S2E04: “Growing up in Kenya, Thriving in Medtech: A Rising Star’s Journey”, with Benazir Premji, Director of Marketing & Commercial Excellence at Distalmotion

Welcome to another episode of The Marketing Consultation, where we delve into the journeys of inspiring professionals from the healthcare industry. In this episode, we are joined by Benazir Premji, one of our former Edwards Lifesciences’ colleagues and currently the Director of Marketing and Commercial Excellence at Distalmotion. 
Benazir's journey is a testament to the power of embracing change and seeking growth. She started her career in consulting, but a desire for a more hands-on role led her to pursue an MBA. Shortly after graduation, she found herself in a new country, industry, and function, working in business operations for Edwards Lifesciences. 
In this episode, Benazir shares her insights on the challenges and rewards of such a significant career shift. She emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and balance in managing stress and maintaining productivity.  Benazir also discusses the current challenges in the MedTech industry, including supply chain issues and the need for digital transformation. She advocates for data-driven decision-making and leveraging digital platforms to improve outcomes. 
On a personal note, Benazir shares her childhood experiences and how they shaped her into the person she is today. Her international experiences have also played a significant role in her personal and professional development. 
As we wrap up the episode, Benazir leaves us with a reflection on the concept of home. For her, Kenya is where her heart is, but Canada is where she would live if she could pick any place in the world. This duality encapsulates her journey - a blend of embracing her roots and seeking new horizons.  Join us in this episode as we explore Benazir's inspiring journey, her insights on the MedTech industry, and her approach to work-life balance. 

Don't forget to share your feedback with us on our LinkedIn or Instagram pages and to give us a rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify. Your support helps 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, Fabian and I are having Biwiki 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 spur you in your professional growth so that you can accelerate your career. In today's episode, we have the pleasure to welcome Benazir Premji. Originally from Kenya, Benazir currently works for Digital Motion, where she serves as Director of Marketing and Commercial Excellence. She previously worked at Edwards Life Sciences, where she was Director of Business Operations. Benazir holds an MBA from inside Paris and a Bachelor of Science in Cell and Biology Anatomy from McGill University in Canada. Her commitment to make a difference extends beyond her career with volunteering at several nonprofit organizations. In this episode, Benazir guides us on an exciting journey filled with daring decisions and leaping into uncharted territories. She also emphasizes the importance of self-awareness, introspection and embracing one's true self. Hello Benazir, and welcome to the marketing consultation. Thank you, Greg. It's nice to be here. Hi Benazir, Welcome. Thank you, Fabian. Good. It's a pleasure and a privilege to with you. With us today, the three of us, we had the pleasure to work in the different settings in the same company but not at the same time all together. But both of Fabian and myself was super clear then. It would be a pleasure to interview you today. So let's start with the first question and especially we are going back to the your initial part, your initial stage of your career starting from your Bachelor in Science and you move after to consultancy business, which is not a very common track. I'm really curious to know what was your motivation to take that route and also what was the learning you gain from that experience? Yeah, absolutely. So I mean I might even start a little bit prior to my university experience at McGill. But for me growing up in Kenya, I was exposed to a lot of healthcare inequalities, disparities, lack of access really overall. And I think this is where it all started for me because it spurred this, this passion or this desire to want to do something more and to really be in that healthcare space and bring healthcare in some form and another to the people in in Kenya for me. And so I thought, Okay, what does that look like? And the typical career path one thinks of his medicine. And so that started why I decided to go to McGill with my Bachelor's of science degree. And the thought was, I'll do my bachelor's and then I will do medicine, and then I'm going to go in and do my residency and become a doctor. And as life goes, things don't always go according to plan. But, you know, one year into the degree, I realized, OK, it's interesting. I like the science, but it didn't feel practical or tangible enough for me. It felt very technical. There was a lot of memorization. And I just couldn't see myself, you know, pushing through the rest of the degree to becoming a doctor. And so at that point, I decided to take on a minor in International Development and this helped expose me a little bit too. Perhaps there was other ways that you can help and and benefit outside of the pure traditional medical school route. And then as most people do when you graduate and you're not entirely sure what to do with your career, you consider consultancy. And that really drove me into consulting. It was this lack of a clear pathway of what I wanted to do with my career. And I started off actually not in healthcare at all. I was working in a mix of careers. There was the plastics manufacturing, there was automobile. And really it was probably some of the toughest work experiences I've had coming right out of university. You know, in consultancy, you come in, the firms you're working with don't always want you there. There is this expectation that you're an expert, but really you're a generalist and you don't really know anything. And so being in that environment, being young, being the first job it was, it was really challenging, great learning experience. I did this for a few months. I did this for six months actually. And then at the end of the experience I said okay, this is great. I like the work environment, I like the the stress brings a level of excitement which I I actually thrived in. But I was missing the healthcare and I think that for me was the point where I said okay, the healthcare part is important to me and you know it the career choice doesn't have to be specifically being a doctor, but I want to stay in healthcare. And so I decided then to pivot into consulting but in medical devices. And then that's where sort of my career transitioned into more of an industry in the Med tech world. Thanks Vanessa. I totally relate to your story because I also started my career as a consultant and I was also a little bit lost after my Master of Science and chemical engineering as to what I would want to do. And I had the chance to start directly in consultancy in healthcare. So I found my way very quickly and yeah, I totally agree with you, with the challenge of being so young and having to position ourselves and as an expert, but All in all, to me that was one of my most enriching experience. So yeah, that's very interesting. I didn't know that about you. So following your time in consultancy you made the decision to venture across the ocean once again and barking on the new and exciting journey by pursuing an MBA at inside. So we would like to know what inspired you to make this choice and when you started, what were your goals, what were your aspirations given the significant investment in terms of time, finances and personal commitments? That's a good question. Definitely a big investment in terms of finances, but well, well worth it I think in the end. So for me, you know, after a few years working on the consulting side, I felt super interesting. I found what I loved in Med tech actually. I felt it was fast-paced, There was a lot of innovation ongoing, It felt close enough to the healthcare. But in my day today I felt too removed from what was actually being implemented on the ground. And a part of me realized that to feel closer, perhaps I need to be in the industry or be in one of these companies rather than being on the consulting side. And you know, to make that transition over, one of the things that was recommended to me was consider a master's degree, didn't have to be an MBA, but a masters of some kind might open that door for you. And so then I started to look into different programs and starting to map out, OK, what what could this next career stuff look like and how do I get there? And an MBA was particularly interesting because I think it gives you a broad foundation on of different types of work. It, you know, you get the marketing, you get the finance, you get the consulting, you get the entrepreneurship. And there was that that broadness of it together with the fact that you're going to be exposed to a lot of people with a lot of different experiences. That was particularly interesting to me. And then going back to what I started with is growing up in Kenya and wanting to be able to give back and do something in that community, There was always a small part of entrepreneurship that was, you know, inside of me. My family is very entrepreneurial. I've always felt, no, no, that's not really for me or not really the time for me to go there. And I thought that maybe the MB A would push me outside of my comfort zone. Perhaps it would expose me to people that have been through it or that have been a little bit hesitant to take that step and that exposure would probably be something that an MB A versus another master's degree would give me. So that really then paid the decision to say okay an MB A is probably the best way to go and that should help open up the immediate door so getting into the medical device industry but perhaps also pave that path into entrepreneurship one day. And if you look following your MBA, what did you get out of your MBA then was not possible to get somewhere else or would have been more difficult, more time just looking before and after. What's your balance? I would say out of it? Yeah, it's interesting because I just gave you a little bit of what drove me into the MBA, but really what I took out of it was something very different. So there's there's a couple of things that I think the MBA gives you. So the first being this exposure to different cultures and people of different backgrounds and work experiences. And I've had a very international background, right? I grew up in Kenya, I went through an International School, then I moved to Canada. I worked in South Africa and in my head I thought I've dealt with different types of cultures. I know what this cross cross cultural environment looks like. And then I went to in Seattle and they are very strategic about putting you in a group with people that are extremely different from you, different culturally different in experiences, different in what motivates them different in why they're doing this. MB A. And that was the most interesting growth experience for me to really understand how to manage working with different cultures, how what I appreciate and how I work, what I don't appreciate and how others do and how to manage that. And I think that really paved the way into settling in a lot better, joining a big organization such as Edwards with a lot of different people with a lot of different ways of working. And I think that MB A program really expedited that learning for me at an earlier stage. Maybe a second one here that I would also talk about is stress management. You know, it's an intense program. It's one year long and it's stressful, not just from the education perspective, right. So of course there's a lot of courses, there's a lot of new material, and you're studying. But there's a social element that comes with it where you're networking, you're meeting a ton of new people. You need to be social, you need to be doing things. You're constantly busy. You know, you're trying to find a job at the same time, you're trying to travel at the same time. And it's just a whole mix of emotions. And this idea of time management became very real to me during the NBA because it forced me to say no, to understand what my limits are, what drains me, what motivates me, how I manage stress. I think that's where I really learned the impact of exercise in my life. And so I think that it better prepared me for, you know, a very difficult or challenging work experience. Because going into the work I knew I knew what would, what would I, what I would need to do to really be able to manage a stress in that type of environment. So it's super interesting to see then it's not necessarily the art skills then you are looking when you enter, but you took most of it on the sub skills and especially about the self-awareness which is taking a very different approach and you know welcoming surprise in a different way. Also if an extra question on the MBA and insert is one of the top school in the world for MBA and I'm sure then in the audience a lot of people are reflecting about going for MBA and also how to get accepted for the MBA. Any tips or tricks that you would recommend to an audience then they're targeting the top school like you successfully manage. Yeah, I mean I can try and help on this one. I think you know really a lot of the MBA programs, and this is probably a bit more generic are looking for people who have a good of course background. They look at your work experience, they look at your your grades, you have to set a certain entrance test and I think these are all natural requisites for for any masters or MB a program in Seattle in particular. I think one of the things they value is international experience. They value this idea of cross cultural learning and environment. And so for me, I think one of the benefits was having lived it a little bit and having wanted it, this idea of wanting something entrepreneurial, having a story. I think really they valued the realness of the application. And so if there's one advice I can give to people is even if you're not super clear about what it is that you want to get out of that NBA program, be honest about it because that's natural. And I think they can feel the sincerity or the the openness in your application process. Thanks, Ben. As. Yeah, maybe just one last question before we close the NBA chapter. Often we hear a lot of questioning around what is the right time to do MBA and we already had the chance to have speakers that did MBA later in their career. So in hindsight, do you think that was the right time to you for you to do it so early in your career? Or would you maybe if you had the the chance to redo things, would you do it later? What's your perspective on that? That's a good question. I mean, in hindsight, everything. It's always easy to say in hindsight. But the truth is, I think for me it was the right time to do the MBA, particularly because I felt that I was at this crossroads. I didn't really know it was coming next and it really helped open up doors that probably wouldn't have opened up in the same way. I I like to think things naturally happen for a reason and so doing it at that time was well in scope of what I needed with my career. That being said, I know that the more experience you have going into an MB a the more you can take out of it because there's a lot of cross learning. There's people who talk about their experiences and you're able to build on that. I think that if I was to do a different, probably not to do it differently, but a second way that I would have considered doing it would have been to have more work experience. Say for example, I had found my own way into the medical device industry, but I would have then considered an executive MB a program. Because at that point, I think the hard skills, the details on the core courses would probably be less relevant and it would be a lot more around the entrepreneurship or learnings about how you work in the in the workplace, the learning, the cultural elements, the actual experience from the job, which I think you get a lot more from an executive versus a core MBA program. Thanks Vinazia. I think that's a very, very interesting perspective which will help a lot of people that have these questions. So let's move away from the MBA. So following the completion of your MBA, you began a new chapter in your career by shifting industries and functions and starting taking taking roles of increasing responsibility within the operation functions of the newly established business unit at Edwards Life Sciences. This is actually where we met and we had the chance to work together. So to prepare yourself for this transition, is there any any specific step that you took and what you feel was your greatest, greatest challenge going through this process? So I actually started my job at Edwards less than two weeks out of graduation from my MB A program and which in hindsight I wish I had taken more time off, but that meant I didn't have a lot of time to even think about preparing for the job. And of course there is preparation you do whilst on the job at pre job. Really it was just, OK, I'm starting a new job and and go, go, go. So one thing that's interesting, my my manager, our hiring manager at the time, told me. He said typically when people start a new career, there's a couple of dimensions that they change and we recommend they change one or maximum two out of the three at a time. OK, so you have change in geography, you have change in industry and then you have change in function. And he said you're changing all three and so you're coming in, you know you're moving from Canada to Switzerland, you've been in consulting, you've worked with Med tech, but okay now you're actually getting into the industry and you've never done business operations before. And so where are you going to focus and what will be your focus during your first months to make you feel ready to be successful. So in my end there was, there was two parts for me. The the first was I really prioritized the change in geography. And for me, knowing that I felt settled in a place, be that from finding an apartment, from finding a group of friends who today are my family and home here in Switzerland, finding activities that will relieve my stress, that will make me feel that regardless of what is happening in the work environment, I know that there's an escape. At the end of it was my priority because I knew that that's what would come me, that's what would ground me and really allow me to then focus and be successful at the job. So you know, it's interesting because it's not work specific, but this is really what helped me, I think be successful in my first month, said Edwards. The second part then, of course is on the job and here, you know, there's a lot of things you can do. I took a course. I took a course on Coursera, on business operations in the Med tech industry and what are the best practices. I spoke to a lot of people, whether it was at Edwards or outside. I spent time getting to know my stakeholders or people that I'm working with. In my mind, I did everything that I possibly could to make myself feel more comfortable. But what it came down to in the end was the daytoday learning. And I think that's the biggest value you're going to get is just learning by doing and feeling confident and giving yourself the time to integrate and learn. I think you can add and make yourself feel better by doing the preparation. I think there's always value to it. It puts you in the know, how it makes you feel more confident in how you have conversations. But at the end of the day, the biggest learning you're going to get is actually by doing. I really like what you mentioned regarding the change in the three dimension and also intentionally you focus about the first dimension and was OK, I'm setting myself, I'm organizing myself not so much from logistic point of view, but also the well-being and finding the right level of energy. And this is something which is super insightful for our audience and for our self also because everybody has the tendency to go deep in the content. Yeah, before stepping back and creating the right environment. That's what I'm taking of your move here. It's really about and you really took the time, the approach, the intentionality about building the right environment to be successful. Absolutely. Yeah. And I have another question because you jump in business operation was the emerging division at that time fast growing, setting up everything, building the plane at the same time, taking off and flying. And just to add on complexity of all of that, a few months after your start you became a manager of a team. That means in place to be a strong individual contributor. You switch to the people management at that time. Then with the pleasure to meet and to interact more also and what was really interesting was this private element, you took a lot of care about finding the right first team member, which is critical and was the same for Fabian and myself. And we've been going through that approach. But we see that also a lot for the new marketer when they're switching from strong individual contributor to becoming A-Team manager. Can you share more about what was your approach on the decision making to finding the right person and also what were the factors that were important for you in the decision? Yeah, absolutely. So I'll answer that in two parts, because my first hire was actually inherited. Actually, my first couple of hires were inherited, meaning that either there were teams that transferred to me or they were people that were hired at the same time, which is a very different environment actually to to then making a choice yourself for members of your team. To me, you know once you acquire people into your team, it's taking the time to get to know them, taking the time to understand their skill sets, what motivates them, what drives them, what will make them be successful in your team. And so there was a lot of time spent into the different types of people in the team, understanding what they would bring, how we can complement each other and and making that work. But specifically then to your question it with with time I started to hire my own members into the team and the good part was I think having in already inherited a few people I started to understand what was most important for me and for a team to be successful and it wasn't the technical know how. I think there's a minimum that people need from an experience or background perspective to be successful at a job. I think that goes without saying but what we often underestimate is the cultural fit within the team and so within the business operations team it was a function that was constantly changing. I think, you know, we always talked about you need to be agile. And like I couldn't, I couldn't emphasize how agile we need to to be in that team, right? The environment, the priorities, the strategy. The day today was constantly changing the scope of the role, the scope of the team. And so I noticed that I needed people on my team who were resilient, who were excited by this change and challenge and lack of structure in the team. And that became something that I looked for. I looked for the soft skills within the groups of people so that they could fit into the environment that the job creates. The second thing for me is also this ability to learn. I think that you can come into a job and there will always be things that may be new to you as the job evolves, as a role evolves. I For me, it was important to find people for the team who had this desire to learn because that would mean that they can mold into whatever it might be that we're looking for in in the job. And it's something that motivates me and I found it important to to have a team that felt motivated and driven by the same thing. At the end of the day, I think from a technical skill set, it's actually nice to have people with different types of backgrounds because you can complement each other while on the team. But the cultural fit I think is the most important because the team needs to be able to melt together. They don't have to be the same person, but they have to have the same values because I think that's what's most important to make it a good functioning team. Yes, I left it a few times, the critical aspect of cultural fit, which I fully agree with you. Any advice for audience about or you've been building that culture? And also when somebody's joining, it's not only about selecting the right person and the person selecting to join your group also, but how do you exchange or do you reinforce this culture also? Yeah, I think there's a couple of things you can do there. You know the most, the most obvious one is understanding what that culture is, right? So I think knowing what it is that defines the culture of a team is the starting point to making sure that you then either hire for the right culture or continue to build that right culture in your team. I I think the second one is then living that culture. And I, you know, we often underestimate how much people notice and how they pick up on how we operate. And I think for me, part one was, OK, this is what I want to see in my team. Part 2 was I want to live it and I want to embody this culture. And then part three was let's have discussions to see if we all embody it in the same way or what that means to us. Because what I see is culture and how I define a certain element may be different for somebody else. And so making sure there was this open exchange about it as evolving what that culture looks like based on the environment and the time is also important. And just keeping it top of mind. I think it's something that often slips to the bottom of our agenda sometimes as we have daytoday priorities. But it's important to just keep it top of mind, talk about it, know what it is, know what it should look like so that it feels like you're living it in a daytoday. That makes complete sense. I agree with you. And I would be always ready to compromise maybe on the hard skills to make sure that the person is going to have a good fit with the team and with the company. But I also feel it's sometimes difficult to assess in interviews and sometimes challenges. But I think it's also fine to say that as hiring managers we can also make mistakes and and we learn from these. So focusing back on you Benazir, so when you moved to this role as a as a team leader manager, at that time you also joined the leadership team of this business unit that Edwards Life Sciences. And when you joined this team for the first time, you were only 26, which is I found it personally very impressive. So the question is how did you build the credibility and trust as a young or very young leader joining this leadership team, which was a team composed of rather experienced leaders? Yeah, you know, this is probably one of the biggest challenges that I've had to date in my career, and it's one that I wasn't really prepared for. You know, I came into the leadership team, like you said, young in, you know, not just age but experience. And in my head it was okay. You've been selected for this so people know why you're here and you just need to do what you need to do and you'll be just fine. Probably, you know, slightly naive and my thinking there. But you know, for me the the learning here was feedback. And very early on I had, I had sought feedback and this is something that is important. It's something that I always aspire to do. But I had sought feedback specific to my role and not so much the leadership team contribution. And the feedback that I got was actually specific to my role in the leadership team. And that's where I learned, OK, I need to think of these as almost two separate things. They they intertwine. But the person that I need to be on the leadership team versus the person I need to be building my team and this function is different. And the first piece of very interesting feedback I had was because you are young and you to to this team, you need to be a louder voice to be trusted or respected in the team. Now you could take that literally and you know actually be a louder voice and that's going to be going against everything that I am. I think I value being authentic and being the loudest voice in the room is just not who I will ever be. And my learning was that okay. You might not be the loudest from a, you know, sound or, you know, speaking the most often in the room, but you could be loud in the impact that you have. And I learned with time what it meant to be my loud voice in a room. And that meant building relationships with my leadership team outside of perhaps, you know, these big meetings that we would have and starting to understand what people needed, what they valued in my role in my skill set and starting to show and starting to show the value that I can bring. Whether that meant, you know, supporting on the side. Whether that meant supporting in the role that I did in my day today and that way when I would go into these meetings or I would have my contributions, they would automatically, even if they were smaller than if they were just, you know, every so often they would be more respected and and they were taken more seriously because I had taken the time to really build relationships outside of that room. So the the networking, the you know, less networking actually really just understanding who your stakeholders are and spending the time to get to know them was very valuable for me. The other part which I think goes without saying is with time as you deliver, as you start to show the value that you can bring, people will automatically start to trust you a little bit more. That always takes time. And so you know the the first couple of months was really having that confidence to share your opinion even if you're not 100% certain. One of my learnings about myself was I felt most confident when I knew the answer to what I was saying. And and sometimes it's okay to not be 100% there, but if you're even 60% there, just test it and it's okay to then be wrong and it's okay then to be challenged back. But that was for me what I took by being a louder voice. It meant be more confident in what you're saying, understand what your leadership style and how to portray it in a way that people can value who you are and your contribution to that team. So you mentioned your leadership style, Venezia. Could you define it for us? What? What did you find on this journey on yourself and your style? Yeah. So it's a tough one to articulate, but I'm going to try my best here. So for me, you know, my, I think one of the the things that I am successful at is being able to build relationships with different types of people. And I think that's the value that I also bring as a leader. And that translates a little bit into my leadership style of understanding my audience, understanding who I'm working with and being able to tailor how I deliver based on that. I'm someone who I know that I can deliver. And so that to me has never been something I focus on, but it's been being able to tailor how I speak to people, what I should focus on. It's a little bit less of directive, a little bit more of how can I support you. It's I think they call it the helper leader or leader or something along those lines and that's a little bit of the leadership style. I have no thanks for sharing Benazir. And again a few key elements we are back to self-awareness authenticity now stretching yourself and one element on which a lot of new leaders of the ones stepping up in leadership team. It's about is it better to be accurate at 100% or giving a cry at 60. It's really a good good insight and you're providing here to the group because a lot of people say 80% is good enough. Now you are lowering that to be able to to create the dynamic and to get the feedback and it's really super insightful. Let's switch to your new role because you know it's you like bolt move and and fast track and this one is a very interesting one more. It's about you know you join the distant motion which is a startup and you took a marketing role which is something completely new to you again. And it's really something on which I'm curious about all you've been approaching the acquisition, the development and the expansion on your knowledge in that field not only from marketing perspective but also changing therapy and changing its type of company, size of company and then we can the biggest difference between what you are doing before and what you are doing today. Yeah, absolutely. So I think the, the good thing is that having done this already now a couple of times where I shift into something completely new, I have a few learnings that I've taken with me into this new role. And the first one being, you know, the learning by doing. And I, the biggest benefit to me and probably a bit of a blessing and disguise, was I was tasked with, you know, building up something in my first couple of weeks which I thought was going to be impossible to do. And it forced me to learn extremely fast. And it forced me to spend the time to speak to people, to really understand the company, the product, to be able to articulate it in the right way. So for me, I think that was one of the things which maybe I wouldn't have naturally done had I, you know, started my onboarding. But being tasked with something which was so key into how the company needs to function was the best way for me to learn. And this goes back to you learn by doing. Outside of that, I think the other part which I've taken from past experiences and and built on here is leveraging the skill set that other others have and and building on your own strengths into bringing that to life. So there's a few people at the company at Distal Motion that have a lot more knowledge that I have on the product, that have a lot more marketing knowledge than I have for example. And one of the strengths that I have is, you know, being able to build good relationships with with be different types of people. And so I'm doing that. And in doing that I'm learning from people that have more experience than than maybe I have and being able to take that a little bit into my learning and position that in a way that can help me be more successful at my job for sure. I'm spending time reading about the industry, I'm spending time going into the field. I think those are things that in any job you should do, but the the learning from people, the learning by doing is really the one thing that has helped me be successful in my first couple of months now at this motion. Thanks Benazir for sharing this, this impressions on your first few months and how you approached it. I think it's another example of a smart hiring from your current company where they I think favored the potential, the soft skills, the leadership abilities over the the hard marketing experience. So very nice to to see that happening in reality. So you are new to this marketing function and I'm really curious with your fresh eye on marketing within medical device, what do you think are the main opportunities and challenges that you and your team are facing now or will have to face in the next few years? Yeah, so I think there's a couple in here that are more industry specific. They impact the marketing function, but they're not solely impacting marketing. So the first one, of course, is on the regulatory side with the shift MDDMDR, there's a lot of changes that are coming and it's a lot of unknowns. We don't really know what the impact could really look like. We don't really know how the approval process will look. And so there's a lot of uncertainty versus a, a more structured or in a way a more familiar regulation process that people were aware of. So this is 1, which I think we need to all be conscious of regardless of role in the industry. The second one here, again, I think it's not impacting only marketing, but there's a lot of supply chain challenges happening today. And this is again, not just medical device, but you know, you've got distribution or purchasing challenges. And so there's an element of building networks, building relationships, you know, building different types of distribution channels where we need to be more conscious of how this feeds into our plan versus being reactive to then being stuck in a situation perhaps where we have no, no option out. The last one which is I'd say more marketing specific now. So there you know this the world of digital transformation or digital marketing is something which you know, we talk about a lot in the industry. I think it's a bit of a buzzword, but there is value to it and I'd say the medical device industry is we're behind and there there's a lot of work that we need to do to really start to utilize the digital platforms to really start to benefit from what it has to give. Related to this, a little bit of data-driven decision making. I think we come from an industry where it's very relationship driven, it's very experiential or you know we have this this network of key opinion leaders and this is how we drive results. And I think that's all very true and it's very relevant. But I think we need to be a little bit more conscious of being able to leverage resources and tools both on the data side, both on the digital side that can really help us make better decisions and be a little bit more successful in this space. Makes perfect sense. I think we are all living and breathing these challenges at the moment. So Benazir, you've shared with us a lot of insights and very interesting perspective from you as an accomplished professional and leader. And now I would like to go a little bit behind the scenes and get to know more. I I know a bit more about you, but I I think it would be really nice for our audience to get to know you more from a personal side. So we have prepared a few questions for you which I hope you will feel comfortable answering. The first one is you referred earlier in our conversation to the impact of exercise in your life. So and I think it it's probably part of your balance. So what how do you balance your personal and professional lives? Yeah, you know balance is an interesting thing because there is we always talk about needing to have a balance and I don't think any company or any role is going to give it to you. I think you have to figure out what your balance is going to look like and build it into your day. Today, I can tell you that my time at Edwards was learning because I wasn't always very good at doing it. But with time, I I learned what that means for me. So I work really well during the mornings, and I know that, OK, I'm coming to the office, I'm delivering, I'm doing what I need to do till about 536. And that's the time that I I typically have classes at the gym.

And so I've made a conscious effort to block my calendar off and it hits 6: 38:01

00 and, you know, chow chow, I'm leaving the office and I'm going and I'm doing my workout. And I know that I have work that's pending to do and I'm going to come home and I'm going to do it then. But to me, that's my balance. My balance is like making sure that I have that time carved out during my day to go do what's going to make me feel better. And then I have to, of course, you know, supplement and come home and work, which for some people may not work in the same way. But for me, that's fine. I don't mind in my evening spending a couple of hours on my laptop knowing that I had the time to to disconnect and to do something that's important to me. I think on this one a big learning has been there's this perception sometimes of leaving the office at a certain time, of arriving at a certain time, and it's cultural to offices as well. But I think they're setting the expectation of what works for you and having that conversation with your manager, with your team or whomever it might be to say, you know, as long as things are getting delivered, you know when you need to carve out time for yourself. And that's the most important is to just make us a very conscious choice to do that in your daily routine. Yeah. No, fully agree. And balance is something very personal and it seems that you found yours. So very happy to hear that for you. Next question, coming back in time. How are you as a child? How was a little Benazir? Little Benazir was really nerdy. She was really quiet. She was really insecure. I gosh, I look back and sometimes I laugh because I think I've, I've changed quite a bit. I'd say, you know, my earlier years was always very hard. I've always been very hard working, very driven, but I think I lacked a little bit of self-confidence in what my capabilities were and how I portrayed myself in how I engaged with others. And here you know, change in environment played a big role for me. I I changed schools. I was in a bit more of an international environment. I learned that that's where I could thrive being around different types of people and and of course my family, you know, my parents were a huge support for me. But my brother really pushed me outside of my comfort zone and he challenged me to to step up and and not to hide from from challenges and to face them. You know, head on, we we all have, you know, bullying or whatever it might be when you're younger. And the my brother is, I think, the one person who really helped me step outside of my shell and my comfort zone. Nice. Are you a morning person or a night owl?

I'm in bed by 10: 40:43

30, definitely a morning person. I like to do my workouts in the morning. I like to have a couple of hours of quiet work time in the morning and then it hits its evening time and I just want to, you know, get with a book and cup of tea into bed. So definitely a morning person. So you've been in a living and going to a lot, many parts of the world. But is there any remaining countries on your travel bucket list? Oh, there's so many I still haven't seen, Not nearly enough of even just Europe. I think next on the list are probably Portugal and maybe Istanbul. And then if I move outside of Europe, I really want to go to Costa Rica. I have a I want to go there as well. Yeah, I heard it's it's, it's really beautiful. Yeah, exactly. So I I have a wedding happening there next year and so it's nice, perfect opportunity to tick that one off the but not mine but some good friends. And so that should help tick that one off the bucket list. OK And final country related question, Canada or Kenya? Oh, that's a tough one. Kenya is home and Kenya is where I my family is. It's where I grew up. It's where I think the softness of me resides in Kenya. But if I was to answer that question from a practical, pragmatic perspective, Canada is where I would live. And so it's, you know, it's an element of where I feel most at home, which is Kenya. But looking at who I am today and what I want out of my life, I would pick Canada. Thank you so much, Benazir, for being so open and spontaneous. We had. I think we can, I can speak on behalf of both Greg and myself and saying that we had a fantastic conversation with you. We learned a lot and I'm sure our audience will really appreciate everything you shared in such a nice and spontaneous way. So thank you very much Benazir, for taking the time. It was a pleasure for us. Thank you, Fabian. Thank you, Greg, and thank you for having me on the show today and then bring 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 question or topics you would like us to cover in the future episode, please do not hesitate to reach out. We need your help to grow the marketing consultation community and have more healthcare marketers benefiting from the experience and advice of our speaker. Please feel free to share with your network and also to give us a 5 star rating on Apple podcast. This is super important to increase our visibility. Thanks again for listening and we look forward to bringing you more insight and ID from top healthcare leaders in our next episode.