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

"Creating a culture of openness and transparency."

Roel lives in Geleen, together with his girlfriend, their two-year-old son and recently born daughter. Roel has been working for Medtronic for around 9 years.

Roel about his position at Medtronic

I am managing a team of project managers that are leading cross-functional projects for the Customer Care & Supply Chain EMEA organization (Europe, Middle East and Africa). In this role, I am responsible for managing the team performance, driving the development of the team members and overseeing the progress of the projects.

Roel’s education and career path

I finalized two bachelor studies, which means that I have bachelor degrees in Commercial Electrical Engineering and Technical Business Administration. After graduation, I joined Medtronic right away and I was lucky to have had the opportunity to take several steps in my career within the company up to now.

Thus far, I have switched roles/positions around eight times already. If I had to summarize them, then I would say that there were three main switches: from a logistical analyst to team leader/supervisor, from a supervisor to a project manager role and from a project manager to a people management position. I have noticed that even within the same role, there are still many opportunities and changes possible. Usually these changes are related to the scope, either expanding the scope or focusing on another area of the organization.

Most challenging in my current role

The main challenge in my current role is dealing with the high number of projects and requests, which requires a lot of coordination and careful planning. The next challenge is securing the right balance between the functional aspects of my role and the people management aspects of the job.

What I like most in my current job

I love working with my team. Making sure all members of my team have the opportunity to develop themselves, therefore is my main focus. I like to create a culture of openness and transparency, share challenges and together discuss what would help to find solutions for these challenges. I get a lot of energy from the 1:1 conversations, team meetings, development conversations and updates that I have with my team.

What I like about working for Medtronic

There are several areas that make Medtronic an interesting employer. Firstly, contributing to the mission, making sure our products are reaching the patients every day, is something to be proud of. The next element that I like about Medtronic, is the dynamic environment. Medtronic changes and develops fast, resulting in many opportunities for personal development as well. The last element is more culture related. Medtronic treats its employees well by also hosting some additional activities that allow people to connect and have some fun. For example: the health week, the annual BBQ (not such a healthy week), Project 6 activities, the Patient Event, etc.

What ‘Further, Together’ means to me

I believe that I contribute every day by making sure that my team is supporting the right projects at the right time resulting in high-quality implementations, all of these aspects being connected to our mission, strategy and common goals.

For me 'Further, Together''means that we collaborate and work together regardless of organizational/country boundaries. Together, we have one goal: which is serving our patients and making sure our customers have a great customer experience. If we share our knowledge and our views, we are able to learn and create the best processes for our customers.

My most memorable experiences at Medtronic

There are many memorable experiences within Medtronic, and there were some projects that I was a part of, of which I am really proud. However, I also particularly remember the first Patient Event which I attended, how impressed I was with the stories from the patients and the beneficial effects of our products.