Tag: EMEA

Get to Know: Henri Sund, Senior Manager, Assay Development

For organic chemist Henri Sund, coaching an amateur football team helped him discover a passion for leadership. Through mentorship and the Danaher Business System (DBS), Henri nurtured his talent, and now leads his own team of scientists as a senior manager in assay development. Below, Henri discusses his journey from research assistant to team leader, how DBS empowered him to take on a mentorship role and how he’s guiding his team through the transition to a hybrid work model post COVID-19.

What do you do at Radiometer?

My two main responsibilities are to lead my team and to secure continuous development of tools and workflows for the R&D department here at our site in Turku, Finland. I manage a great team of nine chemists and scientists who develop dry chemistry-based test kits for our immunoassay product line. More specifically, it’s the test cartridges that hospitals and other health care providers use in a Radiometer immunoassay device—similar to a coffee pod or an ink cartridge for your printer. My team members work on new product development so they really make a difference in providing caregivers with point-of-care (POC) solutions to make fast and accurate diagnoses.

We have project managers who are responsible for the progress of each project; my job is more focused on the team itself. I make sure they have the tools and support they need to do their jobs effectively; I keep an eye on their workloads and I mentor them on how to build and grow their careers further.

Our big focus right now is automation and digitization. We’re looking for opportunities to streamline processes and eliminate “muda”—a Japanese term meaning “wasteful” that we often use within DBS. We want to remove unnecessary manual steps to make better use of people’s time. We’re also upgrading equipment to make it compatible with the current systems for analyzing and utilizing data. We already gather tons of information, but we’re still laying the groundwork to make that more organized and easier to use.

What led you to this role?

I basically started my professional career here at Radiometer. I studied organic chemistry at the University of Turku, and while working as a temporary research assistant for the Department of Biotechnology we were collaborating with Radiometer on some projects. It was motivating for me as a young chemist⁠ to get to contribute to something new and to have support and mentoring from the team. They invited me to do my thesis work here, and after I finished that I officially joined the team in 2010.

Early on, my goals were very research-oriented, in part because I admired my mentors so much. I was working with these widely known experts in the field, and I wanted to be just like them! But over the years, I started getting more interested in management. At one point, I started coaching amateur football as a hobby, which taught me a lot about what to do and what not to do, working with people from different backgrounds and keeping them motivated. Then in 2017, I became laboratory supervisor for our organic chemistry lab, which is a cross-functional group⁠ that includes both Operations and R&D.

During those earlier years, I got to better understand the DBS tools, like Problem-Solving Process and Situational Leadership, and that led me to a sort of an “aha!” moment. I realized there were a lot of shared values with what I’d learned as a coach. So I started to think the manager path might be a good fit. My own managers suggested different trainings to help me prepare for a leadership role and see how I would like it, and then last year this opportunity came up.

Even though I’d been preparing, I was hesitant at first. I’ve worked in assay development my whole career, but as an organic chemist in a research team. This role also meant managing people in biochemistry, biotechnical engineering and other fields—which aren’t my areas of expertise. I wondered, “Can I really pull that off?” I wanted to make sure I could create the trust I needed to fully support people. I decided to go for it, and I’m very glad I did.

Tell us more about that. What’s the transition been like?

It’s been a lot of me learning—about my team members, the details of their work, and the kinds of challenges they face. We did a lot of one-on-ones, especially in the first year, to help us get to know each other. Of course, every relationship is different. There are some associates I’ve worked with for years—so we had to figure out the dynamics with me leading the team—while others I was meeting for the first time.

Because I was focused specifically on organic chemistry until last year, I’m not always the person to give my associates the answers or tell them what to do. I ask a lot of questions; it’s more about thinking through together how they might solve a problem. We’ll find someone in their area they could talk to, or I’ll give them insights from my experience that might apply. Whenever I can help by sharing something I learned in a similar situation, not just specific tasks, but navigating challenges and ups and downs, those are the most rewarding moments for me.

How have you and your team navigated the challenge of remote work since the emergence of COVID-19?

Like most companies, we’ve been through a lot of change in the past couple of years because of the COVID-19 pandemic—but of course, that doesn’t affect everyone the same way. If you’re doing research in a lab or working on our Production team, you probably don’t have the option to work from home often. With this new role, I’ve been able to work remotely, although I’ve always been mostly on-site.

The last year was a bit hectic just because I was learning so much that was new, but I do have the freedom to decide where and when I do a lot of my work. I still regularly work on-site to make sure I’m on top of what’s going on in our facilities and to help me stay connected with my team.

We’ve now officially moved to a hybrid model, meaning everyone is on-site at least two days per week. We’ve had workshops about different models for the future of work, and it’s been really interesting to hear how associates feel about their workdays and what the downsides and upsides are of working in person versus at home.

We’re thinking a lot about how we can make each arrangement work—scheduling meetings differently, for example, or aligning the days certain groups are at the office so they can collaborate more easily. It’s a very personal thing—how you respond to different situations, what you need to be productive. But at least for me and my reports, we’ve found a lot of value in flexibility, being able to fit work and family into the day. I’m very much looking forward to seeing what kind of possibilities these new models will bring.

As a manager, how do you help your team members grow their careers?

I’ve been very fortunate in my career to have great managers and other mentors who got to know me quite well, and when they sensed I needed support or was ready for a new challenge, made suggestions. I’m so grateful for that, and I try to do the same for my team⁠, in part by just sharing my own story and learnings. If someone is wondering about career progression, it’s quite natural for me to talk about how I started and that there was a long period of time where I thought I’d stay in the lab, or was stuck there, but then a different path opened and I started work systematically to achieve it. It raises a question for them, “Okay, what could my version of that story look like?”

One thing I avoid is telling them directly what I think they should do, because it’s easy to influence someone and I know firsthand how important it is for people to feel free to change their mind.

I know my team members might find it frustrating at times that I don’t just tell them what they should do. But it’s important to really listen—to pick up on clues: what kind of work do people do, what motivates them, what makes them feel alive. Then I suggest DBS tools or other areas of potential interest, but what’s exciting is letting it all play out.

You don’t have to know from the start where you want to go. Everything someone experiences and learns will play a role in helping them find their path, and it’s my job to support them on that journey.

Interested in joining the Radiometer team? Check out open roles and join our talent community!

April 28, 2023
Maria Fagerberg on Building a Career and Growing a Team at HemoCue

It was geography that first put point-of-care testing provider HemoCue on Maria Fagerberg’s radar, but it’s serving her fellow associates—and customers—that’s kept her there for 18 years and counting. Below, Maria describes what it’s been like to build her career as the company has grown, explains how she encourages members of her Regulatory Affairs (RA) and Quality Assurance (QA) team to say “no” when they need to and shares what she’s excited to see as her work and HemoCue continue to evolve.

What do you do at HemoCue?

I head up our Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance department, which is a team of 25 great people. On the regulatory side, we keep up to date on licensing and regulations in the countries where HemoCue devices are used, and on the quality side, we support product development all the way from design through to production, launch and customer feedback. I have four direct reports, each of whom manages their own team within RA and QA, and my main task is to make sure they have what they need. I want people to be able to approach their work in their own way—they can decide how they do what they do—but we meet one-on-one every week so I can support them if needed.

When I moved into this role that I have today a few years ago, I also joined HemoCue’s leadership team, and I’ve really enjoyed that collaboration. I get to interact with stakeholders all across the company, so we can make decisions together and keep our resources and energy moving in the same direction.

Tell us about your path to HemoCue—and your path since you joined.

I’m a chemical engineer by training, but I always wanted to work in quality management—even during my time at university, that’s what interested me most. I joined HemoCue in 2004, and it was actually the location that got my attention at first; I grew up here in Ängelholm, and when the company I was working for in Copenhagen decided to move, I thought it was a good time to see what my options might be back home. I also knew people who worked at HemoCue, and they had nothing but positive things to say. So I picked up the phone and called, and they invited me to come interview.

I started in what was then a very small Quality department, and did try out almost every position there—I worked with corrective and preventive actions, complaints, Operations, R&D. After a few years, they asked if I would be interested in building a new regulatory function to run licensing globally. I didn’t have a lot of regulatory experience, but I said yes and grew that team to what we now have in place. I really enjoyed being part of its evolution—there was lots of learning by doing, which I like! I was in that role for 12 years, until I got this position.

What have you learned from the different leaders you’ve worked with—and how has that shaped your leadership style?

They’ve all been experts at different areas within quality and regulatory. Some helped me think more about the big picture and take a high-level view. Others were experts in the requirements and helped me learn all the details. But beyond that, they’ve all had an impact on me as a people manager. When I was new to HemoCue, for example, I had one leader who really helped me believe in myself. She pushed me to look at what I could actually do, instead of focusing on what I didn’t know how to do yet. I started to think, “Well, why not?”

I had another leader who was really focused on talent management; she’d only been with the company a few weeks when she sat me down and asked when I wanted a role like hers. I did want it, but I didn’t think I could say that! She encouraged me to go for it, and she helped me get prepared for when that opportunity came. That’s something I try to do for my associates now—encourage them to articulate where they see themselves, now and in the future, and then coach them toward that and work together on a plan to make it happen. I see the leaders I manage working towards the same thing for their teams.

What’s the culture like at HemoCue—and on your team specifically?

I think one of the advantages of being a smaller company is that we’re very collaborative. No matter what role you’re in, you’re close to everything. You have a sense of what’s going on and who’s working on what, and you know everyone, more or less. That makes it very easy to reach out.

We also try to get to know each other as people, not just colleagues—that’s especially important now that we’re hybrid, with some people working remotely. We have to dare to talk about the soft things, because we’re all humans and we all have feelings. Sharing them makes for better discussions and helps us learn. In one of our teams, for example, we do “temperature checks” twice a week where we check in on workload, support needed, and we send out regular surveys where people can share how they’re feeling. Then we discuss the results of those surveys as a team, and if we see a negative trend, we talk about how to solve it. BUT also, focus on what is working really well so that we ensure to sustain that.

This is something we’re working on as a leadership team, as well—we want to be very clear about what our overall priorities are, so we quickly can align and redirect if we need to set a lower-priority project aside and focus our attention elsewhere. Then we take that mindset back to our teams, so they can feel comfortable, too. Saying no is difficult for all of us; we think, “I can do a little more. I can manage.” You have to practice—and know each other well—before you can start to say, “I need help,” or “Actually, I don’t have the bandwidth for that right now.”

Tell us about some of the challenges you and your team have worked on.

The difficult stuff is what’s really fun! One ongoing challenge is keeping up with regulations in 130 countries with a regulatory team of around 10 people and even though it is an extremely big and challenging task, the cooperation we have and the learnings we do are extremely motivating. Priorities are key—we have to know where the biggest and most important changes are happening. Building our network has also been helpful; colleagues in other Danaher operating companies can help us stay on top of what’s going on.

Another challenge that comes to mind is adapting to the EU’s new IVDR, or In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation. It’s a much more stringent requirements vs before, and has been a make-or-break factor for companies in our space. On the Regulatory team, we started preparing in 2015—getting involved in the industry groups that helped develop IVDR, and discussing it thoroughly with our colleagues inside HemoCue, so that everyone understood what it would mean for the company and how we together could succeed. From there, we worked to balance what was really needed with what was nice to have, and I think we’ve seen that strategy pay off; while some companies that didn’t manage the transition well needs to drop off, we’re still going strong.

What are you looking forward to?

The IVDR project is a good example of how RA and QA can play a key role in the business, and continuing that journey is what’s most interesting to me. I think there’s so much more to explore in terms of the ways we can add value—for HemoCue as a company, and ultimately for our customers. It’s one thing to be compliant, but how do we take that to the next level and for example build a truly world-class management system supporting all employees at HemoCue and our customers in the very best possible way?

We’ve already seen the benefit of having cross-functional collaboration start earlier in the development process; you never know when insight from RA will be critical. Now, the next step is what we’re thinking of as “quality made easy.” We do not want to add complexity, we want to talk with the rest of the company about how to make it seamless for them to ensure compliance. We’re working with them to understand what they do and how, and then asking, “How does that work for you? Would this change help?” The tools and processes of the Danaher Business System are really useful for those conversations, because it’s a shared language we can use to investigate why we do things the way we do, and see if there are opportunities to improve.

It’s a step-by-step process, and we know that our team can’t create quality on our own. It’s something we’ll do together, as a company. But we are seeing the connection now between doing RA and QA well and helping the business grow, and that’s exciting.

April 7, 2023
Progressing at Pall: How Ben Datson Went From the Shop Floor to an Engineering Role

Ben Datson went from stocking shelves at a supermarket to joining Pall, where he’s worked his way from the factory floor to an engineering technician position. Below, see how his approach to embracing every opportunity led him to his current role—and toward a degree in manufacturing engineering.

You’re at the forefront of what Pall makes. Tell us what the company produces and about your role. What projects are you working on?

Pall makes hundreds of products that have to do with filtration and purification, and we have factories around the world. Here in Newquay, UK, we make medical products, and the main one now has to do with breathing filtration. If someone’s on a ventilator, for instance, there’s a filter between the machine and the patient. It stops anything from transferring back and forth. So when the machine is switched to a new patient, only the filter has to be replaced instead of taking the whole machine apart and cleaning it.

I’m a product engineering technician now, but I’ve probably worked in about 75% of the rooms here during my time on the shop floor. At the moment, I’m actually working on projects from a room I worked in for five years, so I’ve gained a lot of knowledge. I’ve got a nice blend at the moment between teaching others and learning new skills myself.

Our job is to help the shop floor resolve material issues. For example, if the raw materials come in from the suppliers and they’re the wrong shape or color, or they’re not reacting the way they should react, it’s up to us to investigate. Sometimes, it’s the machine setting, in which case we change our machines here on-site. Or it could be the supplier has made changes that affect how the material runs in our machines.

Can you share your journey from the shop floor to a management role?

Six years ago, I was working in a supermarket, stocking shelves, without a lot of career prospects. I felt like I had to do something. Another guy I was working with at the store was feeling the same way, and he went to Pall first. I think he’d been here for about three or four months when he convinced me to give it a go.

When you’re on the shop floor, you may wonder why management can’t change a process. It’s not until you come upstairs and see how much paperwork, regulations, and signoffs you need to be able to change something small that you understand. Coming from the shop floor means I have an understanding of what the people on the floor are thinking. Having that crossover is invaluable, really.

How does the Danaher Business System (DBS) inform and support your work?

We use DBS for almost every meeting, whatever department you work in, which means everyone can go to every meeting and know how it will run. Everyone knows what the graphs are showing. Everyone knows that red and green days show if you hit a target or not.

Our DBS boards are like a grid, so anyone should be able to walk up to a board, see why it’s red, and know what action is in place to make it green again. It really depends on what metric you’re looking at. If it’s output, maybe you need to run overtime to catch up. Maybe you need to get more staff in.

For example, there are milestones for every project. That could mean if you need to make 1,000 of a product a day and you made 900, that’s a red day. We then have a 24-hour action to get back to a green day. If it can’t be resolved in 24 hours, there’s a permanent action. So if something extreme like a machine blowing up requires the permanent action of bringing in a new machine, the success links to that single red day in production even though it’s part of a six-month project.

Once you learn how DBS works, it’s really useful. When we have engineers off, we can cover each other’s areas. When you’re on the shop floor, your main focus is to keep the machine running, but up here in Product Engineering, you actually see what can happen if a procedure isn’t followed, which is quite eye-opening. When you see the whole picture, then you actually understand why each part of the process needs to be controlled strictly.

What does the future hold for your work at Pall?

As part of my new role, Pall is putting me through an HND (Higher National Diploma). It’s remote learning, which means I can work my 39 hours a week and study at home. Eventually, I’ll have a foundation degree in manufacturing engineering.

I’ve finished the engineering and mathematics part, and I found that interesting, so it didn’t really feel like work. Now I’m learning about material properties and electromagnetism.

The plan now is to complete the HND and, hopefully, go to a full degree. I’d like to specialize in something that we can use here at Pall. About 80% of our products are made from plastics, so something like plastic molding techniques or the molecular structure of plastic would be useful. I want to continue progressing.

Interested in joining the Pall team? Check out open roles and join our talent community.

March 21, 2023
Get to Know: Tea Holck, Production Planner

What do you do at Radiometer?

I’m part of the Radiometer team in Turku, Finland. At our site in Finland, we make reagents for our immunoassay tests—which hospitals, medical centers and labs around the world use to diagnose their patients. I work as a production planner, which means I take information from our Global Supply Chain team on what customers need, and turn that into a plan for the manufacturing of our reagents analytes, which are formed with test-specific components, chemical substances or mixtures added to cause reactions. We have nine different analytes, and on average we start a new analyte batch each day of the week. For our Troponin test, for example, which helps triage patients with chest pain, we might do two large batches per week, while a test like βhCG, used for early detection of pregnancy, might run once per month. It’s my job to fit all those production runs together, communicate that plan to the manufacturing teams and other stakeholders and then oversee the process and address any issues if they come up.

We use Daily Management, one of the Danaher Business System tools, to track the progress of each batch. At our daily management meetings we always start out focusing on on-site safety, because that’s very important to us, and then we look at quality and testing, manufacturing processes, inventory, maintenance and anything else we need to address to ensure proper testing and packing. I follow each process from beginning to delivery and help make sure everything goes smoothly.

Tell us about your background, before you joined Radiometer and since.

I used to work in the furniture industry as an upholsterer, but after I started having problems with my elbow, I went back to school to be a laboratory technologist. I didn’t really know much about scientific work at first—I’d just seen all the equipment and white coats on TV and thought it looked cool! But I was interested in chemistry and biology; it drew me in. After I finished my studies, I got my first diagnostics job as a production worker in batch packing with a company called Innotrac Diagnostics, a company that Radiometer acquired a few years later. That was 16 years ago, and I’ve since worked on nearly every process we have here at the site in Turku—SA and analyte coating for substance testing, lab maintenance, solution manufacturing, tracer dispensing and quality control testing. I’m very interested in learning new things, and I’ve gradually gotten involved in more and more. I’ve also started training new employees; I like helping people and I know the processes, so it just comes naturally.

My journey to becoming a leader started when I became an assistant supervisor, first in packing and then in liquid quality control (LQC) manufacturing. I guess I did well because, after a couple of years, my manager asked if I was interested in being a supervisor. At first, I wasn’t sure. But then I thought, “Why not take the chance and challenge myself?” So I said yes, and started out with a small team, supervising a few processes as a team leader. Then, in 2018, I was named stream leader, which meant I was responsible for laboratory maintenance, solution manufacturing, coating, tracer dispensing and LQC manufacturing. And then last year, after about eight years as a supervisor, I moved into this role. Most of what I’m planning, I’ve worked on myself, so I understand it well, and I was excited to try something new. I’m still learning a lot, but I enjoy it.

What’s the company culture like?

It’s a very helpful, supportive culture. No one’s on their own. If you have a problem or question, you can ask someone for help and solve it together. And it’s flexible, as well, in terms of both when and where you work. I spend part of my week on-site at the manufacturing plant and then work from home two days per week.

We’re also very open-minded, both to different cultures—we have associates from lots of different backgrounds here—and to new ideas. It’s a two-way conversation; workers are listened to and we hold a lot of “kaizens”, which are like weeklong process improvement workshops that anyone can join. We recently did one around batch approval process, for example, to make our release process more efficient and reduce batches lead time. Whether you’re a leader or a quality specialist or a production worker, everyone has input.

How do you collaborate with your teammates?

Beyond our daily management meetings, I meet with the Global Supply Chain team a couple of times per week to make sure I’m up to date as customers’ timing and needs change—sometimes they need a product sooner or other priorities shift. I work closely with production managers and our technical service manager, as well as the senior operators from every process, all of whom help manage the information flow to the rest of the team. Some of those conversations are proactive and some are more reactive. If a supplier can’t deliver materials on time, for example, an operator might come to me to figure out what we should prioritize instead. Or we might have an equipment issue, or sometimes it’s staffing, as so many companies have faced during COVID-19.

I’ll go to Global Supply Chain if I need to talk through some options or get more information, and then I’ll adjust the plan so production can keep going. Because these are products being used for critical care, we want to make sure our customers always have what they need to help their patients. Whatever happens, we make sure we have strong quality but also try to solve things as quickly as possible.

What are you excited about right now?

We’re growing quickly—Radiometer in general, and our location in particular. We just bought the building we previously only used part of, so we are expanding our operations to a much larger scale. That means new lines, new equipment, new staff and all of the training and testing that entails. We actually just had a workshop for the new floor plan.

Continuing to keep up production while we’re building so much that’s new is challenging, but it’s worth it to see all our plans come true. It creates new opportunities for our associates to succeed; I love it when I see my former team members grow to new roles and be promoted, for example. And to know that it all helps our hospitals and medical centers and the people they serve—that’s wonderful. It’s inspiring.

Interested in joining Tea and the rest of the Radiometer team? Check out open roles across Danaher or join our talent community today.

November 7, 2022
Jennifer Teodorsson on Leadership Priorities, Role Models, and Helping Her Team Grow

When Jennifer Teodorsson joined Cepheid in 2017, she was a program manager on a team of four, with each person handling one or two products at a time. Less than three years later, the team and assay portfolio had both more than tripled in size, and Jennifer took over as director of the team—just as COVID-19 hit and demand for the company’s tests exploded. Below, Jennifer reflects on leadership lessons she’s learned, explains how she decides where to focus in the face of rapid growth, and shares why she’s so excited about her team members’ futures—even if it means she has to find a new job.

First, what do you do at Cepheid?

I’m the director of program management for assay development, which means I lead program managers (PMs) who coordinate the launch of new tests. At Cepheid, a PM is sort of like a startup founder. From the moment the company decides to develop a product until the moment it’s released, PMs are working with a cross-functional team to understand what the market needs and what we can do technically, then navigating all the trade-offs along the way. You have to be well-rounded in a lot of different areas in order to manage that push-pull and keep things running smoothly.

At a lot of companies, a PM might just be handed a product that they run through the usual processes and systems, but here, there’s a lot more empowerment. It’s, “Here’s your team. Here are the needs and the information. Now make it your own.” That can be intimidating at first, because you’re making decisions that at your previous job, your manager probably made for you. But this is unlike any place I’ve been in terms of creating a safe environment to share your ideas. Our leaders aren’t micromanaging from the top down; they’re asking what we need and how they can help. That makes it so much easier for all of us to contribute to the overall strategy and vision.

What are your priorities as a leader?

I lead 12 program managers, each running one or two product development teams, so there’s no way I can dive deep into their day-to-day. I have some processes in place to check on hot topics and know who needs help when, but I focus much more on them as people—their mental health and their development goals. That means being open and transparent, and building our relationships to the point where we have the psychological safety to trust one another. We need honest feedback, whether it’s me offering it or them seeking support when needed. I always tell people in one-on-ones that it’s okay to struggle. In fact, I expect it. Struggling combined with reflection is how we grow.

Another priority for me is that our program managers lean on each other and build a team environment. In a lot of organizations, PMs get siloed within the projects we lead. But we have so much to teach each other. One reason I strive for varied backgrounds and personalities within my team is that, for example, someone extroverted and results-driven can learn a lot from someone more introverted and inquisitive—and vice versa. Often, I’ll put two people with very different strengths on a project together. At first, they might think it’s terrible, but by the end, they’ll end up being great friends.

Tell us more about working with your team members on their development goals. How do you think about growing their careers?

It’s always a conversation. I think it’s so important to talk with someone and understand what their interests really are, because that’s different for everyone. You might want a people-management path, and there are multiple roles within that. Or you might want to go a specialist route and be a principal PM but not have direct reports. Regardless of the goal, it’s imperative that we come up with an action plan to get people the training and experience they need.

Career development is a big part of the Danaher culture, and that’s key—the company walks the walk of encouraging people to move within, or even between, operating companies. If I have a great associate on my team, I might wish they could stay forever. But if they’re interested in exploring another area, I’m still going to reach out to that manager to see if we can set up a rotation or otherwise help the employee pursue their goals. Having a succession plan in place is a good thing; we want one for every role at Danaher. That includes mine—if one of my team members wants this job, that’s great! I’ve had lots of development opportunities of my own over the years, and I don’t need to sit here forever. I want to help that person take over as soon as possible, and I’ll find something else to do.

What are some things you’ve learned at Cepheid?

One thing I’ve learned is how to be my authentic self. I’ve worked in pharma and med tech for most of my career. Coming from that space and being a woman in leadership—especially in a global environment—I had developed a certain approach. But it wasn’t really me, and I wasn’t happy. This is one of the reasons I feel so lucky to have Shibu Gangadharan, our VP of Strategic Development and Program Management, as a manager. I first got to know him during my interview process, and we realized we could really learn from each other. He’s driven and ambitious, but he’s also the most compassionate human being ever. He has such a big heart. Whether it’s engaging with Black Lives Matter or helping people get development opportunities or just making sure we’re all safe during COVID-19, he is so invested in his people. He was also humble enough to recognize that mentorship from other female leaders could help me in ways he couldn’t, so he connected me with Elsa Burgess, our Senior VP of Engineering; Rika Dutau, our VP and GM of Commercial Operations in EMEA; and my own direct manager Wendy Wong, VP of PMO. Having them as role models has really been transformative.

Another source of learning for me has been the Danaher Business System (DBS), which is like a shared culture across Cepheid and other Danaher operating companies—a set of tools and processes we all use to do our work. Now that I know DBS, I wonder how other companies live without it. It makes everything easier and more effective. I even use some of the frameworks, like Problem-Solving Process and Crucial Conversations, in my personal life! I am totally hooked.

Tell us about some of the challenges your team has faced recently.

Like any team—especially in the diagnostic space—a lot of our recent challenges have been related to the pandemic. There’s little capacity for clinical studies beyond COVID-19, which delays our other projects. And of course, there are all the challenges of life outside of work during this time; people’s kids are home from school, there are deaths in the family, people get sick. Other medical treatments have to wait because hospitals are full. Meanwhile, Cepheid is growing quickly—that’s been true for years now—and keeping up with onboarding new people and projects takes its toll.

Regardless of the challenge, though, I think what’s helped most is maintaining our culture. Someone who just came on board can’t know how to do everything from the get-go. But you can create an environment where that person feels comfortable reaching out to a colleague who is already very good at whatever it is they need to learn. We’re all in this together, and I have never been in a situation where I didn’t get the support I needed here. When everyone is open and humble enough to admit what we don’t know, it’s so much easier. I think that’s how we’ve been able to accomplish so much and keep things moving forward every week.

What’s next? Tell us what you’re thinking about right now.

I have a lot of ideas about how to move forward with everything we’ve learned from this time. How do you create a team environment when we’re not only global but increasingly remote and hybrid? I think we have a lot of new tools that can help us do our work better and more quickly. If we used avatars and VR, for example, how might that change the solutions we develop for patients? There are so many opportunities. And while time zone differences are tough, I love that I can talk with someone in South Africa about what’s happening there, or someone in the UK about a new NHS initiative.

Of course, it’s not just about technology. It’s the people behind the computers. When you move from a physical to a virtual environment, things like burnout can be more of an issue. So I’m thinking a lot about how to help my team build not just emotional intelligence, but emotional agility. Building soft skills is really the most interesting challenge. We do want our associates to be performers. But more than that, we want them to be good citizens of the company, and the world.

Interested in joining Jennifer and the rest of the Cepheid team? Check out open roles or join Danaher’s talent community today.

September 24, 2021
Global Team, Personalized Support: Learning and Growing at Radiometer

Whether it’s parenting during a pandemic or helping her globally distributed team transition to working entirely from home, the last year has offered no shortage of challenges for Kirti Bhogle. But thanks in part to Radiometer’s supportive culture, she and her colleagues have been able to take those challenges in stride. Below, Kirti shares what drew her to the company, what she’s learned as a manager during COVID-19, and what she’s excited about in the years to come.

What do you do at Radiometer?

I’m a manager in the software department of our Research & Development organization; we work on developing new medical and in-vitro devices. It’s my job to plan projects and establish the process we’ll follow, then keep things on track for release. That includes a lot of stakeholder communication—collaborating closely with our colleagues on the hardware side in Electronics, Mechanics, Chemistry, Compliance, and QA to understand what they need, and then translating those requirements at the product level. Because Radiometer makes diagnostic equipment and other devices used to treat patients, we must meet precise standards. We can build in all kinds of fancy functionality, but it won’t matter if it doesn’t meet regulations or keep people safe.

From there, my job is really about mentoring my team and helping them execute, whether that’s giving them clarity on a task or just asking if they have any hiccups and removing impediments to their work. We have close to two dozen people, half here in Denmark and half in Bangalore, India, where Radiometer has a development center, and we also sometimes interface with a project team in San Diego at SenDx, which is another one of Danaher’s businesses under Radiometer America.

Tell us about your background and why you joined the team.

I studied computer applications in India, where I’m from, and after I finished my master’s I started working for a consultancy there, managing a team that worked for various clients. One of those clients was based in Denmark, and I ended up moving here for a year to work on a project. They asked me to stay as an employee, but I wanted to go back home and start a family.

I did, and my son was born in 2009, but it was tough—I was working 12 to 14 hours every day, and I felt like I wasn’t giving him enough time. I knew from living in Denmark that the norms around work-life balance were very different, so I got in touch with the company I’d been at before, and they offered me a position. I worked there for several years, and then Radiometer reached out. At the time, they were just starting to build the distributed team in both Denmark and India, and they thought I might be a good fit.

It was a completely new domain for me; I’d never worked in medical devices. As I learned about the product, I was intrigued. I remembered having to get blood tests when I was pregnant, and how critical it was that those results were correct. I liked the idea of being able to contribute to that process in some way and make a difference.

What’s learning and development like at Danaher—especially when you’re new?

I feel like the company has really invested in not just what I need to complete a project, but my own personal development. When I joined, there was a well-defined onboarding plan, and it was customized to my background. I had a lot of mentoring from not only my own manager but the specialists we work with in project management and compliance. And the guidance went beyond just a few hours of training—it was continuous support until I felt completely confident on my own. There are also a lot of opportunities to learn new tools and skills here, not only through the Danaher Business System but externally as well. For example, when we decided to implement a SAFe workflow, which stands for scaled agile framework, I was able to get certified and do a six-day training.

I started at Radiometer as a project manager, and I’ve also had a lot of support moving into my current role—even in terms of deciding whether I wanted it at all. My boss and the management team thought I could succeed in a people management role, but they didn’t push or just throw me into it. We talked about what it would take, the challenges I’d face, and the training I’d need, especially managing a team that’s located all over the world. I decided to go for it, and now I’ve brought on my first new team member and we’re in talks about expanding the team further.

Tell us about some of your challenges.

One that comes to mind is shifting from a kanban workflow to a scrum-based system, and then to SAFe. That was a couple of years ago, when I was in the project manager role, and there were a lot of reservations at first. We have a wide variety of experience on our team, including some associates who have been with Radiometer for decades and were used to a certain process. Plus, we were on a deadline to deliver a project, so people worried about changing the process and structure.

I think what really helped was the message from management that it was okay to fail. My manager was very much an ambassador for SAFe, but we still framed it as something we’d try for one release. If it succeeded, we’d expand from there. And that’s exactly what happened—we established the foundation, and the rest of the department is now making the same transition.

Another challenge has been bridging the cultural gap in terms of geography. Here in Denmark, people tend to be quite upfront, whereas in India, people might not argue with someone more senior to them out of respect, even if they don’t actually fully agree. And of course, we all have different personalities, which can also create communication gaps. I remember we did an interesting exercise during a team-building workshop—we gave everyone the same sentence, and then each of us shared how we interpreted it. Our answers were so different! I think experiences like that have helped us open up a bit to understand and celebrate our differences. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, we also made sure to travel at least once per quarter; the team in Copenhagen would visit the team in India, or vice versa. We also had a company-sponsored “ONE team” event in Dubai for a week, where both teams participated. That time being face-to-face and solving problems together is so important.

What’s different about leading a distributed team during COVID-19?

The pandemic has definitely prompted me to adjust my leadership approach. Some of it is logistical, like arranging for shipping when an associate needs physical access to a device, but most of it is just making sure people have support. Some of our team members have very young kids, or kids at home who would normally be at school, and they might need more flexibility around when they work. Trust is important; it’s my job as a manager to set expectations, but I don’t want to pressure people to do exactly what I would do or to keep certain hours.

We in the management team have also tried to put some extra effort towards knowing the temperature of the team, whether people are feeling stressed—and making sure they feel comfortable speaking up. That can be tougher not only because we’re missing our quarterly visits, but because even those of us who usually work in the same place haven’t seen each other for so long. But we do our daily stand-ups on video, and if I notice someone more introverted seems uncomfortable raising an issue with the full team, I’ll bring it up during their one-on-one and see how I can help.

What are you looking forward to right now?

Beyond the opportunity for things to open up so we can all get together again, we have a release coming up near the end of the year that will be a major milestone for our team. We’re working toward rolling out a new generation product in 2024, and this is the step that will set us up for the next two years.

Interested in joining Kirti and the rest of the Radiometer team? Check out open roles across Danaher or join our talent community today.

April 16, 2021