S1E03 : “Leading with Purpose”, with Annette Brüls, CEO of Medela

Are you interested in learning about the fascinating insights shared by Annette Brüls, the CEO of Medela, on the future of the medtech industry and the importance of having a clear vision and a strong culture that supports diversity and inclusion? 

In this inspiring podcast episode, Annette shares her valuable experience of over 30 years in the medtech industry, and how Medela has become a unique company relying on a diversified business model with a clear focus on innovation. With a broad portfolio and a B2C-to-B2B dynamic, Medela is the number one breast pump brand and the leading company in vacuum technology .

In our conversation, Annette describes her approach in defining a strong culture for Medela and how customers come first in all key business decisions. She also emphasizes the importance of supporting working mothers and babies, particularly in the workplace and provides advice to young mothers and their managers/leaders on how to make the transition back to work as smooth and successful as possible.

With the use of AI, patient engagement, and big data, the industry is expected to experience significant changes, resulting in more efficient systems, better outcomes, and lower costs. Annette discusses the future of the medtech industry and how Medela is committed to staying ahead of the curve in technological advancements and innovation, which makes the company extremely creative and innovative in its go-to-market strategies. 

Lastly, Annette shares about her own leadership journey and how she has been balancing her very successful career with being a mum of two boys.

If you are interested in learning more about the inspiring insights shared by Annette Brüls, the CEO of Medela, listen to this podcast episode today!

Please do not hesitate to share your feedback with us on our LinkedIn or Instagram pages and to give us a rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify. This is very important to help us grow The Marketing Consultation community...

Transcript

0:04

Hi everyone and welcome to the Marketing Consultation, the podcast for Healthcare Marketers by Healthcare Marketers. In the Marketing Consultation, Fabienne and I are having biweekly conversation with top leaders from the healthcare industry to uncover their key experience, insight and advice when it comes to career development, leadership, building, high performing team or marketing strategy and tools. Whether you're working in healthcare, marketing or you are interested in this field, our goal is to help you answer the key question and challenges to support you in your professional growth so that you can accelerate your career. Today, we are welcoming Annette Bruls, CEO of Medela. Since 2018, Annette has more than 30 years experience in the medtech industry across several companies across multiple geographies. With senior executive leadership roles, we got inspired by Annette on the uniqueness of Medela MedTech company on the innovation and why is it so critical in B2B and B2C segment. On the importance of having a clear vision and building the strong and the right culture. And last but not least, Annette has shared with us her leadership journey as a woman. And how she's now supporting an empowering woman to thrive in their career. Hello Annette, Welcome to the marketing consultation. Both Fabienne and myself, we had the pleasure and privilege to work under your leadership for more than 10 years in Medtronic, but never at the same time. It's so great to be reunited today. In 2018, you took a new role as CEO of Medela, which is a very unique company in the Med tech industry. Can you tell us more what make Medela so special? Yes, absolutely. Greg and Fabienne, its my great pleasure to be talking to you here tonight. Its true that we havent seen each other together, the three of us, for quite a long time. So it's a true pleasure. So yeah, Medela, yeah, I joined in May 2018 and what attracted me is that it's indeed a particular set up within the Med tech space. So Medela, you know, we have a core competence which is medical vacuum and which we have applied in different areas and that leads to a quite diversified and fascinating actually business model. That we are that we are operating in today. So 50% of our sales is B2C where we sell breastfeeding solutions directly to moms. So these are medical devices. Our breast pumps are Class 2A medical devices, but we send them directly to the consumer. So if you think about that, Amazon is actually our biggest customer worldwide. And that tells you how, how you know this B2C is a true consumer space. We sell on Walmart, Target, you know, here in Europe in the Switzerland Galaxus baby store. So it's really direct to the mom and we provide her with all the things she might need to have a successful breastfeeding journey. And then the other 50% of our business is the classical Med tech B2B, right? So here we are selling to healthcare providers. The healthcare systems and its maternity and NICU both breastfeeding but also feeding solutions. Enter feeding pumps. We offer digital cardiothoracic drainage system which can be used after thoracic or cardiac surgery. We have negative pressure wound therapy and then we have professional vacuum system which can be used in many different settings. A lot of them were used during COVID for Airways action. Or you can see them in aesthetic surgery for liposuction. So you see a broad array of applications, but that is what is making so interesting, this B to CB to B dynamic and the the quite broad portfolio. The other thing that I think was very attractive for me is it's a family owned company. So that's very different, right. My entire life I've been working for U.S. stock listed companies. And now I'm working for a Swiss family company which is of course very, very different and it has, you know there are always two sides to the coin, but the one side that is interesting is it's really a long term perspective. The family has been there for 60 years with their business. They intend to keep the same structure ownership for the years to come and they really look at the long term success. So it's not about a quarterly earning or a quarterly result that you need to achieve at all means maybe sometimes compromising your long term. It's really about making the long term path successful. So that's Medela. Wow. Thanks Annette. It must feel indeed very different from your previous experience and. That's really interesting because I personally knew Madela only for the breast pump, yes business. So I had no idea that actually half was on the B2B on the B2B side. So under your leadership, Madela has become the number one breast pump brand and you're also, as you said, the leading company in vacuum technology. So how does your company stay ahead of the curve when it comes to technological advancements and innovation? It's a very good question, Fabienne, and it's a very important one. And actually on our B to C business, it's the consumer that drives us. If you think about it, every day, we have to serve a new mom every day because the experience with our product and window of opportunity is extremely short. Maybe it's a. Couple of months before birth, after birth, but you know it's that one time consumer that you need to attract again and again every day. So today we have to attract Generation Z, you know, which is the digital natives you have to be always on top of things. We are on TikTok we are you know we have to be really catching the attention of that consumer. Every day again and again and so that forces us to be extremely creative and innovative in our go to market in the way we engage with customers digitally in the different channels. So I think that is, is is just the nature of this business which makes it quite challenging but also quite fascinating I have to say. And then on the on the other side, on the B2B side, it's really the innovation that drives clinical and economic value. If you see today, you know we have major challenges in the healthcare systems nursing shortages you know need for generation of savings in the overall system. So really our solution aim to be easier, better for our customers, for the patients but cost effective time saving and also better for the planet because we are also very consistent in in making sure that our our, our footprint and our overall impact. Is it's reduced overtime thanks. And it that's that's really inspiring and the question that it triggers with me is so you have these two different approaches approaches so. How does it drive the kind of competencies and talents that you want to attract that middle? I like do you have like FMCG people on one side and then pure Med tech people on the other side or how do you attract the right things? It's an excellent question because you see, I mean if you think about the two types of businesses, it's very different, the innovation side, the speed of change, the way you have to communicate. It's very different. So what we like in our sales leaders or at a higher level, we like to have people who are coming from both FMCG and maybe over the counter or medical device experience, not easy to find necessarily. But then when we go deeper in the organization, we have separate teams, right. So we have our B to C We actually structured the company around the customer and the consumer we are serving. So we have B to C marketing teams, B to C sales teams, we have B to C R&D teams and we are even, yeah. So we are really splitting it out. Need to see and B2B because it's such a different business again, the consumer, the speed, the innovation cycle, the broadness of the portfolio is very different in both sides. So at the leadership level, we combine, but then we break it out, no thanks Annette. And it's very impressing to see this combination of B2BB2C in the same metric company and also leveraging different skills and knowledge, but with one goal which is about improving value for. For your end customer and if you're looking as a CEO, how do you balance the needs between the shareholder which is a family owned company, the employee, the customer B to B B to C and how do you do that in your decision making process? Because it's even more complex than a pure med tech company. Yes, it is because you need to think about how you allocate your resources, where do you make an impact. But in general, I would say that. The order is very clear. Number one is the customer, 2 are the employees and 3 are the financials. Because if you do a good job with your customer and you create value and your team is engaged, then by definition the financials should follow. Now I have to say that it sounds easy, not always that easy, especially in the in the COVID times, you know as many companies we have been facing quite severe supply challenges. You think about our products, they contain chips, batteries, you know, all the good stuff that all the industries are fighting for, all coming from China of course, right. And so you can imagine this was quite a challenge. And so together with the board, we sat down and we said what are we going to do and the answer was clear, we're going to serve the customer at all cost. And so we went and we did the air freight and we did the spot buys, you know just to make sure that we had uninterrupted supply. But as a result, the gross margin has suffered, right. So that's the balance that you need to strike. We have clearly prioritized the customer. Now we need to make sure that also the profitability is back in line. And so these are the two moments of truth. And I was actually inspired to see that also the owner and the board were very clear, hey, we're gonna supply at all costs and we're gonna keep our customers happy. We're gonna keep the install base of our users and I think that's the right decision. It's really impressive to see the customer centric approach and you're taking and you are at the same time in the B to B and the B to C environment which is asking very different type of dynamic and all do you do to keep that. Customer centric culture, knowing that you have these two very different audience. Yeah, I think you know what I did is when we had in 21, we were celebrating our 60th birthday, right, 60 years of Mandela, same ownership, same name, which is kind of good, right, if you don't get a lot of industries. And so we decided to take a step back. And I said let's, let's rearticulate who we are exactly for the reason that you were mentioning Greg, because it's so diverse, everything is moving fast. It's very important that we have a very clear mission statement, which is our compass that guides us in everything we are doing, doesn't matter whether it's B to CB to B. So we came up with this mission statement, which is really by advancing research, observing natural behavior and listening to the customer. By doing these three things, we turn science into care to nurture health for generations. And so we really carefully selected this and I think that is what defines our approach. Always research based, even in the B2C space, that's how we differentiate. We really understand in depth all the mechanisms of the lactating breast, the anatomy, everything. So then we can design the best product. We observe the natural behavior. You know what happens naturally with babies. To breastfeed with wounds that are healing, you know, how can we replicate nature when nature isn't able to do the job and then listening to the customer. So it's really these three elements that we drive through the company and that's how we how we keep the consistency and the compass and the focus and which really is the uniting factor between these two businesses. And it's all about turning science into care, you know, it's this duality of scientific technology. Caring for moms and babies for patients and that's how we nurture health for generation, which is we selected that word very carefully as well because we have babies, we have patients in end state of life, but also we are a family company. So it's for the generations to come. So I think that's how we we formulate this and this is now very well accepted by by all employees, by all customers and it gives us this this strong commonality across everything that we are doing. I think it's a beautiful and very inspiring mission and that that you have defined for the company. And I can feel that there is a strong culture at Medela. So I would be curious to understand from you as a CEO, how do you set the tone, how do you make sure that this culture of innovation, of creativity also that you mentioned of caring is infused across all level of the company? Yeah, it's, it's very important, right, because I'm a big believer in, in in the culture and and I always say, you know, nothing starts with results, everything starts with people, right. So if you have the right people focused on the right things, that's how you get the results. So a culture, you will always have a culture in a company and you can have a culture by design or culture by default. And the good news is that at Medela there was already a very strong culture of passion and. Customer intimacy and I think what I wanted to do is really leverage on that, but then also instill a few more elements such as you know, the level of professionalism that you maybe don't always find in a family owned company, the the overall expectations that we have from leaders. So we defined our core behaviors, we we we reward certain behaviors in the company. So we articulate this culture in a very clear manner, so that also newcomers know what we stand for, but also what we expect from each other. And I think that's important because you know over the last years we have seen attrition rates going up, especially during COVID. There has been the great resignations, new people coming. So you have to make sure that you design this culture and you talk about it every day. And at the end, it's also what people do when nobody's looking right. And that's how at the end you see what the culture means. And I'm pleased because of the fact that we are in direct contact with the end user all the time. The passion and commitment of the employees is extremely high. I mean, you guys know this from the diabetes field, right? Yeah. We had this as well. It was the most passionate unit within Medtronic back in the day. When you take this and you multiply it by probably 3 or 4 and that's what you get. Yeah. Yeah. I know. People are very committed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, this is super inspiring. And thanks for sharing. And again, I would like to go to what we're discussing just before starting the recording today, which is. Are we talking about consumer customer and you say, no, we are talking about consumer mums and babies. Patient is again linked deeply to the culture and we are really curious about what's driving your commitment of supporting the mumps and baby and in the workplace, not only in Medela, but we know we are also very active across the different organization in multiple continents. Or are you driving that commitment to this very special? Privileged audience also. Yeah. You know, this is something that is really dear to my heart because, you know, I'm a mom myself, right? I have two boys that are a bit older now. Of course that throughout my career I have been working mom, and I know how challenging it can be, you know, and especially you guys know this in the Met tech sector many times I was the only women around the table. So you have this whole topic of, you know, working mom, but also women in leadership. Which I'm really passionate about. And so within Medela we are we are very fortunate and I'm also very intentional about it that we have a high diversity in terms of male, female, right. Even in my own executive committee and the leadership team, you have like 45 50% diversity. And so we have strong representation which is great, but of course it doesn't stop there. So we have a lot of programs also to make sure that we develop food future female leaders. Mentoring, you know we have a number of diversity and inclusion programs for men and women alike to make sure that we have this inclusive culture. We we participate on the equal pay surveys. So we're always very proud to show that you know there's no differences in in pay. So that's more internally and something that I like to do personally and I do this with my leadership team as well. Is hire moms after career breaks. You know in Switzerland especially it's not easy to be a working mom right. So the infrastructure is not there and many times people take a break and then after five years to get back in your professional life is extremely different difficult. And so I love to hire moms coming back and and and you the commitment the passion is just incredible. So I I really recommend that for everyone because it's not because you have been five years out of the Industry that suddenly you are not capable of being a great performer. So that's one. But then outside what I what we do is I would say two things. I personally like to be an advocate for women in leadership. So I've been speaking in many occasions from the Swedish Chamber of Commerce to in Shanghai, the the China European International Business Schools. So really all across the board. And recently, actually yesterday I was at the American Society for Thoracic Surgery. And if you think about difficulty for women advancing their career in industry when think about surgery, right, I think that's yet a different level. Oh my God. So what we have done is we have done, I've been writing an article together with some of these surgeons about women in leadership. There's a women network. It's it's very nice to see and be able to advocate and give some best practices in this area. And then last but not least, as Medela, we you know more of the half of our businesses in the US and in the US maternity leaves are very short. So we have put in place a program that is called Kin, which is targeted towards employers, large employers and they can get this service from Medela to help. Months to return to work while continuing to breast feed while having the mental and emotional support and all the tools needed to, you know, to come back into the career path in the smoothest way possible. That is actually a pretty cool program. Including, you know, of course, breast bumps, but also mental health support, milk shipping. If you have to go on business travel, you know everything that you can imagine. And we have already 100 companies, more than 100 who have signed up for this. The biggest customer is actually Amazon. So they put this in all of their warehouses, offices. They really want to get these female talents, the young moms back to work in a successful manner. So these are the different elements. You can see I've been talking for a long time. I'm very passionate about this. We can clearly feel the passion and an additional question to it because we have a lot in our audience today, either young mum, future, but also the same on the partner. And the question there for you, is there any advice that you can give to the young mum coming back at work or their manager, their leader about how to make it smooth, how to make it successful because. It's a partnership. It's not only the woman carrying everything. It's also about how to create an environment to help them to help her to come back and how to what to do, I will not say right, but what to do to ensure something a smooth experience and a strong support also, yeah, I think it's really about the whole system that needs to support this, right? So as a young woman, you have to make sure you set yourself up for success by having the right system. I don't know how you did it from the end, but. When I was young we had we were both working, my husband and myself, so we had two nannies. I didn't have any family close by, so one would come in one week, the other would come in the other week. And so I always had a backup so that you have you don't need to worry about stressing around and not having the right level of support. That's one. But then in the workplace, I think the managers have to find the right balance between support but also avoid exclusion. And you now you will think that's very interesting because some of these managers want to be extremely supportive. So they say oh, you can have flexible working time, you don't need to come to this meeting, you don't need to go to this off site, you just stay there. But then you know it can, it can actually lead to an exclusion on the career path. So I think it's very important to understand what does work for you, what can you do, have this dialogue, but do not assume. Because this is a young womom. Oh no, she cannot come to this customer event or maybe we should just put her on a different role so that she can balance. Don't assume, ask and make sure that you have the right right level of relationship and and partnership and and you know, articulate what is what is good, what is not good because the young mom will have to sacrifice certain things and so I think it's good to have that level of alignment and be be flexible. I think also offering flexible working hours, etc. I mean that's for everybody, for parents, it's not only for women, it should be for the fathers as well, because they should carry as much of the load than the mom. I think that's that's that's what it's all about, right? Otherwise it's just not fair. And so I think that's where also the dead and it's the whole system that needs to be aligned. And but I think it can be done. I mean, you have done it, Fabienne, I have done it. And I think it's also about showing to other young, young women that it can be done. You just need to be a little bit intentional about it, Organize yourself. But hey, you can have a family and you can have a career. And guess what? It's both as possible and it's great. Thanks, Annette. It resonates a lot with me and I think it's going to resonate a lot with. With a woman in that field and moms. And I must say for me, the manager was critical and I was looking up to have Greg as a manager when I came back from my first maternity leave. But also this idea that it doesn't go without sacrifices, to your point. And you need to get organized and you need to give up on certain things. And I think for me was a little bit like, oh, I have to be Wonder Woman. I have to be the perfect mom, be there all the time for my kids, like be a super professional. But it doesn't work like that. And to accept that for me it has been a journey and it might be a journey for others. And yeah, just finding the right organizations and to your point, being intentional, I think it's it's important and just realizing that it's not easy, it's challenging and it's OK and and maybe let go of certain things. You know what? Maybe your husband doesn't do it as well as you do because the only way, the only right way, very true. He doesn't do it as well. The baby will survive. It's gonna be OK. So I think, you know, it's letting go and being also a little bit more relaxed about things. I think it's very important. Yeah. No, thanks, Annette. I'll try to apply that a little bit more on my side. Yeah, OK. So, so moving away a little bit from the, let's say, mom and woman experience, we would be really curious to understand how your, let's say, long experience in the Med tech industry has been shaping your leadership style. What, how would you define your leadership style today? And and really what are your key values? What is important and why? What drives your leadership? Yeah, you know, I think your your leadership is actually defined very heavily by the people you work for. And I always try to learn from all of the managers. I've had so many different bosses. I'm sure it's the same for you guys and only two bosses in my nearly. Next year, it's going to be 30 years and I'm working in this space. Only 2 female bosses, so, but many, many other bosses. But always learning and observing from from your your leaders is is going to be in my view the the most most important way of shaping your own style. See what works, what doesn't work, what can you learn But for me, I think. I I actually did this exercise some some years ago when I was leading the woman's leadership circle at Medtronic. We had this define your leadership signature. I don't know if you guys have done this right and you would come up with your principles. And so I come up with this leadership style called purple, right? I call it purple. I think that's actually pretty cool. You know it's a it's a female color and the 1st 3 letters stand for what I expect from my team. And the last three, what I expect for myself and if you think about it, it stands for P like passion, You know, do what you do with passion because you're going to have to work the extra mile. It's about uniqueness. Bring your uniqueness to the table, have a point of view, speak up and value diversity so that we can all bring our unique strengths to make the the sum of the parts bigger. And I think that's the second one. And then the results, I think, you know, at the end of the day it's about getting results. So you know you can be passionate, bring your unique point of view and we have to, you know, say what we do, do what we say. That's that's what I I do for my team and then for myself. It's again, it's the P standing for purpose because you talked about this. There's a lot of sacrifices you have to do if you have a strong purpose and you believe and enjoy what you're doing that is actually. Not a problem because it all balances out. If you don't have that, then very fast you will run into situations of doubt, burnout and all of this. So the purpose has to be strong. And then the L stands for for learning. I like to learn from every interaction, every people, every person that I talk to, what we're talking about tonight, you know, what can I learn from this? And then the E, the last one is example, leading by example if you're a leader. You have to walk the talk and usually you define the mood in the room. So whatever you do, hey, be aware you're on the spotlight, you're on the stage, so be an example. And so that's my leadership signature. Thanks for sharing. And we've been working together for 10 years and I can really say that all that you described, there's not a better way. To summarize it and also to brand it, yeah, I think the branding part is really important. Remember, you've been sharing that with us a few years ago and it's still resonating. It's still resonating, but even more important, it's not only about resonating, it's also the way then you're leading organization and the last word was critical. It's about example, all what you describe, it's exactly the way you need the organization. And I would actually suggest that to young leaders. And so I thought it was a great exercise to step back and really say what is important for you, what are your values, what do you expect? And when I take on new roles, I always say this up front to people and they love it because you know now they know what to expect. So I think it's something that I would recommend to others as well. And linking to the population you just described, which is about the young marketers or the mid career, I'm sure a lot of them are curious about what has been your inspiration to start in Med tech. Because if you go back after your engineering school, Med tech is not the most natural way to go, the most natural way to start careers. What was so special? And you start in that area and also then you've continued your career in that track. Yes. So yeah, when I was 18 and finishing the high school track, I was really hesitating between Med school and engineering, right. So and at the end I. I don't even know why at the end I said okay, I'm going to go for this engineering because I like math and physics and you know, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a my left brain is is well developed. So I think that's something I enjoyed. But then you know I was able to do the masters in biomedical medical imaging and all of this. So. So I really always was attracted to this possibility of leveraging technology to improve lives, right. And I've started my career as a research engineer for a little company called Intermedics in the pacemaker field at back in the day. And I was doing MATLAB and you know, I still have 4 patterns, Greg, from that time And yes, they're still out there and so, so, but then you know I, I, I really, I find it fascinating and I'm passionate about being able to improve life having this, this bigger impact by leveraging technology. So I think it's very something. And very fascinating and I've, I've done it now my whole career. I've never done anything else and I've done many different functions, different companies, different countries. But it's always around the the Med tech space because I think it's very rewarding, it's high tech, it's faster than pharmaceutical and you know what impact you have. So the purpose is very strong. Yeah, I think we both fully agree with that. Would you have any advice for someone who would be interested in pursuing a carry on the Med tech industry and maybe would be hesitating with other industry in the healthcare area? Yeah, I think again, as I say, I think the Med tech space in my view, but of course I'm biased, right is a very, is a very fascinating space because it combines many different elements, right. You talk about technology, but you talk maybe also about AI in the future. You talk about consumer engagement, you talk about education training. So yeah, at the intersection of leveraging technology but also changing practices, right. So you are really have the opportunity of combining it all to make an impact and I think that's not necessarily the the case in other industries. Either you are further removed or maybe your purpose is not as strong as the one that we all are fortunate about enough to to have. So I think it's a fascinating area and it's also one which has so many different aspects that you can really play to your strengths, right. If you are more on the on the the messaging communication side, there's many different things. There's digital engagement, there's healthcare, professional, again, education studies. So it's a very vast array of areas that you can cover as a market here. And I think the other thing which is nice is that if you start as a marketer in this space, you can evolve into other areas, commercial you can be you are at the center of all these interactions. And so it gives you a broad future passes well be it in marketing or outside of marketing right. So I think that's the other interesting fact because you are you're really at the center where it all comes together. And the last question for the the first part of this podcast which is about the the Med tech industry, I think you've been describing all what's making attractive, you know can feel the the passion you for it also if you have a fast looking Fast forward in five to 10 years. What do you think that will be the main evolution, the main change there and for you as CEO of Medela and Medela is planning to play a role in that one. Yeah, I think you know you will see of course the big trends that we see in many, many other industries. We talked about AI, you know how is it going to improve decision making, therapeutic choices, follow up, identifying early risks for patients. So I think there will be a huge.  Evolution in this area, we have been talking about it for a long time. As you know, there has been many attempts of digital solutions not always as successful as one might think, especially if you look at these big partnerships between big tech companies and medical devices.  Just recently we heard again that also J&J and Google Now are now breaking up. You know, Sanofi and Verily have been breaking up, Medtronic and Watson have been breaking up. So it's not that easy. But I think inevitably this will come to life because you see it now with ChatGPT, how that is already changing the world. So you can imagine, I think there's an acceleration that will happen and if we find the right. The right value proposition then I think this will be taking off. The other thing is consumer engagement. This is going to be critical. Why? Because the patient will play a more active part in the therapeutic choice, but also in the success of the therapy. Everybody's talking about early discharge, making sure people go back to home, you know to home settings, saving costs, empowering patients, so that whole consumer angle Is going to be critical and I think the companies who are able to bridge that gap between the healthcare professional and the the patient and really Dr. Compliance in the right way will be the ones who eventually can create more value in the healthcare system and will be winning. So I think these trends are definitely there and then you see the whole miniaturization, you know how things become more and more miniaturized and personalized which is again enabled by. The patient engagement as well as the big data. So, so these are the trends and we will see how it plays out, but I think that that will will create a big change and it's needed because you know we need more efficient systems, we need better outcomes at lower cost and less time spent by healthcare professionals and nurses. So I suggest we meet to get again in five years. And then you see how you, how your predictions became true. You see how it has evolved. Yeah, exactly. No, thanks, Annette. So we're going to go to the last part of our conversation and we always like this part because it's, it's fun and we discover new things. So of course, you're a very successful business leader and I'm sure it can be intimidating for some people that we have prepared a few questions to go behind the scenes. And to get to know the person, the woman behind the very successful leaders. So let's go with the first question. So we called you actually today after coming back from the US just getting out of the plane and you are traveling again later this week to China. So how do you manage your energy levels? How do you do it and keep that patient passion and that energy that you have. Yes, is a very good question. Not sure I am. I'm actually doing it because. Sometimes it seems very not not that easy, but I think make sure I make sure that I, I, I get enough sleep in all of this, right? It's very important and especially with all these jet lags and time lags. So I think having a, you know, daylight, a bit of exercise, but also making sure that you try to really protect your sleep, you know, do a little bit of maybe meditation before you go to bed because so many things are happening. I think that's very important because I see it myself, right? When you get sleep deprived, you know things become very difficult And so I think that's something to watch for. And the other thing is make sure that you have some fun also because otherwise, you know, I get inspired by people by having a good time and that keeps your energy up even in difficult times. So having this. Intentionally. You're focusing on the positive things, making sure we have a smile on the face. It's helping. It's helping in all of this. Right. And so. So, yeah, yeah. So you referred to the need for sleep, but would you say you're more of a morning person or a night owl?

No, I'm not a morning person. Everybody who has worked with me knows that. It's a hard time, you know, I have all my Swiss colleagues, my assistant, she wants to put meetings at 7: 38:24

00 in the morning. I'm like, no, that's early. You know, maybe it's because I've been working with U.S. companies. Everything is in the evening, right? So. So I'm a night owl okay. Is there any specific person that has truly inspired you in your professional or personal life? You know, I get this question and I was talking about it. Actually. I also LinkedIn post on this about my my grandmother. Right. I don't know if you know this. I saw, I saw your father. Yes, yes, yes, it's amazing, right. And so how she after Second World War found herself back with five kids, 4 girls, no education, no money, no husband, no house. Right. So and she said I am going to make sure my girls are going to be self-sufficient. They go to school, they have a higher education, they can provide for themselves. And that's what she did, right. And so I think it's, that's why probably my mom, my sister, myself, we are kind of driven and independent. And I think that's important. That's important for me. Thanks for sharing that, Annette. So you're traveling around the world for work, but I'm sure you're also traveling as a family and with your two boys. So is there any Countries like top two countries on your travel bucket list. Yeah, definitely. So now when people ask me what do you like to do? I think I like to travel and then I'm like, are you crazy? You're already traveling all the time. But actually we travel a lot as a family. You know, the four of us, I think we made the count with William when he applied for for his masters, he visit more than 31 countries. And so we even we even visit, you know, we travel a lot as a family. Because we spend time together at special moments, we create memories. And you know, when you're not there a lot, you have to make sure that all these things are concentrated. So I do that. So on our next list is South Korea. The boys want to go there. Yeah. And you know, KK, pop K everything, right? Is like And then I would like to do a safari. Probably Tanzania or Botswana, you know, something like that because that we haven't done yet. And final question, Annette, who is the most famous person you've ever met? I don't, you know, I was thinking about this. Do I have I met a famous person? I have a person that is famous and that I like and look up to. And I actually worked with her in the Medtronic days and that is Ginni Rometty. She was the CEO of IBM. An engineer coming from a very difficult background, making her way all the way up through all the glass ceilings you can imagine. And she has just written this book, Good Power, which I'm reading and I like it a lot. She's quite inspirational, so. So she's maybe famous inspirational business leader engineer. So that's why I like her and I'm reading this book and again trying to learn some new things from her and her experience.  Very nice. Thank you Annette for sharing all of this. Thank you so much for inding some time for us in your extremely busy schedule, we really appreciate it. We're really grateful. We had a great conversation. I learned a lot. I think Greg as well, same for me as inspired as we were before working for you. So that was just a fantastic time. To our audience, if you want to get in touch with Annette, you can contact her via her LinkedIn profile. Yeah. So thank you so much. And thank you to two,cudos to you. I think it's great you're taking this initiative, trying to have these podcasts and inspire other future or current leaders, which I think is really great. So cudos to you for taking this initiative. Thank you, Annette. Thanks, Annette. And that brings us to the end of today's episode. We hope you found this discussion informative and insightful. We encourage you to continue the conversation and stay connected with us on LinkedIn and Instagram at the Marketing Consultation. If you have any questions or topics that you would like us to cover in future episodes, please do not hesitate to reach out. We need your help to grow the marketing consultation community and have more healthcare marketers benefit from the experience and advice of our speakers. Please feel free to share with your network and to give us a 5 star rating on Apple Podcast. This is super important to increase our visibility. Thank you again for listening and we look forward to bringing you more insights and ideas from top healthcare leaders in our next episode.