March 1, 2023
After spending most of his career on the bench leading R&D projects, Gerardo Gutierrez initially wasn’t sure about switching to sales. But at Cytiva, he’s realized R&D and sales have more in common than he imagined—and it all comes back to helping patients. Gerardo reflects on joining the company during COVID-19, shares his experience in Danaher’s LatinX + Friends Associate Resource Group (ARG), and explains what he’s working on going forward.
I’m a sales specialist for our Biacore instruments, which means I support our customers—researchers at universities and biotech and pharmaceutical companies—who use our technology to develop new therapies. Biacore machines allow them to study the interactions between molecules in real time. If they want to test a new drug, for example, they can see exactly where, and for how long, antibodies stay bonded to a specific protein. A group of scientists that helped develop one of the COVID-19 vaccines last year used our instruments to verify parts of the virus and characterize its binding territories.
It’s my job to talk with customers about the experiments they want to do, then use my knowledge on Biacore and the science behind it to advise them on which option will give them the best results. Essentially, I get to help scientists solve problems so they can help their patients. That’s my passion, and I’m so thankful I get to be part of work that matters.
I’m a scientist by training—my PhD from University of Provence, France, is in microbiology and molecular biotechnology. I did postdoctoral research at the University of Georgia (UGA), and I ultimately spent about 10 years there, leading a team that studied the interactions between plants and pathogens. After that, I moved into industry and got more into method development research, doing the validation analysis for new drugs.
At UGA, we’d used instruments built by Cytiva—which at the time was part of GE—so I knew firsthand not only how reliable they are, but how remarkable the service is. From sales reps to field engineers to application scientists to customer support—everyone was always so friendly, and they responded very quickly when we had a question about how to run an experiment, or if we got results we weren’t sure how to interpret. I believe you should treat people the way you want to be treated, and it was clear this team does, too.
So I knew it was a great company and a great product. But when the opportunity to join came up, I was still a little worried at first; I’d spent 12 years on the bench, and I wasn’t sure if sales was the right move for me. Then I started having informational interviews with some of the managers, and I realized how similar the work was to what I’d done at UGA, when I was designing experiments. You talk with researchers to understand their needs and their short- and long-term plans, and then you partner with them to help them succeed.
Right now, because of COVID-19, we can’t meet face-to-face with our customers. But I think that’s a challenge we’ve been able to turn into some great opportunities. For one thing, I cover a lot of territory, and I can reach more customers remotely than I can in person. And when I schedule calls, I try to get the whole team together—the account manager, the application scientists, the field engineer, and me. That way we can all meet the customer at the same time and answer any questions they have right away. We call it “showing Cytiva muscle”! I think it’s helped customers be confident in our team and the products we offer.
I first joined in August 2020, so I’ve been working from home so far—and I’d always wondered how that would work in terms of getting to know your colleagues. But we have so many tools we can use to communicate, I actually feel very close to my team. Once a week, we get on a call and go outside—you can walk, garden, whatever you want to do—and just chat about anything except work. One of my teammates was growing chili peppers, so I gave him a recipe. Little things like that really bring us together, even though we’re all remote.
I’d never had the chance to join a group like this before, so when I first heard about it I thought, “Well, let’s see what I can learn.” And it’s been great. We’ve had events like salsa lessons, which I never expected at work. But the ARG is also a place to share our struggles and successes—and our ideas. We help each other with our personal growth plans, which is something everyone at Danaher updates with their manager every six months. Being new to the team, it’s been so helpful seeing how others develop and present their plans.
The ARG has also given us an opportunity to share our culture, costumes, and language with other associates—and to know that’s appreciated here. A lot of companies have mission statements around diversity, but at Danaher and Cytiva it’s not just words. You see it in action. English isn’t my first language and I have an accent, so I’ve sometimes felt shy. But I’ve realized that people on my team are truly interested. They want to hear about how to prepare a certain dish or pronounce a certain word. That gives me more confidence and makes me feel like I belong.
Plus, everything is so global now, it’s more important than ever for all of us to learn about different backgrounds. Diversity is something we should be proud of and be talking about on a daily basis. It helps everybody.
There are so many opportunities to grow. It’s hard to keep up! Not only within Cytiva, but throughout Danaher. One thing I appreciate about working here, though, is that it’s not just the classes you can take and the tools you can learn. It’s the guidance you get. It’s kind of the best of both worlds—I feel a little like an entrepreneur in my job, because I’m in charge of my own business and territory. And I’m in charge of how I want to develop my career, too. But I also have so many people who are there to help.
I’ve been interested in marketing, for example; I like the idea of reaching people who aren’t yet aware of our technology but could really be helped by it. So I shared that with my manager, and within a couple of days she suggested a class I could take and put me in touch with some people I could learn from. I feel like whatever I decide to do, I’ll have people supporting me and pointing me in the right direction.