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00:00:01
We got shipwrecked, luckily on this tiny island in the Filipino archipelago
151 Plays1 year ago
The adults were so weak they had to be carried off the shipwreck onto shore… Today, I lead the diabetes business in Medtronic, a global leader in medical devices. The business is about 2.3 billion, with over 5,000 employees. The story of “the person most likely to rule the planet in the future”
20 YEARS IN PERSPECTIVE:
I find myself not in the mainstream part of these companies, but having a big impact on the future of those companies.
A bit of a nomad - three million miles of travel approximately, 3 continents, 3 children, 3 C-suite roles, 7 cities and 10 addresses.
My background is in software, in tech, Microsoft was really formative, doing all things on consumer software and services, the precursor to cloud technologies. I then joined Tyco electronics, and then Honeywell recruited me to be its first Chief Commercial Officer, and then I was promoted to lead the software business.
A lot of people say [about Medtronic] “Well, that's very different from some of the industrial companies, as well as the software world” and the funny thing is, the concepts are exactly the same.
I used to think working on software apps was really exciting and was going to change the world... Let's say, if you make a game on the iPhone, is that as thrilling as applying your brain power and your energy towards something like the area of diabetes, where you can really help people's lives? It's just not!
The biggest challenge… I think actually having kids and having a career is a juggling act for everybody, it always comes back to the question of how much should you work.
ON TOPIC: Grit and leadership, rags to riches, the making of a leader
When you grow, life gives you certain tools depending on how you get brought up. And when you grow up poor, you get a lot of tools. I had to support my mother, I had to find a way to go to college. So I had to think about how do I make a lot of money while going to school.
At 16 I started a business and after about a year I had a hundred students. So I converted the garage, my bedroom and the living room into classrooms and I taught all weekend. I made more money doing this than when I got my first job at McKinsey.
It takes courage to confront necessity and accept that bad things happen. Half my life I was living in poverty or close to financial ruin and I missed out on a childhood, but every day I picked myself up...
Changing the events that are outside you is not possible, but you can change how you view them, that's possible. So why don't you go and focus on changing what's possible and I think to me those lessons help you deal with adversity.
Don't be a poser, actually contribute, figure out what is your unique contribution, be really, really good, build your talent stack and then the opportunity will find you. You can compete by being political, by being self-promotional, but you're not really adding value and I want to go to bed every night knowing I did my best and contributed.
It's helpful to have a personal board of directors, it's people that you trust and you've built relationships over time that can pull you back from the brink of your excesses or when you have blind spots.
Cultivate relationships, do it because they're your friends or they're people you respect and admire, not because it helps you get ahead.
ON TOPIC: Diabetes, medtech, health
25% of healthcare is spent on diabetes, that's a lot, in the world.
There's about 7 million people that have type 1 and type 2 insulin-dependent, that's a lot of people. If you then go to the broader type 2, you're talking about 200 million people that need some sort of medication.
Innovation here is: you're putting something in someone's body.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
This is Republic of Insead, the 20 years later O3D podcast edition. I am Milena Ivanova and will be your host in this limited series. So, here we are, 20 years later, hopefully all the wiser, naturally smarter and as charming as ever. There were 432 of us in the O3D vintage.
00:00:25
Speaker
And certainly there are 432 unique and very interesting personal and professional stories to tell.
Purpose of Sharing O3D Stories
00:00:33
Speaker
While I cannot physically cover all, I have tried to make a selection of stories that will keep you interested and curious and will hopefully convince you to join us on campus for reunion. Welcome to the Republic of Insead Podcast Edition and enjoy the show.
00:00:49
Speaker
All right, there we are again. It's the middle of summer, and summer in Europe is shaping up to be a record-setting one, not in a good way, but such is life.
Excitement About the Guest
00:01:00
Speaker
On to Breiter, thanks, I'm quite excited about the guest I am about to speak with today, for her story is a rather extraordinary one. Before we hear it all from her, let me quote from the 20-year-old entry in the Republic of Insiad Ear Book.
00:01:16
Speaker
open quotations. Beneath the plastic exterior of this Aussie lass lies the great mind of an epic thinker. She will always be known for her generosity, whether it's servicing up mouth-watering rosemary pork chops or coaching half of the McKinsey interviews. She is always there for you.
00:01:37
Speaker
Well travelled and well connected, she holds the records for most frequent flyer miles and most IM contacts. Her passion for business is only the beginning. As a single handicap golfer and black belt martial artist, you can only wonder how someone of such camper shot stature could be so much larger than life.
00:02:00
Speaker
Perhaps she is only human, though her immunity to jet lag and endless amounts of energy suggests otherwise. As the person most likely to rule the planet in the future, wherever you end up, when we call to inquire, we know you'll rightly say, everything is going extremely well.
00:02:21
Speaker
close of quotation marks. So there we are. Welcome to the Republic of Insead Podcast to the person most likely to rule the planet in the future. I love this entry. I keep saying it's amazing how well the entries of so many of us have aged. And yours definitely proves the point, but you'll tell us all about it.
Guest's Professional Journey
00:02:44
Speaker
But I take it everything is going extremely well, is it? Everything is going extremely well.
00:02:51
Speaker
All right. All right. And are you still immune to jet lag or it's caught up with you? I am still immune to jet lag. Gosh, I'm jealous about this one. That saves a lot of time. But okay, let's start from the beginning or the end, whichever direction you want to take the last 20 years in a nutshell in your life, professional, personal, and it's five minutes. Well, let's see.
00:03:17
Speaker
three million miles of travel approximately, three continents, three children, three C-suite roles and lived in over seven cities and 10 addresses. So I've been a bit of a nomad.
00:03:36
Speaker
That's the punchline. It's the magic number for you, huh? Three is the magic number. Anyway, today I lead the diabetes business in Metronic, which is a global lead in medical devices. The business is about 2.3 billion and with over 5,000 employees. We've been serving the diabetes community for over 40 years, so we're really proud of that.
00:03:59
Speaker
And most importantly, it's very personal. 70% of our employees has a personal connection to diabetes. They either have a relative or a family member that lives with the disease. And actually, around 20% of our employees also lives with diabetes. So it's a very personal mission for us.
00:04:20
Speaker
So that's what I've been doing. And how did you get to Metronic, actually? Because it's been quite a journey, as you said, three continents and three sea suites. So that's your third one. Yes.
00:04:32
Speaker
Well, as you know, Milena, my background in software and tech really was formative at Microsoft, doing all things on consumer software and services and the precursor to cloud technologies and things like that. And that was super fun and very exciting to work on.
00:04:54
Speaker
new to world things that you now see and take for granted. And so that was super cool. And then by sort of a bit of happenstance and luck, I ended up joining Taiko Electronics, which is a sort of a sensor and electronic components manufacturer. And I got my first big job running a large business there.
00:05:15
Speaker
And then I made it to Chief Strategy Officer. Then I started a big data practice as well in the business that was really thrilling and exciting. And so I didn't stay far away from my software roots. And then Honeywell recruited me to be its first
00:05:33
Speaker
chief commercial officer, which is all things around corporate strategy, growth, commercial excellence, marketing, and product innovation. So I did that. And then I was promoted to lead the software business for Honeywell, which again was very exciting. I find myself in these, not the mainstream part of these companies, but having a big impact on the future of those companies. So I did that.
00:06:02
Speaker
And then, and so now I found myself at Metronic and a lot of people say, well, that's very different from, you know, some of the industrial companies as well as the software world. And the funny thing is.
00:06:15
Speaker
The concepts are exactly the same. If you look at the diabetes disease, we're working on advanced technology that can sense blood glucose and figure out how much insulin a body needs using advanced software algorithms, as well as the best in biomedical engineering, as well as control systems. So it's basically a controls problem. And that's essentially the business where I came from at Honeywell.
00:06:39
Speaker
It's all about controls. And think about control problems as how does the air conditioning regulate, say in an office building that you sit in, or how oil and gas or chemicals get produced. They're all types of control systems. And diabetes is another one. And I couldn't be more excited to be part of a business having such a big impact on people's lives. And when we were talking in the briefing
00:07:06
Speaker
It got mentioned that
Challenges at Medtronic's Diabetes Division
00:07:08
Speaker
you came into a turnaround situation. What is the turnaround? What are you working towards? What's the challenge? The business is a bit of a turnaround. It invented the first really commercial insulin pump 40 years ago.
00:07:25
Speaker
And diabetes is a terrible disease. It's a chronic disease. You don't take a holiday from it. It comes with a lot of stress and a lot of physical and mental burden, as well as administrative burden. So what we want to do is want to work on technologies that can improve people's lives, help them manage their diabetes, but also help them sometimes forget they have the disease.
00:07:50
Speaker
And that's a very hard problem to drive outcomes without creating extra work on the part of the patient. And so I found myself here because
00:08:03
Speaker
The business had been a lead on so many things, the first continuous glucose monitor, the first insulin pump that was augmented with a CGM, a blood glucose monitor, and the first closed loop system, hybrid closed loop, as well as the latest products that we have today.
00:08:27
Speaker
You know, as when you're a leader sometimes, hubris can take over and it's easy to fall into the trap of, you know, the innovator's dilemma. And so, you know, the business lost its way for a number of years. And so what we're working on now is getting back to leadership. And we have a lot of exciting things we're working on that we want to bring out to market and further improve people's lives. So is it innovation or is it organizational or it's both?
00:08:55
Speaker
It's really both. I mean, at the end of the day, the med tech industry is driven by innovation. You can't survive by just on products from yesterday. It's a very competitive space. There's new research all the time. There's new therapies. There's new things that we can push the boundaries on. And so you always have to be innovating. And our spend of R&D is very high, generally, as an industry.
00:09:24
Speaker
And I think there was a lack of focus on that. If you go back maybe 10 years ago, lack of focus and it catches up with you. It's very hard to catch up. These innovation here is you're putting something in someone's body, right? So the threshold of quality and clinical outcomes that you have to be able to generate is real. The product works. It really does people depend on it to stay alive. And so this is not a simple thing.
00:09:54
Speaker
And so the key is to be consistent, but we have a terrific team of people who are very motivated. A lot of people live with a disease, are very motivated to help improve the lives of really millions of people that suffer from diabetes. So if you look back on the last 20 years,
00:10:19
Speaker
What would you say has been the biggest challenge for your personal, professional, both? The biggest challenge? Well, I think actually having kids and having a career is a juggling act for everybody. They're fun. Kids are fun. I love little kids. But it always comes back to the question of how much should you work? And for me, I always
00:10:46
Speaker
I work to live. I don't live to work. Now you can choose to go flat out in your career and you know it's hard to have a family if you do that and it's hard to have hobbies and frankly you don't have a life. But you can get to probably some genius or ludicrous exceptional level in your career. But it's a big personal sacrifice to get there. And for me as a working mother it's a constant struggle to balance family and kids and
00:11:15
Speaker
But it's important that you're able to spread yourself between work and family. And I think it's more interesting that way. But the price is maybe you don't get as far as your career. So of course I want both. And so I try to have one foot in each other and do the best I can to be present in each area. So I think that's the biggest challenge. How old are the kids now?
00:11:41
Speaker
The kids, the oldest is 11 and the youngest are twins, they're nine. There you go. Well, it's a challenge I think for pretty much every woman I spoken to who has kids, from our case. So that's no surprise there. I think it's true for men too. I think it's generally
Family Escape from Vietnam
00:12:03
Speaker
speaking, having kids or just having a family life and having a life outside work is a balancing act.
00:12:10
Speaker
Yeah, having a life. There you go. And with regards to biggest lessons you've learned professionally, if you can pick three or one. Well, let me think, because I think this, well, it's hard to boil it down to a couple of things, but here goes. I think one is, you know, when you're young, you don't, you're not very wise and you don't know very much and it's easy to be
00:12:37
Speaker
And what I learned is, you know, it's important to be the best learner in the room and not the smartest person in the room. Because humility is something that helps you ensure that you're going on the right path and that you're building the human capital between your ears. Like you could lose everything and still have the skills. No one's going to take away the knowledge and the capital that you build.
00:13:06
Speaker
Continue to learn and be consistent about doing that over time. So that's one. The second one is to not be a victim. I mean, it's easy. Life's tragic. Life's tragic, man. I mean, it's easy to be seduced by, you know, the systems against you or you're being discriminated against. I mean, I'm sure those things are real and they happen.
00:13:31
Speaker
But it takes courage, I think, to confront necessity and accept that bad things happen. Half my life I was living in poverty or close to financial ruin, and I missed out on a childhood. But every day I picked myself up, went to school, went to work, and one step at a time, and now I get to talk to you.
00:13:58
Speaker
So that's a pretty, array for me, that's a pretty good deal. And so I think blaming external things doesn't make you a particularly nice person to hang around if you're always complaining or bemoaning something bad. And so I just refuse to let, you know, as luck will have it,
00:14:18
Speaker
you select the hand you're dealt to determine your future. And I think only you can ruin your life if you choose to be jerked around by things that you can't control. So at the end of the day, to me, the biggest professional lesson is changing the events that are outside you is not possible. They just happen. But you can change how you view them. That's possible. So why don't you go and focus on changing what's possible?
00:14:46
Speaker
And I think to me, those, those lessons help you deal with adversity. I mean, a career is a marathon. Things, good things happen, bad things happen. So change what's possible. Which brings me to your life story. And I had totally skipped or missed it during INSEAD. And as I was preparing and as you are more
00:15:11
Speaker
more of a public person than many of us. You said you are not, but there you go. We can find information about you. So I learned this bit about you now, 20 years later. And it is about the time you and your family left Vietnam, were shipwrecked and made it to Australia. And to be honest with you, this is the moment when I read the story, I was like,
00:15:36
Speaker
now I understand why she is where she is. Many things have been written about leadership and you know academia keeps writing but these like to have it that tough as a beginning and to you know to use this as the engine to me that was I read this and I'm like now I get it because we wonder how did this person get there how but
00:16:03
Speaker
Can you can you tell the story? And I don't know how many of our classmates knew it at the time, 20 years ago, but it was a story that really to me, it shook me. And it was something new I learned about you. And it totally informed me about how you are where you are. And you said it already, but can you tell the story? Yeah.
00:16:28
Speaker
Well, look, a lot of people have a story that, a very similar story. And so there's nothing particularly special about it. I think like most people, life is full of twists and turns. And so when my daughter, my oldest daughter was five, she wanted me to tell her
00:16:48
Speaker
what it was like when I was five. And so I told her the story, she wrote a cute cartoon about it, and it was very funny. But when I was five, I remember waiting for my mother to pick my sister and I up from school, and I was born in Vietnam, and that's where we were.
00:17:04
Speaker
And you know the feeling when you get when all the other kids get picked up and gradually you're the last and my mother was very, very late and so something was very, very wrong. And you can imagine the anxiety in the five-year-old mind. And the reason why she was late, she eventually got there. It seemed like hours. It may have been 10 minutes. I don't remember exactly.
00:17:27
Speaker
And the reason why she was late was she was trying to keep our house from being confiscated by the communists. So when South Vietnam lost in the war, the communists, they didn't just take your property or your house, they just moved in. And she was also preparing for our escape from Vietnam because we were going to be sent to this
00:17:51
Speaker
It's called a new economic zone. It's a euphemism for an underdeveloped part of the country that didn't have infrastructure, no water, electricity, anything.
00:18:01
Speaker
And my mother was a professional and my father was in the South Vietnamese army. And so it was a bit like what was going on in Cambodia with the Khmer Rouge, where the professional class, really the middle class were sort of banished to the countryside and
00:18:22
Speaker
property was confiscated. So my parents decided to escape Vietnam. And then we tried three times to escape. And then the third time we were on this riverboat, it wasn't even seaworthy, it was a riverboat. So it's a cargo boat that transports goods down a river. So it's not seaworthy, really.
00:18:40
Speaker
And so, I don't know, 70 people or so were packed onto this boat and it was drifting. And then the reason I remember actually being in a prison cell with my parents, because that was the second time we were captured from trying to escape under the cover of darkness, you know. And
00:19:03
Speaker
And so the only way we could escape was to lie and say we were ethnically Chinese. And so there was a policy at the time that the communists had to expel ethnic Chinese from Vietnam. So anyway, we got to escape. It wasn't really the case. As soon as we reached sort of the edge of the Vietnamese waters, soldiers came on board and killed the crew.
00:19:27
Speaker
So there was a murder, a few murders, and they shot all the navigation equipment on the riverboat so it could not be steered. And so it drifted on the South China Sea for, I don't know, close to a month. And then we got shipwrecked, luckily, on this tiny island in the Filipino archipelago.
00:19:47
Speaker
And I tried to look on Google Maps from time to time to see if I can find the island. But it was so small. There were only, I think, a few inhabitants on this island. But I remember it was very pretty. But as we'd been drifting for a long time without food and water, the adults were so weak, they had to be carried off the shipwreck onto shore. They could no longer walk. And so we were on this island for, I think, a month or so.
00:20:14
Speaker
It had one airport. It was like a military airport. And then we were transported from there to Manila at this refugee camp. And so that's where we were for about eight months. And then my mother wrote to the
00:20:28
Speaker
UN, what's it called, the UN Council for Refugees. I can't remember what the body is called exactly. So she spoke French. She wrote in French asking for asylum and we were very lucky we got asylum in Luxembourg. The Luxembourg government wanted a French-speaking family.
00:20:45
Speaker
So this would have been great. In an alternative future, my French would have been impeccable, and my skiing probably pretty excellent too, but that's not what happened. What happened was there was a change in policy in Australia, and the government at the time accepted families from Australia. So that's how, from the Philippines, and that's how we ended up growing up in Australia. So French not so good, skiing, they're non-existent.
00:21:14
Speaker
but I have a cool Australian accent. So that's sort of the story and so I have a lot of love for the people of the Philippines because they just showed a level of kindness that you never, you grow up and you're never able to repay that because they didn't, they got nothing out of doing that.
00:21:33
Speaker
And of course, I have a lot of love for Australia because I was lucky to grow up there. It's called the Lucky Country for a reason. So lucky to grow up there and to gain education and a lot of opportunity. And of course, now I live in America, which is the land of opportunity. And you know, it's got a fantastic merit-based system where quite frankly, you can succeed if you work hard
Entrepreneurial Beginnings
00:21:57
Speaker
in M-High. So that's the initial story.
00:22:02
Speaker
But actually, there's a second story, Melena, if you don't mind. And I think this is a much more pronounced story. And that story is, you know, when you grow, you know, life gives you certain tools, depending on how you get brought up. And when you grow up poor, you get a lot of tools. And so as newly settled refugees in Australia, you have nothing. And it's very difficult to kind of rebuild life. And lots of people have this experience.
00:22:30
Speaker
And that's probably the more pronounced it because I was too little. I mean, I remember very much about the boat journey and that's somewhat interesting, but I was very young. And so my mother was a single mother. She raised four kids. Two weeks after we land in Australia, my sister was born. So she was pregnant through this whole journey. Can you imagine your
00:22:51
Speaker
you know, really early 30s and you decide to leave a country in its foreign language and with little kids. Can you imagine doing that today? That takes a lot of bravery to do that. But growing up poor, I had to support her. I had to find a way to go to college. And then so I had to think about how do I make a lot of money while going to school?
00:23:16
Speaker
That was the problem statement. And so I had a very unoriginal idea of, well, I'm a really good student.
00:23:24
Speaker
So how about I teach other students? How old were you? I was 16. So in Australia, to get into university, you have to pass an entrance exam. Everyone in the state has to pass the entrance exam. And depending on your score, you get to decide what courses to go into. So medicine and law, you need very high scores. Social studies, not so much, low scores.
00:23:50
Speaker
But so that's sort of how it works. And it's not what you did at school. It's really your score at this test. So I was a good student. And so at 16, I started a business.
00:24:02
Speaker
So I figured out how to create a new company. I did some marketing. I got some students. And after about a year, I had 100 students. So I converted the garage, my bedroom, and the living room into classrooms. And so I would go to school Monday to Friday. I would spend Friday afternoon preparing lessons. And I taught all weekend. I worked 20 hours a week doing this.
00:24:29
Speaker
And I made more money than when I first got my first job at McKinsey, when I graduated university. I did this for six years in this business. And in the last year of university, I had three jobs. I had my business, which was Friday to Sunday evening. I had an internship at an investment bank, being a quantitative analyst. And then I had a job at the university and I was studying, so that's four jobs. So I was a really terrible student, but I need to do all these things because
00:24:59
Speaker
just financial necessity. And so you learn skills and I think that's what I got interest in entrepreneurship and businesses. But so it's interesting that you started entrepreneurial and you've graduated to the most blue chip corporate environment that's out there. Metronic is 115 billion market cap company. You said 2.3 billion revenues of your division.
00:25:28
Speaker
And I don't know how many employees, but it's a blue, blue chip corporate. So how, how do these things reconcile in your personality? Because entrepreneurial corporate, typically the perception is that they require very different skills. Cause in entrepreneurial, typically you have to get on with the work and find new ideas in corporate. There's quite a bit of communications as well of all sorts. So.
00:25:57
Speaker
And this brings us to the sea, to discussing the chiefs, the sea, the sea suite. So it's actually a nice transition as well. So what's your take there?
00:26:08
Speaker
on your personal journey. I think it's a fair point, but I don't think it's incompatible because in order to be successful, you have to be able to figure out where the world is going. And I'll give you a good example of that and how I sort of ended up a bit away from software to this sort of physical world thing. Like you look in the last 20 years,
00:26:34
Speaker
You know, software has had a huge impact on two big industries. One is media, the way we consume media and television and newspapers completely revolutionized by digital. And then the other industry is retail. I mean, it's 24-hour shipping from Amazon, right? It's completely different. And in the next 20 years, it's going to be every other industry will go through changes that dramatically.
00:26:58
Speaker
And that is accelerating that trend. And so I think for me, I've always ended up in the, for some reason,
00:27:08
Speaker
in the crappiest part of companies that actually happens to be where the future is. And I'll give you a couple of examples. Example one is when I joined Microsoft, I was asked, you want to join Windows or Office? And I picked MSN, which at the time was the smallest business, made no money. In fact, it was losing money. And this didn't have any prestige.
00:27:34
Speaker
But that was where the future was. It was the future consumer software and services upon which all the cloud and microservices are built today and the rise of Azure and so forth. So if you look for where the puck's going to use the cliche, that's where the opportunities isn't in where people have already built things. And maybe those places are very prestigious, but you have to have your own independent thought process for where the opportunity lies.
00:28:04
Speaker
So I had a great experience working on all those foundational technologies which are in vogue today. Another example is the business I'm in now. The business I'm in now is not the largest segment of the company. It's more consumer. It's very direct to consumer. It isn't selling to hospitals.
00:28:26
Speaker
And it has a lot of the consumerization, the software development that Medtech will go through. And so that's where it's very exciting. There's a lot of change. And when there's change, there's inflection points and there's opportunity. And you learn and you build skills that are sought after by a lot of people.
00:28:45
Speaker
So I don't think they're compatible. I think it's choices people make. Do you want to do something that people have already built and then you incrementally improve on that? Or do you want to create something brand new? So I think of myself as probably a bit of a builder, someone who likes to build things and is entrepreneurial.
Path to the C-Suite
00:29:03
Speaker
And I have found ways to do that at scale at large companies. Okay, so the scale, okay, at scale. So there you go. So you just do an entrepreneur in other words.
00:29:13
Speaker
Just doing it at scale so you skip all the painful seed, Series A, B, C, et cetera, rounds of small startups. You have five cents on getting to the top, the C-suite for all the aspiring chiefs among us and maybe the younger alumni as well. Well, maybe a couple of ideas.
00:29:39
Speaker
I think that there's probably two paths that you can go to get to say an extraordinary level mastery in your field. One is to be the absolute best in one thing. Like you're going to play in the NBA or you're going to be a platinum musician.
00:30:05
Speaker
a fantastic sports person. That's one part. Just work on being the Nobel Prize, work on being extraordinary in one specific thing. That's one part. And then the second strategy is to become very good, say top quartile at two or more things that the combination of which makes you sought after. The one is you've got to build. So I think of it as Scott Adams, the author of
00:30:32
Speaker
Dilbert came up with this term, the talent stack. And he basically says, you know, you can basically develop a variety of skills that work really well together. For him, he says, I'm not the best artist in the world. And I'm not the funniest person in the world. But the combination of his drawing and his comedy, you get Dilbert. And this guy's a multi-millionaire.
00:30:58
Speaker
And so I had probably the same thing by accident, where my talent stack is a pretty deep software experience, but I'm not Bill Gates. I see myself as a bit of entrepreneur, but I'm not Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk.
00:31:12
Speaker
I've got some manufacturing, I've got a strong work ethic and some of risk tolerance and some courage to do things. And so that combination makes me unique and unique such that I got my first C-suite role at age 41 and I've had three roles in senior leadership teams.
00:31:32
Speaker
So one is to figure out what skill set you're building in order to get to that level. What is your talent stack that makes you particularly unique and sought after? And the second thing is, I would say, what do you want to be in the C-suite? These roles are 24 by 7. They're always on. You've got to be a microscope and a telescope.
00:31:55
Speaker
You've got to be prepared to make sacrifices. Maybe you have to move. Maybe you have to travel a lot. So be careful what you wish for. And so I think if you still want to do it and get to the C-suite, focus on creating unique things for customers. You've got to contribute in some way. You know, don't be political and don't be seen to be someone. Don't be someone that's seen to be doing something. Be the person doing something.
00:32:21
Speaker
And then I think the opportunities will find you. Poses don't make it. That's very interesting because the average person I'd argued would have in mind for big corporates, a lot of politics and being very political to get to the top. So you're saying something very much.
00:32:43
Speaker
in the opposite direction, which is refreshing. But I don't know how many organizations you can apply it to. I don't know. I'm just going... Well, you have to find the right culture that suits your value system and is based on merit, say. Yeah. Thank you.
00:33:03
Speaker
And for me, don't be a poser. Actually contribute. Figure out what is your unique contribution. Be really, really good at it. Build your talent stack. And then the opportunity will find you. I have not, like right now I'm focused on diabetes and doing a good job and really delivering for our customers. And I really believe that you do that. And this has been my experience in the last 20 years. If you're really focused on contributing,
00:33:33
Speaker
Building uniqueness and differentiation in your talent stack, opportunities will find you. You don't have to go down the path of... You can compete by being political, by being self-promotional, but you're not really adding value. And I want to go to bed every night knowing I did my best and contributed.
00:33:55
Speaker
But at the same time, you've got to want to do these jobs. These jobs are very lonely. They're extremely taxing and you will make personal sacrifices to get there. So you've got to want to do it. And if it happens, it's great, but it does looks fine too. Yeah. You mentioned lonely and I've jotted down here to ask you, how do you deal with the loneliness of the role? How do you, where do you get your
00:34:24
Speaker
advice or support when you need it in whichever way. What's your system? Well, there's probably three things. The first thing is I'm not seduced by being a victim. Sometimes when bad things happen, I may feel sorry for myself for two seconds, but I don't let that take over. And I try very hard to change my view of what happened and learn from those things.
00:34:54
Speaker
Because if you don't, you can be in a negative spiral. And so one is internal fortitude. Emotional stamina. Because not everyone's going to like what you do. And you're not going to have fans everywhere. So that's life. And you have to be able to cope with that. That's one. Second is, it helps to have a great spouse and a very supportive and loving family, which I have. And that takes a lot of work too.
00:35:21
Speaker
The third thing I would say is it's also helpful to have a personal board of directors. It's people that you trust and you've built relationships over time that can pull you back from the brink of your excesses or when you have blind spots.
00:35:39
Speaker
and you may not see well. And so having some external perspective is very helpful. So that's why cultivate relationships. Do it because they're your friends or they're people you respect and admire, not because it helps you get ahead, because that personal board of directors helps you stay grounded and humble. And they can say, you're being a jerk or you're being not a very good person this way. So you need some guardrails.
00:36:07
Speaker
And so your family is a good guardrail, so is having sort of this personal board of directors in your life. Hmm. I like this concept. And last here, to close on the business discussion, diabetes. You mentioned it in the beginning and some big numbers, but can you give us the big picture on what is happening? It's a big problem in the States. It's a big problem in all of the developed world. It's becoming a
00:36:36
Speaker
more of a problem also in the developing world. What's the big picture? It's by some accounts an epidemic of sorts. So what are the headline numbers we should be aware of? And what's the reality? What's the hope for the future? Things you're working on, obviously, without giving a secret.
Innovative Diabetes Management at Medtronic
00:36:58
Speaker
Well, diabetes is a disease.
00:37:04
Speaker
is when your pancreas stops producing insulin. And you need insulin to break down food into energy. So it's actually very important. If you don't have the hormone insulin, you can't survive. You die eventually. So 100 years ago, actually, we're just at the 101 anniversary of the discovery of insulin. So 100 years ago, if you had diabetes, you didn't live very long. You die. So there's two types of diabetes. There's type one, and type one is
00:37:34
Speaker
seen as autoimmune disease. It's often diagnosed, not always, but often in children. And so your pancreas just stops working. No one knows really why that happens and there's no cure.
00:37:46
Speaker
And so that's why sometimes diabetes is called juvenile diabetes, because it was seen in children. And then there's type 2. There's a range of type 2, but this is typically where your pancreas may be working some, but inconsistently. And so some of it is driven by lifestyle, obesity, lifestyle drivers. And so this population needs insulin.
00:38:15
Speaker
The focus of my business is on type 1 and type 2, insulin dependent. They must have insulin to just stay alive. And then there's other type 2 where they can take oral prescriptions, take drugs to help keep their pancreas working for a little bit longer. Some of those become insulin intensive over time, but that's sort of the population. So there's about 7 million people that have type 1 and type 2, insulin dependent.
00:38:43
Speaker
And that's our focus. That's a lot of people. If you then go to say the broader type two, you're talking about 200 million people that need some sort of medication. And then beyond that, you have pre-diabetes. You could argue a lot of us are pre-diabetic. And then beyond that wellness, because on the continuum, if you don't have a healthy lifestyle, you can develop like diabetes.
00:39:14
Speaker
We're focused on the toughest part of the therapy. And what we do is we make medical sensors. They're called continuous glucose monitors. We have an insulin pump that delivers the insulin automatically. And we have an algorithm that runs that whole system so that users have hands off. It manages it for them. Of course, there's a lot of work around diabetes management. That's only one part. And so our goal is drive better outcomes.
00:39:43
Speaker
which is managing your blood glucose and then doing it in a way that simplifies your life as much as it can. And the problem with blood glucose is if you have too little of it, you may see people look confused and you don't feel very good. And if you have really, really low blood glucose, you have to be rushed to hospital. You have lots of complications. If you have too high blood sugar, meaning not enough insulin to break down the sugars in your body after you eat,
00:40:10
Speaker
then you risk long-term eye damage, brain, you know, heart disease, kidney disease. And 25% of healthcare is spent on diabetes. That's a lot in the world. So that's what we work on and it's very rewarding. And if I name and I receive this email from a patient, if you don't mind if I can read some excerpts of it.
00:40:36
Speaker
And the heading of the email says, a heartfelt thank you for transforming my life. So this says, as you know, I recently transitioned to the MiniMed 780G along with the Guardian, sensor four. And though it's only been a few days since I started using this setup, I'm absolutely astounded by its efficacy. To say that this is a remarkable achievement would be an understatement. It has been nothing short of revolutionary for me.
00:41:00
Speaker
The automated insulin delivery coupled with cutting-edge glucose monitoring has effortlessly improved my timing range to a staggering 100%. For someone who has been managing diabetes for over five decades,
00:41:13
Speaker
witnessing the level of glucose control achieved in the last 24 hours has been unprecedented in my experience. I have earnestly longed for the day when I could bid goodbye to the constant stress and struggle of managing my blood glucose levels. This system in its own way brings me close to a cure as I could ever dare to dream in my lifetime. And when we make systems technology, advanced technology like this,
00:41:39
Speaker
that has this kind of reaction within 24 hours of use by somebody, you can understand the stress and burden of this disease and how meaningful it is for those of us working in electronic diabetes.
00:41:52
Speaker
My grandfather was diabetic and I think I was 12 years old when I was actually administering one summer vacation. I was giving him the shot of insulin. And yeah, then of course he didn't live very long and had the gun green. And so yes, I know it firsthand. So I'm tearing up a little bit there, but there you go. Amazing. Hopefully to the extent that we can manage our health,
00:42:22
Speaker
Stay of obesity is one good advice, right? And Melena, if I can say, you know, I used to think working on software apps was really exciting and it was going to change the world. But now I look at, you know,
00:42:42
Speaker
Let's say if you make a game on the iPhone, is that as thrilling as applying your brain power and your energy towards something like the area of diabetes where you can really help people's lives? It's just not a no-brainer for me. Absolutely. Because you ask, how do you end up here? That's really why.
00:43:04
Speaker
Well, it was also Sylvia in an earlier episode, I'm quoting from memory, so it's not going to be precise, but she said, the last 20 years too many bright minds have been wasted on creating advertising revenues for companies.
00:43:24
Speaker
this potential could be invested elsewhere for much better courses. So there you are.
Philosophy on Giving Back
00:43:29
Speaker
You are one of those examples. So that's exciting. If we can switch gears and talk a little bit about giving back. Now, again, I was reading up on you and I read you received the Women Worth Watching Award in the US in 2018. And this is where I learned that
00:43:51
Speaker
Your favorite charity is the Catholic Church, which at first I was, wow, the Catholic Church, really? And then it went into the details of why, and it was specifically the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul in Australia. And this is linked to the story you were giving us earlier about you finding your way in Australia.
00:44:15
Speaker
I wanted to ask you, and I ask this of everyone, how do you think about giving back in general? And how do you choose where to give? And obviously, it's money, but it's also time. It's also the thought and helping others in all sorts of ways. So what's your framework or frame of thinking on this?
00:44:37
Speaker
I think you said it right. One of the things I love about America is the generosity of people here. Having lived in Australia, but also in Europe, coming to the US, it's one thing that's very pronounced. You meet people from all walks of life. They could be super wealthy, just more modest, or even people who struggle. What you see is it's very much in the culture to give back.
00:45:04
Speaker
And it's in money, and it's also in time. And I think it's very normal for people to want to work on something and be part of something that's bigger than themselves. Of course, we all want to achieve and maybe get ahead in our career and all that sort of thing. But it's very hollow if you're not doing something, applying yourself to something bigger. And so it is personal. I mean, you know, I'm Catholic.
00:45:33
Speaker
vinnies, the Society of St. Vincent the Poor, we call them vinnies in Australia, they collect clothing, they do a lot. And so when I had, my family had nothing, they were very, very supportive. And it really did help us in the early days in Australia. So today, I apply my energies to health and in particular, the diabetes community.
00:45:56
Speaker
And I want to help, not just in money, because it's easy to give. Like if you have it, you can give and that's good and that's helpful. But applying your skills to...
00:46:07
Speaker
innovating to improve people's lives is another example of that. And also, as you say, your time, your time and energy, and building skills in even the next generation, so they can do more is helpful. Because otherwise you may think about, you know, I did some work in, in the past, helping kids from, you know, poor neighborhoods get ahead. And it wasn't just, you know, here's some money, it's actually building their skills. I grew up in a,
00:46:36
Speaker
in a town that was near Cabramatta. And Cabramatta was the heroin capital of Australia. I mean, it was pretty bad. And so I remember there was a book where you just needed three data points. What your parents did, what your postcode is, and where you went to school, and your future was determined.
00:46:59
Speaker
Right, so you grew up in a poor neighborhood. Your parents had, you know, my mother worked at Australia Post. She was an Emmanuel job and she was a professional Vietnam. She did that for 40 years.
00:47:10
Speaker
And my school was kind of in the backwater. I mean, there was really nothing particularly advantageous about in that area. And I didn't get out of that cycle by having sort of charity contributions. It was people who taught me skills. And so the longer lasting thing is how do you help build up
00:47:35
Speaker
skills and knowledge in people so that they can be greater versions of themselves and reach their full potential. To me, that's the bigger, the bigger dream that we can, you know, contribute. I keep saying I want to put the place on fire. That's with regards to Bulgaria, but yeah, little fire here, there, and one of these days in a good way. All right. So if we switch to the last bit, which is the quick round of questions, if you're ready.
Personal Insights and Future Aspirations
00:48:04
Speaker
I'm ready. Proudest achievement. My kids. Successful you is? Happy customers. Okay, happiness is? A bowl of ramen. Biggest regret? Not being present. What keeps you awake at night? The erosion of liberty. Very timely. Wish you had known someone had told you. Don't agree to something you don't agree with.
00:48:33
Speaker
But you've learned presumably. With time. If you had to do it all over again, what would you change? Nothing. Retirement, ever or never? I have a dream to study at the Cordon Bleu in Tokyo. In Tokyo? All right, well.
00:48:52
Speaker
That's a very good destination. If you had to pick one book, everyone should read and I know you read a lot, but let's see. This was a very high question, but I'm going to pick 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson. Most admired public person. It's actually hard to tell if public personas are real.
00:49:15
Speaker
You're not the first one to give me more or less this answer. I have someone else on the show who is in the film industry and he says, you know, what you see is not what it is. All right. And the last one is, are you coming to the reunion? I'm trying to make it. Yes.
00:49:36
Speaker
Well, if I can tempt you and because that was another fact I didn't realize or I had forgotten this one probably I knew about you is your, I used to a single, single, uh, digit handicap player. No, I was never a single handicap player. I was going to correct you on that. I did not write that blurb in the yearbook, but somebody made that up. Someone made it up, but I used to play golf.
00:49:59
Speaker
So there you go. You know, golf on Friday morning, Daniel Elphin is organizing a few flights. So if we may tempt you, the Fontainebleau club is there for us.
Conclusion and Reunion Invitation
00:50:13
Speaker
And I can finally officially make it official and say that this was a conversation with Qtan Delara.
00:50:20
Speaker
executive vice president and president of Medtronic Diabetes calling in from Los Angeles, which is her home at present. Thank you so much for your time Q and I do hope we see you on campus 20 years later. Thanks Melena, it was fun catching up with you. Thank you. You were listening to the Republic of Instia 20 years later, all 3D podcast edition.
00:50:47
Speaker
It is my hope to remind everyone what an interesting and, dare I say, colorful bunch of people we are and how much we can contribute to each other, be it through ideas, knowledge, or mere inspiration. The podcast is inspired by the original Republic of India yearbook, produced on paper 20 years ago by Oliver Bradley and team. Thank you, Ollie and team, for this contribution to our class's memory and for letting me continue in the tradition, title and inspiration included.
00:51:16
Speaker
Creator and author of the Republic of India 20 years later, all 3D podcast edition, M.I. Milena Ivanova. Original music by Peter Dondakoff would help from their films productions. Stay tuned for more and remember to book your tickets for the 20 year reunion in Fontainebleau, October 6th, 8th, 2023. Thank you for listening.
00:51:50
Speaker
you