Giovanni Di Napoli, president of Medtronic’s gastrointestinal business

In this episode of the MedtronicTalks podcast, Giovanni Di Napoli, president of Medtronic’s gastrointestinal business, says his move to medtech wasn’t an easy decision.

He was seeing great success coaching professional basketball in Italy, but he saw a career in medtech as a new opportunity to win.

Today, he leads Medtronic’s gastrointestinal business, which hadn’t been seen as a significant player in the space until the merger with Covidien. Now, Medtronic is introducing new diagnostic and imaging equipment to make early diagnosis of colon cancer and other serious ailments easier for patients.

“The portfolio we built in the last three years is very solid. It’s very innovative,” Di Napoli said. “I know I’m biased, but if you talk to [gastroenterologists] across the globe, now they see Medtronic being the most innovative company in GI. If you look at our portfolio versus other companies, clearly we have huge progress in terms of helping our customers to improve performance and patients’ outcome in many different areas.”

Click below to hear the full interview. Or subscribe on most major podcast players.