Tag: sales

  • Kajal’s Journey: Switching Industries Brings a Refreshing Change and Opportunities for Growth

    Kajal’s Journey: Switching Industries Brings a Refreshing Change and Opportunities for Growth

    After three and a half years in the pharma industry, Kajal Pradhan took a leap into diagnostics and has found the change fits well with her personal and professional goals. We chatted about her experiences so far and her vision of what’s to come.

    What is your role at HemoCue?

    I am a Territory Sales Representative based in Guwahati. I cover the entire northeast region of India, so I am on the move a lot! My daily responsibilities involve visiting our customers, providing them with scientific knowledge about our products, and showcasing how point-of-care solutions can enhance their clinical practices.

    My job is all about building strong relationships with customers, delivering services, and visiting our channel partners, which are things I really enjoy.

    What brought you to HemoCue?

    Prior to joining HemoCue, I worked in the pharmaceutical sector in Guwahati. I had been considering a change for career growth, but I wasn’t very familiar with HemoCue initially. I spoke to some contacts in the diagnostics industry and found that HemoCue has a very good reputation. And during the interview process, I got a very positive impression of HemoCue and the team. And it’s only gotten better since I started!

    Upon joining, I found a supportive working environment, with leaders who appreciate and motivate their team members. I really enjoy traveling, and since that is something I do quite a bit for my job, it’s very motivating. There are a lot of opportunities to do good, meaningful work here, and I see myself growing at HemoCue.

    How would you describe the HemoCue culture and growth opportunities?

    HemoCue’s work culture is different from the pharmaceutical industry, and I’ve learned a lot through this transition. There is a strong sense of respect in HemoCue, both between colleagues, but also from our customers. Our customers trust that we are going to guide them to the right solution and are very excited to hear about the new things we have brought to them.

    I think that the supportive environment, where every team member is encouraged and appreciated, has been instrumental in my growth. Very soon after starting here, I was given the opportunity to present a story of my success installing HbA1c machines at a Town Hall meeting. That was a very proud moment, and very motivating.

    The leadership team, including my reporting manager Suman Dasgupta, has been encouraging and has shown that gender does not determine opportunities for growth at HemoCue.

    How does HemoCue support your personal purpose?

    The company focuses on selling value rather than just the price, and this aligns with my personal values. I want to sell more than just a product, but rather something that I believe in and that will help our customers. That is what HemoCue does.

    Also, I value the work culture at HemoCue, which is built on respect and appreciation. I have interacted with people at all levels in the company and everyone is very respectful and open.  Additionally, the equal opportunities provided to all team members, regardless of gender or background, make me feel valued and supported.

    What sets HemoCue apart?

    HemoCue might not have been widely known in northeast India before, but it’s gaining recognition now. The company’s small, close-knit teams create a supportive and motivating atmosphere where everyone’s contributions are valued.

    What sets it apart is the trust it has built with customers, as well as its commitment to providing equal opportunities to all employees. There are many female managers here. It is motivating to see, knowing that they were once in a position similar to mine and now they are managing a whole team! Everyone is treated the same, regardless of gender or race, and that is very refreshing!

    What are you most looking forward to in the months and years ahead?

    I am looking forward to strengthening myself on a qualitative approach. My focus is to gather more knowledge every day so I can be ready when an opportunity with increased responsibility comes.

    I’ve been fortunate to experience a supportive work environment at HemoCue. The respect, encouragement and equal opportunities provided here have made my journey enjoyable and promising. I look forward to continuing my career at HemoCue. In the future, I wish to lead a powerful team in sales and marketing!

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

  • Riding on a Rocket Ship: Shwanna Tauriac on Teamwork and Leadership through Cepheid’s Growth

    Riding on a Rocket Ship: Shwanna Tauriac on Teamwork and Leadership through Cepheid’s Growth

    Why does Senior Sales Director Shwanna Tauriac compare Cepheid to a rocket ship? Because the company’s rapid growth has brought exciting changes—just the sort of challenge Shwanna was looking for in her career. In this interview, Shwanna reflects on her path to Danaher, why an open approach to leadership is best, and the bumpy but exciting road ahead. 

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    What’s your role on the Cepheid team?

    I’m the Senior Director of National Accounts. My sales team consists of seven people managing the largest Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs) in the U.S., including government, Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs), and National Reference Labs. 

    Cepheid is growing so rapidly that in addition to coaching the team to secure business and all that fun stuff, I also help to build and improve internal processes. As a manager, my job is to move the ball forward by helping people with suggestions and coaching. For example, if I want my team to reach out to CEOs, I give them the right tools to empower them to feel comfortable speaking with that type of customer. 

    Also, during this time of COVID, I often worked with the teams to help when customers are upset about their allocations or other issues. The customers all want things yesterday, but we only have control of what we can control. It has really been both challenging and rewarding—for myself and my team—to have those tough discussions while still maintaining relationships with the customers.

    Tell us about your journey to Cepheid.

    I am a microbiologist by degree. I’ve always been a science and math geek; it just came naturally to me. And I’ve always been a people person. I come from southern Louisiana, where people are warm, friendly, and full of sunshine. But when I graduated and went to work in a lab, everybody was an introvert. I was like, “Yeah, my bacteria don’t talk back. I’ve got to do something different.” So I started a sales position with VWR International and learned about distribution. 

    But my career really grew when I began as a sales consultant at Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD). Sales was a great marriage between my technical abilities and my personality. At BD, they identified my potential early on—especially my talent with strategic accounts and maintaining high-level relationships—so I went through a leadership development program and eventually got management and capital sales experience.


    When the opportunity at Cepheid presented itself, I honestly wasn’t looking. It just seemed like such a great chance to join a high-growth company that felt like a rocket ship. Because Cepheid is growing so rapidly, there are a lot of things that still need to be worked on here. It’s an opportunity to take my experiences from all the divisions and companies I’ve worked for and build a national strategic account team.

    My first role at Cepheid was as a Regional Director of strategic accounts. This role gave me the opportunity to learn the organization, the people, where they were, what we needed to work toward. I felt comfortable enough to articulate my desire for growth to my manager and the coaches around me, and we made a plan. Within 12 months I was promoted to a senior director.

    And if I ever outgrow Cepheid, I know there will always be other positions within Danaher I could go to and still stay in the family. That sense of family is important to me. 

    Tell us a little bit more about your leadership philosophy.

    As they say, “My hustle game is strong.” If you tell me, “Hey, I need your help out here,” I’m going to be with you. I think people respect when they see that you work really hard. I try to be the best advocate I can for my team. 

    Communication is important, and so is being as open to learning from others as they are to learning from me. For example, we recently reorganized the strategic account teams, and there was a gentleman on my team who filled in during the transition. His style of working with customers wasn’t what I would have done, but his approach has proven to be successful. That was totally exciting for me to see and to learn from.

    I know I have my own unique way of selling and doing my job, and I believe in that type of autonomy because I think it brings creativity. My way isn’t always the right way, but if we all get where we’re trying to go, I’m all good.


    What’s challenging about your job?

    Change management is probably the most challenging part of my job. Cepheid was a startup that allowed for a lot of flexibility. Now that the organization is growing and becoming more of a corporate entity, a lot is changing. For example, executive-level leadership doesn’t have time to work on every single deal anymore, and you can’t go to them whenever you want. We have a chain of command, and we’ve had to develop new approval levels and systems to accommodate this shift. Adapting to these new processes has been challenging, but we are making it through!


    As a manager, I try to help my team with the changes by having open conversations. I believe people should be happy. We spend a lot of our waking hours at work; we should be happy there. And at the end of the day, if someone isn’t happy, they’re not going to give their best. We both have to be all-in for this to work. 

    Also, as we change, we’re developing better processes and systems to accommodate our growth. It’s a challenge, but it’s exciting, too. I appreciate the fact that we’re building the plane while we’re flying because I get to be creative. When I interview candidates, I like to be up-front and honest. I don’t want to waste their time or mine putting on a front or a show. I want to be real. I’m like, “Hey, I need help building this plane, so if you’re in, let’s do it.”


    Looking at the future for you and for Cepheid, what are you excited about?

    Building strategic excellence—we don’t have that yet. It’s exciting to really build a program, to find teaching and learning opportunities for our teams, and ask, “How do we continue that process? How do we help them continue to develop?” I often say these types of things aren’t one-and-done. You constantly have to work toward them and learn more.

    Part of building strategic excellence is choosing the right people. Strategic thinking requires you to not only look at today but five and 10 years down the road. The win in strategic accounts is building that relationship, not getting the PO. The POs will come.

    Honestly, Cepheid is a great company. We have a great product, and we are really going places because innovation is a good part of our repertoire. Of course building processes comes with challenges and hurdles. But once we get there, it’s going to be fantastic. And the journey is great, too. People just have to want to be a part of the ride.

    Interested in joining Shwanna and the rest of the Cepheid team? Check out open roles or join our talent community today.

  • Lifelong Learning: The Path from Lab Tech to Award-Winning Salesperson

    Lifelong Learning: The Path from Lab Tech to Award-Winning Salesperson

    Donald Mofokeng, Regional Sales Manager in South Africa, came to the HemoCue Sales team with a background in lab science and a drive to help people. He loves the daily challenges of leading a sales team and is motivated by knowing that working hard means more people will have access to HemoCue’s life-supporting technology in resource-poor settings. Read more about how Donald transformed from lab tech to award-winning salesperson in just two years.

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    Tell us about your role. What do you work on day to day?

    I lead a team of five area sales managers who cover four provinces in South Africa. Basically, I oversee the team’s day-to-day sales activities and ensure that my team stays motivated. I help them remove roadblocks and sort out challenges that arise, and I make sure we use company time and resources to move us toward achieving our objectives. For instance, I frequently accompany area sales managers to crucial meetings with the customers to provide support. Or I might take action to assist the team to address any sales objective shortfall. Of course, all of this requires working collaboratively across functions. Of all my responsibilities, I most enjoy traveling to see different customers across the country.

    In South Africa, we have a fair amount of public healthcare facilities catering to rural and underprivileged communities. Most people out in these areas don’t have the luxury of having a lab next to where they live. They sometimes need to choose between paying for transport to the clinic and buying food with the little money they have. I sleep well at night knowing that getting our point-of-care analyzers to these facilities is helping patients.

    What brought you to HemoCue? Tell us a bit about your journey. 

    I’m a person who likes to try new things. I started out as a medical technologist in 2001, and then qualified as a hematology technologist and worked in a hematology laboratory. To diversify my knowledge, I moved to a clinical pathology laboratory, then a molecular laboratory. 

    I got to the point where I was pretty much doing everything a lab manager would do, and I felt I had hit a ceiling. My role included liaising with our suppliers, and that’s where my interests started to expand. I’ve always really liked taking care of patients, and I realized that I could continue to help people outside the laboratory by directly providing innovative solutions to healthcare facilities.

    I was using HemoCue’s products in the lab, and the HemoCue representatives I worked with were very professional. They really cared about us as their customer, and they really cared about the patients, which made me think I’d like to eventually work for HemoCue someday. That was 10 years ago. Before joining HemoCue, the longest I had stayed with a certain company was six years. What has kept me here is the excitement of the new challenges that come every day.

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    How have you grown since joining HemoCue?

    I came to HemoCue with a strong medical device background from the lab, but I had zero experience in sales. Within two years, I was Area Sales Manager of the Year. I’m really proud of that. When I was hired, I made it my first priority to use every opportunity to learn as much as I could from my colleagues and from the company-offered courses so I’d be comfortable and confident when I went out to sell.

    I also raised my hand and said, “I can do it” any time my manager wanted to delegate anything. And if I saw an opportunity to assist with something, I would go ahead and do it without being asked. Then I applied for the regional sales manager post because it would give me a team to work with. That was in 2019, and I haven’t looked back since. I feel fortunate to be part of Danaher because it means I’ll continue to have opportunities to learn and grow.

    Tell us a bit about your management style. What’s important to you about being a leader?

    I like to collaborate and, luckily, in my job, I collaborate a lot. We move as a team, and as the team leader, I work hard to create a safe space where everyone is willing to speak their mind, share their ideas and challenges, and work toward solutions together. I always want to hear the thoughts of the people on my team before I start talking about what I think. Having open communication helps gain trust and buy-in, and it also encourages innovative ideas. I’m also always trying to learn more about the capabilities and potential of the people on my team because I want to find alignment between what they are good at and what the company needs and help nourish that. 

    What’s next for you? What are you most looking forward to in the months and years ahead? 

    I want to expand my impact. Though I’ve been with HemoCue for 10 years, I’m not comfortable doing only one thing for a very long time. I like being in a position where I’m able to pick up on potential opportunities for improving the company, and I want to be able to act on these ideas. For example, recently in South Africa, we’ve noticed an interesting trend where more professional nurses are acquiring clinics, and more medical laboratory technologists are starting to own labs. And we think this trend will continue. Because of this changing landscape, we are now talking to customers—nurses and technologists—that we’ve never spoken to before, and we are doing it in a very systematic way. This approach is in the infancy stage, but I know it’s going to grow and because we are on top of it, the company will grow too. That’s exciting.

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

  • Gerardo Gutierrez on Helping Scientists Solve Problems

    Gerardo Gutierrez on Helping Scientists Solve Problems

    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.

    First, what do you do at Cytiva?

    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.

    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.

    What’s challenging about your job?

    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.

    What’s the culture like on your team?

    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. 

    Tell us about getting involved in Danaher’s LatinX + Friends Associate Resource Group.

    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 inclusion, 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.

    What’s next for you?

    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.

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