leadership Archives - Medical Design Sourcing

Recor Medical CEO Lara Barghout on leadership lessons and what she looks for when hiring

Recor Medical CEO Lara Barghout discusses how medtech leaders can empower and grow their teams while encouraging innovation.

Recor Medical CEO and President Lara Barghout [Photo courtesy of Recor Medical]

Recor Medical has some growing to do after winning the first FDA approval for renal denervation (RDN) to treat hypertension.

Recor President and CEO Lara Barghout said her company already has somewhere between 300 and 500 employees and plans to hire “across the board” including innovation/R&D, clinical and infrastructure roles.

Barghout — who recently spoke with Medical Design & Outsourcing about how her team beat the world’s largest medical device developers to premarket approval and commercialization of RDN — offered lessons in leadership she’s learned over her career in medtech.

At the time of publication, Recor Medical’s jobs webpage listed open roles in…

How ZimVie’s spine business is setting itself up for future success

Rebecca Whitney, ZimVie’s SVP and global spine president [Image courtesy of ZimVie]

Nearly two years after ZimVie spun out of Zimmer Biomet, SVP and Global Spine President Rebecca Whitney says the spine business’ transformation is nearly complete.

A new FDA clearance allows for the use of ZimVie’s Vital spinal fixation system with Brainlab’s Spine & Trauma Navigation. It’s an important milestone as ZimVie seeks to compete against Medtronic’s Mazor spine surgery robots.

The partnership — announced in March 2023 — is about each company doing what it does best. While ZimVie has a deep legacy and scope when it comes to spine implants, Brainlab has spine imaging, planning, navigation, and robotic-assisted systems to enable surgeons to better plan and execute spinal procedures, accurately place pedicle screws, and minimize radiation exposure. In a recent interview with Medical Design & Outsourcing, …

The balancing act of biotherapy: Be The Match BioTherapies’ Abby Waters on agility and beyond

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Professionals in the biotherapy world are engaged in a sort of balancing act, juggling the nuances of product development, complex science, leadership dynamics, and patient-centricity. In a recent interview, Abby Waters, Ph.D., senior manager of solution owners at Be The Match BioTherapies, opens up about her decade-long journey navigating these multifaceted challenges. From embracing agile methodologies to driving data-informed decisions, Waters shares insights on leading teams, prioritizing patients, and envisioning the future in this quickly evolving field.

In the interview — part of our Women in Pharma and Biotech series, Waters provided insights on an array of subjects, from adopting the IT-based agile framework to cell-and-gene therapy to the art of hiring and weighing hard and soft skills in the biotherapy domain. She also provided advice on approaching data-driven decisions, and offered per…

5 keys to Mike Mahoney and Boston Scientific’s success
Boston Scientific’s market capitalization has grown nearly 10 times larger since Mike Mahoney joined as CEO in 2011. He shared key insights about cor

DeviceTalks Editorial Director Tom Salemi (left) interviewed Boston Scientific CEO Mike Mahoney (right) in front of a crowd of medtech insiders at our DeviceTalks Boston show in early May. [Photo by Jeff Pinette for DeviceTalks/MDO]Boston Scientific (NYSE: BSX) + is one of the bright spots as the medical device industry goes through a rough patch.

It’s more expensive to run a business, and health provider customers face operational challenges. But while other medtech companies are laying off workers, Boston Scientific is hiring. The interventional medical device giant’s workforce grew 10% over the past year to 45,000 employees.

Boston Scientific sales grew 6.7% to $12.7 billion in 2022, and CEO Mike Mahoney and other top company officials expect it to grow another 8.5–10.5% this year.

“Thankfully, we have a very strong innovation cadence right now. In Europe, we grew 20% [operationally] in the first quarter. So why…

5 keys to Mike Mahoney and Boston Scientific’s success

DeviceTalks Editorial Director Tom Salemi (left) interviewed Boston Scientific CEO Mike Mahoney (right) in front of a crowd of medtech insiders at our DeviceTalks Boston show in early May. [Photo by Jeff Pinette for DeviceTalks/MDO]

Boston Scientific is one of the bright spots as the medical device industry goes through a rough patch.

It’s more expensive to run a business, and health provider customers face operational challenges. But while other medtech companies are laying off workers, Boston Scientific is hiring. The interventional medical device giant’s workforce grew 10% over the past year to 45,000 employees.

Boston Scientific sales grew 6.7% to $12.7 billion in 2022, and CEO Mike Mahoney and other top company officials expect it to grow another 8.5–10.5% this year.

“Thankfully, we have a very strong innovation cadence right now. In Europe, we grew 20% [operationally] in the first quarter. S…

5 tips from medtech leaders for the next generation

Mike Mahoney is chair and CEO of Boston Scientific. [Photo courtesy of Boston Scientific]

When interviewing senior executives on our DeviceTalks podcasts I always start by asking how they got into medtech.

Starting at career square one allows us to walk through the decisions that led to their success. I like to spend a few minutes examining those critical crossroad moments when the guests chose to leap into a new opportunity.

These interviews are full of lessons and tips for younger medtech professionals to equip themselves with experience and insights that will help develop them into leaders of the future.

RELATED: Move over baby boomers, former Medtronic CEO Bill George says

You’ll need to listen to our past episodes for every bit of great advice. But we pulled these particularly helpful tidbits to help you build your successful career.

Tip 1: Run to the fire

Michael Mahoney surpri…

Move over baby boomers, former Medtronic CEO Bill George says

“It’s time for a new generation,” said Bill George, who’s released a new Emerging Leader Edition of his book, “True North.” [Photo courtesy of Bill George]

The medtech veteran offers his advice for leaders in the industry — and how to make opportunities for aspiring leaders to rise.

Bill George’s leadership experience speaks for itself.

He served as chair and CEO of Medtronic across the 1990s and into the mid-2000s. That came after stints as an executive with Honeywell and Litton Industries. Since 2004, he has taught leadership at Harvard Business School, where he now holds the role of executive fellow.

George recently published a new version of his book, “True North: Emerging Leader Edition.” In it, he discusses the need for a transition to a new crop of leaders. He spoke with Medical Design & Outsourcing about his book, leadership in the m…

The next step for medtech: becoming a Google-like leadership proving ground

MasterControl CEO Jon Beckstrand and Chief Culture Officer Alicia Garcia at the 2022 MasterControl Summit [Photo courtesy of MasterControl]

Leadership is crucial for attracting, keeping and getting the most out of great talent.

Jon Beckstrand, MasterControl

Medical technology companies are among the leading drivers of innovation around the world, but most organizations are missing a critical element of building for the future. To ensure the creative future of the industry, we need to create intentional programs that will empower the next generation of engineering and business leaders.

The tech giants of Silicon Valley have provided a roadmap for businesses everywhere to follow. Former Google employees, for example, have created more than 170 startups, including Pinterest, AirTable, Nuro and others.

Much of this second-generation success is directly attributable to the Googles and Metas of the …

10 leading pharma executives you need to know

Pfizer CEO Dr. Albert Bourla [Image courtesy of Pfizer/Business Roundtable]Given the complexity of the pharmaceutical business, it can be challenging to gauge the performance of any chief executive in the space.

That said, CEOs’ annualized return over tenure as CEO over their term can hint at performance. In addition, rating sites like Glassdoor also indicate CEOs’ popularity.

Here, we parsed a range of metrics, including CEOs’ approval ratings, their ability to navigate the pandemic and their firms’ stock performance over time, to identify ten leading pharma executives.

Get the full story from our sister site, Drug Discovery & Development.

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Some thoughts for medtech leaders in 2022

Starting our third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, I wonder when it will ever end. Four words stick in my head: “This stuff is hard.” (That’s the G-rated version.)

It’s tough when things don’t go your way, but you must learn to accept the situation and persevere. Keep on working at it, and it will eventually get better. As Dylan Thomas wrote in a poem I memorized when I was young: “Do not go gentle into that good night.”

The past year was a lot about aspirations colliding with hard truths. We thought vaccines and masks would beat COVID. The vac…

9 lessons in crisis management from Stryker CEO Kevin Lobo

Decades of corporate leadership helped him address the challenges that 2020 wrought.

Stryker CEO Kevin Lobo

The past year presented extraordinary leadership challenges for CEOs. First came the COVID-19 pandemic, then social unrest following the killing of George Floyd, and finally a contentious election that tore at the political connective tissue of the nation.

The year may have been unique, but Stryker CEO Kevin Lobo said his strategies at the orthopedics giant drew upon upon basic tenets of leadership that he learned leading businesses in first the chemical and then medical device industries. He joined medtech in 2003 when he took a senior post at Johnson & Johnson.

“All crises have similarities,” Lobo told Medical Design & Outsourcing. “Obviously the magnitude of this is unprecedented. I’ve never been through anything like this, but I’d been through other crises before.”

(Listen to the DeviceTalks Weekly interview with Lobo.)

L…