Vanwege het internationale karakter van ons bedrijf en onze medewerkers hebben we hun verhalen en ervaringen in het Engels weergegeven.

"Every day is different. Being someone who is bored quite easily, this is a very important aspect for me."

Joy moved from Rotterdam to the Burgundian south of the Netherlands in 2013, after she met her boyfriend from that area during her holidays in France a year before. Joy started working at Medtronic in March 2016. She joined the Financial Shared Service Center (FSSC) to support the EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa) Controller, a newly introduced role after Medtronic merged with Covidien. Joy’s role – as well as the department’s – evolved a lot since she joined. Currently, the EMEA Controlling team consists of three members, one director and two analysts.

Joy about her position at Medtronic

Before I joined Medtronic, all countries in the EMEA region had their own financial controllers who were responsible for their own countries. With the increased size and complexity of Medtronic – especially after the Covidien merger – there was a strong need for an overarching EMEA Controller, a link between all local controllers in the countries and the Corporate Controller in the US. So, the EMEA Controller role was introduced.

After 2.5 years in the EMEA Controlling Team, I recently got the opportunity to become the Finance Lead of Germany for the Integrated Health Solutions group. This relatively new group offers services and solutions to our customers beyond devices. In this role, I hope to get closer to the business and expand my knowledge of the industry.

Joy’s education and career path

In the Summer of 2012, I earned my master’s degree in Accounting & Control at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. In September of that year, I started to work as an external auditor at Deloitte, a multinational professional services company in Rotterdam. I worked in the Corporate Audit department, meaning that the focus was on corporate clients. When I moved to the south of the Netherlands, I switched offices from Deloitte Rotterdam to Deloitte Eindhoven, again at the Corporate Audit department.

After 3.5 years of working as an external auditor at Deloitte, I was ready for the next move. The main reasons for this were the increasing documentation requirements and the missing challenges in my audit role, my unhealthy work-life balance and the driving distance to Eindhoven. In addition, I had almost finished my Chartered Accountant education (Dutch Certified Public Accountant) at the time, meaning that the time was ripe to step out of the external audit world.

Before I moved to the south of the Netherlands, I had never heard of Medtronic. Considering the business Medtronic is operating in, I think this is a good thing. However, when I started thinking about a next step in my career, I searched for large international companies in the south of the country and came across Medtronic. Indirectly, I heard that the company was looking for finance people. So, I submitted my CV and a couple of weeks later I was hired.

Most challenging in my current role

In my role in the EMEA Controlling Team, I worked a lot with the controllers in the different countries within the EMEA region. As communication is mainly via email or phone and not face-to-face, it is challenging to build a strong relationship. Moreover, the controllers are used to managing their countries by themselves without an overarching team. The focus of the EMEA Controlling Team is to break these silos and become one EMEA Controlling Team, in which all countries are represented and leverage each other’s knowledge and skills. However, this (mind) shift requires quite some change management.

In my new role as IHS Finance Lead, my main stakeholders are outside Finance. Therefore, the main challenge I face now is to speak the same ‘’language’’ as my key business partners to avoid miscommunication and optimize the collaboration.

What I like most in my current job

In our team, we have very limited to none operating and recurring activities. This results in every day being different and exposure to a lot of different topics, discussions, situations, etc. As it is part of my character to get bored quite easily, this is a very important aspect of my current job for me.

Last not but least, in this overarching role, we have many different stakeholders. We work with business finance, the local finance organizations throughout the region, Shared Service Centers and Centers of Excellence, but also with other functions such as Pricing, Tax and Internal Audit. This broad range of stakeholders requires networking and maintaining good relationships with different people within the organization. This is also something that I really like about my current role.

What I like about working for Medtronic

First of all, I like the industry in which Medtronic is operating. I think it is great to know that I (indirectly) contribute to the improvement of lives with the work that I do and the organization that I work for. This becomes very clear during the Patient Event we have every year. During these events, patients and their doctors are invited to share their stories about Medtronic products and therapies and how these improved the patients' lives. These stories are sometimes breathtaking.

Besides this, I like the dynamic Medtronic environment. The company is rapidly changing and things keep changing every day. I really like the dynamics and the challenges that these changes bring.

Furthermore, Medtronic is a very innovative company in multiple ways. For example, Medtronic is actively looking for opportunities to introduce value-based healthcare (VBHC) and anticipate changes in the market. Also, the activity-based working concept was introduced by Medtronic, which is a very innovative way of working.

What ‘Further, Together’ means to me

For me ‘Further, Together’ has two different meanings. Firstly, Further, Together to me means Medtronic working together with different stakeholders in the market to serve the needs in the industry best. By means of collaborating closely with hospitals and patients, governments, insurance companies, etc., all parties involved can bring healthcare
Further, Together.

Secondly, Further Together also has an internal meaning to me. I think within Medtronic, it is important to collaborate with different teams and leverage each other’s skills and knowledge as much as possible. Especially within a company of Medtronic’s size, collaboration and communication are key and all teams together can bring Medtronic further.

My most memorable experiences at Medtronic

First of all, the Patient Events mentioned earlier, are very memorable experiences for me. These really show the impact Medtronic can have on people’s lives. Especially with me being not directly linked to the products and patients in Finance, this really reminds me of why I am going to work every day.

Furthermore, I had the honor of presenting the activity-based working concept at the Heerlen facility to several members of the Board of Directors and Supervisory Board. It was really great to show the top-tier people of Medtronic the work style which is being applied here in The Netherlands. They were very enthusiastic, asking interesting questions and we had great discussions during that day.