient at their own healthcare organization,” mentioned Theresa.
Weathering the Storm
There was no marketing team at PRM when Theresa joined, and the marketing strategy was primarily aimed at B2B – no one was thinking about the patient first. Over 80% of the pelvic pain community self-diagnose online, and this is because they see 7-12 doctors before anyone will even refer them to a specialist or believe their pain.
Her challenge was to drive patients who have been gaslit and do not trust doctors. Under her marketing guidance, PRM became a trusted patient resource for all their queries and needs, and its providers had a one-of-a-kind treatment protocol and COE approach to deliver quality care.
Breaking the Status Quo
Although it would have been lovely to say that the playing field is even, that is not the case for women leaders. They face barriers of ageism, physical appearance, communication, and leadership ability. Beyond that, they have to dance the lie of work-life balance.
At PRM, Theresa has a better leadership team with her co-founders, Dr. Allyson and Dr. Gautam Shrikhande, who believe that having women leaders at their helm will likely bring success. At boardroom meetings, the company does not lead by emotion; instead, it relies on facts and figures to ensure the same goals.
Leadership Principles
- Championing Patient-centric and evidence-based care: Advancing access and accountability in pelvic and reproductive health, using evidence-backed storytelling to put the patient voice at the center of every growth initiative.
- Scaling with Data Discipline and Human Empathy: Theresa foregrounds trust, psychological safety, and long-term outcomes over vanity KPIs.
- Building Communities: Strategically, she emphasizes creating patient communities, clinician education hubs, and referral networks that make women’s-health narratives more prominent.
- Normalizing Female Leadership: Theresa aims to institutionalize mentorship pipelines, flexible policies for chronic-illness warriors, and success metrics that reward inclusive leadership.
- De-stigmatizing pelvic and autoimmune disorders: She weaves her medical journey into brand narratives, boardroom conversations, and advocacy work.
Transforming Pelvic Care
Theresa stands as an indomitable force behind the transition of PRM. Her leadership team remains accountable for all revenue-generating activities, including partnerships and referrals across all 14 locations nationwide. Since its transition, PRM has over 70% of monthly patients in non-operative and nearly 90% of surgical patients coming directly from marketing endeavors. Theresa’s leadership creates instant trust among stakeholders by investing herself in solving their problems.
Her’s is a model of vulnerability-powered leadership, where she puts a face and heartbeat to the data, making challenge sharing easy for the team. Theresa differentiates PRM’s brand in a crowded healthcare space through storytelling.
Standing as a beacon of hope for aspiring women leaders, Theresa advises them to speak firmly and with conviction because people may forget what you have said, but they will remember how you said it. With a mission to scale purpose-driven organizations by fusing data-smart growth with radical empathy, she wants to ensure female leaders see a roadmap, not a glass ceiling.
