The $25,000 Lesson: Kartik Natarajan on Execution, Resilience, and Leading

Kartik Natarajan didn't plan a MedTech career. He started in financial services consulting in London. Worked through the dot-com boom in New York. Survived 9/11. Did his MBA. Spent a decade at GE Capital. Ran a private equity-owned media company. And then made the leap into healthcare.

30 years later, Kartik's the Managing Director for Getinge Australia & New Zealand, joining in August 2020 - right in the middle of a pandemic - and spent two years leading remotely before meeting most of his global stakeholders face-to-face.

In this episode, Kartik shares:

The $25,000 lesson: Early in his career, Kartik froze when a potential client asked about key findings from a report. The client walked out, saying "I had $25,000 in my pocket to give you." That moment taught Kartik: know your product inside out and preparation isn't optional.

The health wake-up call: Working 90-hour weeks in New York, Kartik ended up in hospital at 27 with an ulcer. He applied to business school and learned to prioritize balance. "The work will always be there. But it's about slowing down and doing what's best for yourself and your family."

The private equity reality check: Tasked with growing digital revenue while print declined, Kartik was overly optimistic. "We struggled to make payroll a few times. We had to lay off a whole bunch of people." Now he focuses on lead metrics - tracking activities before revenue arrives.

Hats, haircuts, and tattoos: "A hat is easy to take on and off. A haircut - your hair grows back. But a tattoo is permanent. Most decisions are hats or haircuts. Less than 10% are tattoos. So if it's a hat or a haircut, go for it." - A framework Kartik picked up from Steven Bartlett.

The "talk them out of the job" technique: In final interviews, Kartik tries to convince candidates NOT to take the job. "I tell them the worst possible scenario. Sleep on it and call me in 24 to 48 hours."

Learning agility over expertise: "Execution is the ticket to play. Learn fast, adapt fast, be curious. Put your hand up for the tough jobs. That's what will get you noticed."

People Day: Every six months, Kartik and his leadership team talk about talent, development, and succession. Getinge invests heavily in leadership development, running annual summits and quarterly coaching sessions.

Hospital transformation partnerships: Getinge is launching a model where they partner with hospitals, diagnose workflow inefficiencies, and guarantee measurable improvements. "If we don't deliver, you don't have to pay for it."

What's next: Getinge is expanding into organ transplantation and parathyroid identification technology, which detects the parathyroid gland during thyroidectomies with 100% accuracy compared to 70% without the device.

Kartik's story is a masterclass in execution, resilience, and leading through crisis.

Transcript

Tara: [00:00:00] Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us today. This is the Innovate in MedTech podcast, a show for MedTech and life sciences professionals that aims to help you get ahead in your career. I'm your host, Tara Sharma, ex tech professional, turned executive search headhunter. An owner of recruitment agency, innovate, search for the MedTech, pharma, and biotech industries with over 20 years of experience in the healthcare field.

For more tips and tricks on how to get ahead in your career, follow me on LinkedIn. Let's dive into this week's episode.

Thank you so much, Kartik. I'm really excited to have you here today sharing your story with our audience and sharing some of your leadership lessons over to you to introduce yourself and give us a little bit of a background of who you [00:01:00] are, who you work for now, and what position, and just a little bit of an overview of how you got there.

'cause you've got quite an interesting story. 

Kartik: Sure. Well, firstly, thank you very much for, for having me. An absolute pleasure to, to be here. So Kartik Nagen, I'm the managing director for Gettinger, which is a Swedish, uh, med tech company, uh, for the Australia New Zealand business. And I've been in this position for, uh, about five years now, just over five years.

And, uh, my journey, I would characterize it as probably a non-traditional med tech, uh, journey. Yeah, so I'm from the UK originally, uh, and actually started off the early part of my career in financial services consulting. So I worked. For a boutique consulting company in London. And then I was asked to go to New York City to help set up their US operations, and then we launched into Latin America.

So that was a, a great experience. Yeah. Um, at the time. And then I happened to be in New York during the first dot. Com boom in 1999. Cool. And, um, I ended up joining McKinsey as an e-commerce specialist. And back in those days, [00:02:00] anyone that had more than six months worth of experience, I guess a bit like AI now Yeah.

Was an expert. Yeah. And so I was hired, uh, into McKinsey. Uh, that was great. For about nine months. Yeah. And then we had the.com crash. Yeah. So I had to sort of reinvent myself and I started focusing on payments and credit cards. Mm-hmm. And then I went and did my MBA, uh, in the US uh, full time, which is. Uh, which used to be fairly, uh, common.

Yeah. Um, and then after my MBI was really seeking more of an operational role, so I ended up joining GE Capital. Yeah. Uh, in the US as well. Um, initially on a sort of two year internal consulting, um, sort of global marketing role. So I had a couple of really good strengths in the Philippines and Thailand working on m and a, um, activities, as well as the integration of a bank that we bought.

I launched a new credit card portfolio, so that was awesome. Yeah. Um, and then, uh, two years after, after that, we had the opportunity to move to Australia. Mm-hmm. Uh, I'd only been to Australia once, uh, backpacking. My wife had, had never been. Wow. Uh, so we landed in, in [00:03:00] Melbourne in, in 2006. Yeah. Um, and then I progressively, uh, worked in a bunch of different roles at GE for the next sort of eight years, uh, or so.

Yeah. Uh, ranging from product marketing, uh, product management, all through to general management and some sales roles. Yeah. Uh, and then in 2014, GE was, uh, selling off their financial services businesses all around the world to get out of, uh, consumer finance. Okay. And so I took a, a redundancy package and I had a bit of a think about what I wanted to do next.

Mm-hmm. And I had a couple of opportunities within financial services. Um, but actually, uh, uh, a close friend and mentor of mine, um, actually said to me, look, why don't you try and do something different? Mm. Because you, you can always come back to financial services if things don't work out. So I actually joined a media company mm-hmm.

Uh, as their managing director of healthcare. Uh, it was private equity owned. Yeah. And the remit there was to grow digital and other sources of revenue while trying to keep. Print revenue, which was declining at a rapid rate. Yeah. [00:04:00] Um, you know, not declining as much. Okay. So I was there for about two and a half years, and it became apparent after that time that they were gonna hold onto that asset.

As you would know with private equity, you want to go in, have an exit. And, and sort of move on. Yeah. Um, and it was clear that they were gonna hold onto the asset for a number of years. And in fact, uh, even today, they're still holding onto that asset. And again, that same mentor said to me, well, you don't always, unless you're passionate about media, you don't really want to be in that industry, um, for, for that much longer.

Okay. Uh, but what I really enjoyed about that role was the healthcare piece. Okay. Um, and I'd had a bit of exposure to healthcare at GE where I ran. Our care credit business. So that's patient financing for, for dental and vets and audiology and, uh, laser eye surgery. Yeah. So I had a little bit of, uh, dealings with sort of dental associations, et cetera there.

Yeah. And then obviously in this role at Sirus Media, I had, uh, a lot of dealings with pharmaceutical. Companies who were our main sort of advertisers in, in the publications Okay. Uh, that we had. [00:05:00] And so at that time, cochlear was looking to, uh, recruit a new team in the, in the services division. Mm-hmm. So I joined Cochlear, uh, for, for a little while.

So I was there for about three, three and a half years. Again, the remit was to, uh, develop new revenue streams and improve the customer experience of recipients globally. I had a team in, in Houston, Texas. Yeah. Uh, as well. And, and the idea there was to progress. Into a p and l leader role. Okay. So I did actually secure a role in, uh, late 2019, early 2020.

Right. Uh, in the us. Yeah. Uh, cochlear had, uh, had, had acquired an organization and the founder was retiring, so they wanted someone to take over. Okay. Uh, that, uh, companies, the CEO. So I was super excited. Uh, and then COVID hit. Yeah. And as a family, we, we sort of un denied about it, you know, it was a great career opportunity.

Our kids were very young at the time. We made, um, the right decision, I think in, in hindsight. Yeah. But at the time, uh, you know, because everything happened so quickly, we weren't sure if it was the right decision, but we made the right decision [00:06:00] to, uh, to stay in Australia. And again, as luck would have it, and I seem to be blessed.

With, with timing getting her, were looking for a managing director. So I joined, uh, in my current role in August, 2020. 

Tara: In 2020? Yes. Wow. Interesting time to be joining. Yes. Med Tech in a new sort of sector. 

Kartik: Exactly. Yeah. And I think for me, joining during the pandemic was a, was a challenge. So, uh, most people were, were working remotely, obviously with the, with the kind of product range that Gettinger has.

Yeah. We are deeply, uh, inside hospitals. So our technicians were still in the ICU or the theater or the CSSD. Yeah. Um, but most people were not in the office, so it was kind of a strange experience to, you know, come into an organization where. There were about 20 people in the office that day, which was more than they'd had for Yeah, yeah.

Since the start of the pandemic. But that was a, a challenge, uh, working, I think remotely in a, in a new company. Yeah. It's always, I mean, it was a little bit easier at Cochlear because, you know, you, you knew the team that you were working with and your [00:07:00] stakeholders, but. Coming into a, a brand new company.

Tara: Absolutely. 

Kartik: Um, and, you know, particularly global stakeholders. It actually took two years for me to, before you met to meet? Mm-hmm. Um, well my boss I'd met just before the pandemic during the interview process, but pretty much everyone else, uh, was a, uh, a figure on a screen. Yeah. Uh, so that was definitely challenging.

Tara: That would've been rude. I can just imagine that would've been challenging. And just coming into a couple of things you said there about your career journey, 'cause it's. Very interesting. You've, you've sort of been, um, seeing things from different angles. You talked about two things and things I get asked about a lot.

So first of all, you did your MBA. Yes. Um, what value did you get from that? Given everything we've, we do now, like how, how much would you advise other people that that's a path they should go down if they want to be moving towards. A managing director GM level position? 

Kartik: Yeah, look, it's a great question and it's sort of somewhat situational.

Yeah. So I did my MBA more than 20 years ago. Yeah. Uh, I did it in the US and I did it mainly because I wanted to [00:08:00] transition from consulting into, you know, what's called sort of general management or an operational role. Yeah. And at that time in the us um, and it was also a, um. Because of the economy. It was just after nine 11, uh, the, uh, economy was not obviously doing very well.

It was very hard for consultants to move into general management roles. So for me it was, it sort of bought me time because I did it 2002 when the economy was not doing well. Yeah. To 2004. And by the time I came in, in 2004, the economy was doing really well. So I did it sort of partly to, to sort of weather the storm, so to speak, from an economic, uh, perspective.

But I also did it because. Um, yeah, as I said, I found it very hard to transition straight into, uh, those operational roles. Mm. So that was sort of back then, I mean, now I would say, as you said. Mm-hmm. Um, the learning, uh, economy is, if you like, or the learning methodology has changed, uh, completely. Mm-hmm.

Um, [00:09:00] you know, when, when I was studying it was, it was university, it was school. It was university, yeah. And then higher education and, and that was it. And that was, and you maybe did a few courses. Now, now it's. Quite different and quite fluid. Yeah. And there's a number of people actually in my team, uh, that have done MBAs part-time.

Yeah. So they'll take 2, 3, 4, you know, plus years to do it. Yeah. And I think that's really helped them. I would say it depends on your background. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, some people in my team, uh, have come from a nursing background. Yeah. They didn't have a lot of that commercial. Um, training, let's say. Yeah.

Other than some on the job training. So for them, they found it very, very useful. Yeah. I, I would say that if you've worked in an organization, in a commercial role for a number of years, um, unless you are looking to make a, a pivot or a switch into, say, investment banking or management consulting. I would say that, uh, in my personal opinion, you're better off, uh, doing, you know, shorter courses.

Okay. And a number of these MBA scores now offer executive programs. Okay. Uh, for a week or a month or, or three months. [00:10:00] Yeah. And I think that's probably a, a better way of learning Yeah. Than doing what I did, which was two years. 

Tara: Two years. It, so, you know, 

Kartik: the, the amount that you actually use. Uh, in those two years.

After those two years, obviously dwindles, of course, over time, and there's probably a handful of things I use, there was an excellent negotiations framework, which I learned in 2003, which I still use. Okay. But that's the only one. From memory, there's probably some other things that are in the brain somewhere that, yeah.

That I use. But that, that's probably the one framework that I, that I do use. And I would advise people because I was an alumni interviewer for Kellogg, and they always say, oh, so watch, what courses should I take? And I say to them, unless. You want to go into, say, investment banking, well then you need to take a bunch of finance courses.

Yeah. I, I would take what is known as the soft skills. Yeah. Uh, because that is the stuff that is much harder to learn. You can learn the other stuff in the textbook. Yeah. I mean, yes, you need a foundation of statistics and economics and accounting and all that stuff. Yeah. But beyond that, if you have electives, I always encourage people, uh, to take leadership courses.

Yeah. [00:11:00] Okay. Because those are the things that you're much more likely to use. Yeah. As you grow within an organization. 

Tara: Okay. That's fantastic advice. And like you said, there are a lot of shorter courses. A lot of these M-P-A-M-B-A providers provide Yes, yes. Mentoring. So such a common theme from everybody I interview.

Yes. You know, are there specific mentors? And you've definitely referenced one there a few times. Or influences that have played a really significant part in your career development? 

Kartik: Yes, absolutely. So there was, uh, that one individual that I, I referenced earlier, um, and he was my direct manager for a while.

He then got promoted and he was. My sort of one over manager. Yeah. Um, and he actually wa was a mentor to me in a number of the different career decisions that I, that I had to make 

Tara: within that company or outside, 

Kartik: within that company. And outside. Right. So when I left ge, as I mentioned, I had these other options.

He was the one that sort of said to me, Hey, uh, do something different. Mm-hmm. I remember when I [00:12:00] started at getting it, I met with him for an hour to say, look, I'm joining during a, a pandemic. Yeah. Any, any sort of advice. You have, what shall I do first? He was instrumental in that, right? And actually earlier in my career.

Uh, and I think this is what good mentors do is, well, number one, he, he, he taught me, he said, you, you are your own CEO Mm. And what he meant by that is surround yourself with really good people. So think, think of yourself as a company. If you're running a company like, like you are, you have advisors, you have mentors, you have a board.

Mm. And. You know, so think of it like that. It's not just you and your direct manager. Think about other influences. So that's where he sort of came in. I had another mentor who mentored me throughout GE as well. He'd run a number of country businesses in Europe. He came to Asia Pacific. He was able to help me sort of navigate the GE landscape.

Outside of a NZ because, you know, a NZ as you know, is, is quite often for American and European companies, you know, the other end of the world. Yeah. We're sort of an afterthought. So he really [00:13:00] helped me with, uh, with that. Okay. Um, as well. And, um, so, so back to the, the individual that, that saw the, the best in me, um, we had a situation at GE where, um, it was back in 2009, I think, from memory where we had a restructure.

Uh, and at that point I ran this. Care, credit business that I mentioned before. Yeah. And then we had, uh, a couple of other leaders that ran, you know, retail businesses and the restructure was to combine everything into one. A sales team and, and appoint a sales director reporting to the md and then a partnerships director role, which would, you know, look after the corporate accounts.

Okay. And then one person would, would, would leave the organization. So it was three roles into, into two. So we all got interviewed and, and we were asked, you know, what's your preference? And back then I thought I, I would like the partnership director's role, even though it's a smaller team. It, it's kind of what I've done before.

I'm comfortable with it, you know, I think I can do it well. So the interviews happened and then the MD called me [00:14:00] in and said, look, I've decided to give you the sales director role. Okay. And I said, oh, well why is that? Because I, you, I'm happy. 'cause it's more senior. It reports to, to you as opposed to the partnerships director, which was one level down.

Yeah. And he said, because I've seen your experience, I've known you for a while now. Mm-hmm. And you need to really round out these skills. And the skills you need to round out is. Leading leaders. Yeah. And leading a diverse team and then leading a, a team of individuals who are different from you. Yeah, and that was absolutely true because I remember coming into the job, uh, day one and historically in my leadership roles, I had led.

People that were similar to me, right? Mm-hmm. So they were quite educated, they were motivated, um, they were commercial. Mm-hmm. And I come into this sales role and I must have been early to mid thirties. Yeah. I think from, from memory. And there were people that were 20 years older than me. Yeah. Some of them were not commercial at all.

Mm-hmm. They were certainly not corporate. Uh, they had a completely different mindset. Uh, to me, you know, a lot of them were there just to put money on the table, put food on the [00:15:00] table. Yeah. And so that really was my first sort of foray into, wait a second, I, I can't just keep leading and assuming that people are gonna adopt to my style.

Yeah. I need to kind of find out what motivates them and get to know them on a, on a human level. So tell me a number of months to, to recognize that. Yeah, I mean, the first few weeks I was. Sort of doing the usual thing that I do when I get into a new role. Yeah. Uh, but this really taught me to adjust my style.

It taught me to really sort of meet them where they were. Yeah. As opposed to where I wanted to take them. 

Tara: Yeah. Yeah. It's such a big lesson, isn't it? I remember stepping into my first leadership role and thinking, oh, well, surely what I've done will work for everybody. 

Kartik: Right. 

Tara: Couldn't have been more foolish.

Kartik: Absolutely. Absolutely. Right. 

Tara: You learn through those. 

Kartik: You learn through that. 

Exactly right. Exactly right. 

Tara: Um, just sticking into the mentorship a bit more, how did you identify those people were mentors? How did you kind of harness relationship? What would you advise to other people, particularly if they're looking outside of their organization?

Would you advise them to look outside of their [00:16:00] organizations?

Kartik: I, I would for sure. I mean, within the, the GE context, um, back then we were a smaller organization. We had a number of social sort of gathering. So, so this individual and I sort of connected. Yeah. Um, and, and, and I would say it was an informal, it wasn't, you know, would you like to be my mentor?

Yeah. I would occasionally just say, Hey, can I. Book some time in your diary, I wanna run something by you. Right. So I would say that was more of an informal, um, uh, relationship. Yeah. Um, I would say it's really important to, uh, so within an organization, I think it's really, really important for people to, um, I, I would say sort of figure out.

What they're looking to accomplish. Yeah. Uh, whether it's CareerWise, learning wise, et cetera. And then back to that sort of, you know, you are your own CEO mm-hmm. Figure out how they can get those things done. It may not be a mentor, some of it may be your direct manager. Some some of it may be a training course.

Yeah. Some of it may be networking events, some of it may be conferences. Yeah. And sort of, I would sort of map it out [00:17:00] that way. Yeah. Externally, I think it's really, really important. Um, I'm fortunate enough to have an executive coach. Yeah. I've had an executive coach for about the last four years Yeah. Or so.

And I've the same one. I've moved onto another person now. Yeah. So I had a lady initially Yeah. Um, within the same, uh, coaching company. And then now I have a gentleman who's an ex CEO, who's a number of. Boards. And that's incredibly helpful to me because he can really challenge me around, Hey, why are you doing things this way?

Mm. And then I can also ask him, well, when you are A CEO, how did you approach X, Y, and Z? Yeah. And so I found that to be incredibly helpful. We can, we can often be very insular, uh, particularly when we've been with an organization for, for quite a while. Yeah. And so I think getting that outside perspective really helped.

Tara: Yeah. No, I think that's great and I think, again, people will ask me that, you know what, there's a big difference between mentoring and having a coach and a paid coach. Correct. And then training courses and everything. I love the way you think of it. Like you are the company, you're the CE, you're own company.

Exactly. And here's, here's what you need to, to put around you. That's great. [00:18:00] Kind of moving into, you know, you've had a number of years in leadership positions now. Obviously more recently in this sector, you know, how would you describe how, you know, your leadership style and, and your leadership philosophy?

Kartik: Yeah, so I think that the first thing for me around leadership is I, I do strongly believe that leadership is contextual or, or situational. Yeah. Um, there's a lot of things that I read on LinkedIn and, and other. Uh, platforms that say, oh, you must, um, uh, empower your people fully and, um, and trust them. And, and, and I absolutely agree with that.

Uh, but I do think it's contextual and situational. And, and the best example of that is during the pandemic. Mm, I don't think anyone was looking for someone to empower them to figure out how to deal with the pandemic That needed very direct, very strong in my opinion, leadership that said, okay, we're in a crisis.

We've assessed it, this is what we are gonna do. Yeah. Um, and, and that's obviously the, the complete opposite to having a great [00:19:00] team that's performing really, really well. Yeah. Um, that knows what they're doing. That is absolutely about empowering them and trusting them. So that's probably the first thing I would say.

Yeah. About leadership, I think the, the definition that I always use for, for, for leadership is. Inspiring team members to achieve a higher purpose. And it's my job as the leader to, you know, to really paint that picture of the future and inspire them to, to follow along, so to speak. So if you sort of break that down, I think it starts with creating a shared purpose.

Mm-hmm. Um, and an organization like mine, um, the purpose of why everyone comes to work is slightly different. Yeah. So at getting there, we actually, uh, had a bunch of workshops with people where they got into their functional areas initially. Uh, so the finance team, the sales team, customer service, et cetera.

Why do we come to work? Yeah. And then we, we took the, uh, representatives of each of those seven or eight functions and we said, is there a common. Thread here. And there was, and for us it was helping save patient lives, to bring loved ones back home. Yeah. [00:20:00] And I think that's really important, whether you're in the warehouse packing something.

Yeah. Whether you're a, a clinical, um, uh, sales rep, uh, whether you're in logistics doesn't really matter. That purpose really resonates. I think that's the first thing. Um, that, that, that I would say. The second thing is. Communicating that purpose continually. Okay. And that's another thing I've learned from a leadership perspective.

You can't just say something once or twice or even three times. You probably need to say it 10 times. Yeah. Because people are so busy, they have so much coming at them that you can't expect them to hear it in a town hall once and then go, yep. Okay, I've got it. No, so it's, it's about reminding people why we do what we do, particularly in tough times where it's easy to, to get overwhelmed.

Uh, it, it really does help to know that you have that, that sort of purpose. Yeah. And then I think the third thing is taking that purpose and translating it into, into a strategy. Yeah. You know, where do we play, how do we win? Um, and then my job and then tracking. That strategy. Yeah. Uh, and we use objectives and key results to, to do that.

We have activities [00:21:00] that, that we say we are gonna do. Every quarter we do a traffic light report to say, you know, are we doing them, are we on track? And then that's probably the last thing, is that continual, what I call feedback loop. Yeah. So how are we doing, you know, if we, if we had some wins, we absolutely need to celebrate them.

Uh, if we've deviated a little bit, Hey, what do we need to get back on track? Or if the market changes, you know, customers change the regulatory environment changes. Is our strategy still. Um, uh, the way it should be, or should we be changing our, our strategy? 

Tara: Mm-hmm. Okay. That's great. And, you know, how do you guide your leadership decisions If you've got some difficult decisions to make?

How do you sort of, you know, what values or what guides you. 

Kartik: Yeah. So I think on decision making, I think the first thing is being very clear on what's the decision you wanna make. Yeah. Uh, quite often I find that there's just a lot of talk about a topic, but the first thing is just get really clear on what's the decision we're making.

Mm-hmm. And then what's the decision making [00:22:00] process? So is it, um, you know, who owns the decision? Who else needs to sort of input? Yeah. And then how are you gonna communicate the decision? That's often something that, uh, people miss out. Yeah. And then obviously carrying out the decision. And then broadly in terms of the decision.

And, and there's a, you know, Jeff Bezos talks about type one and type two decisions. There's something I, I listened to on a webinar a couple of weeks ago. She was from Steven Bartlet, but I don't think it was his. Concept where he talks about hats, hair, haircuts, sorry. And tattoos. Okay. And what he says is, if you think about a hat, it's pretty easy to just take on and off.

Mm. If you think about a haircut, okay, you can get messed up, but within about a week or two, your hair grows back and changes. But a tattoo, and I know you can remove them these days, but generally a tattoo is permanent. Yeah. And so. The advice there was to, to really figure out which decisions are tattoos, because in most organizations, probably less than *10% of decisions are tattoos.

Mm. Most of them are hats or haircuts. Yeah. [00:23:00] So if it's a hat or a haircut. Go for it. Make the decision, experiment. Be curious. Learn. Yeah. And then iterate. Yeah. And you'll get much more out of that than treating it as a tattoo and trying to get lots of data and stalling on the decision. Yeah. 'cause that time you could use to actually make the decision and adjust, try if it doesn't work.

Tara: Yeah, no, that's, I love that. I'm gonna remember that one. Perhaps. Haircuts, tattoos. Got it. Kartik, can you share, share with us some of the most significant challenges you've faced in your position as an executive leader? And that's often where we learn as challenging as they are at the time. Is there anything that you'd be happy sharing with us today?

Kartik: Yes. Look, there's probably, uh, two or three examples I would say, uh, spanning my career. So one was when I was pretty, a pretty young leader. I think I must have been sort of mid, mid twenties or even early twenties. Yeah. Uh, and I was running a, a research and consulting firm, the, uh, the US operations and. We [00:24:00] had a meeting with the, uh, with a customer and, um, it was a, it was a guy at a bank in, in Boston.

And so we flew up to, to Boston, uh, myself and the sales director, and he said, look, this lead is really hot. I think we can close this lead. Mm-hmm. And he and I just, uh, actually once someone on my team had just written a report on the future of, uh, e-commerce in financial services, you know, back when, you know, again, first.com boom.

Yeah. And, uh, he said, so what are three findings from the report? And I just froze. I couldn't answer the question. Mm-hmm. And, uh, he shook his head and he said, I had $25,000 in my pocket to give you, and you just screwed it up and walked out. And, um, obviously that didn't make me feel great. No, but really the lesson for me, there was.

Just know your product. Yeah, know your service, know your, and if you dunno what it is, get the people in that did. So I should have had the author of the report. I should have asked what the agenda would be. You know, there's so many [00:25:00] things that we could have done, but that was the first kind of, uh, big thing that kind of stuck me in terms of the planning, the preparation, having the right people in the room.

Yeah. Um, the second one, uh, was certainly a more personal story. So I lived in New York City during, um, the.com boom. But then I was also there. During nine 11. Mm-hmm. And that was a, a challenging time, as you can imagine. Yeah. But, uh, even sort of prior to that, when I was working in consulting and I, I used to work in the World Trade Center.

Luckily I'd, uh, stopped that project about two weeks before. Oh my goodness. But I had, um, uh, I was working probably about 18 to 90 hour weeks, um, including weekends. I'd put on a lot of weight. Um, and uh, I actually got, I had to go to hospital, uh, because I thought that I was having a heart attack. Turns out I wasn't, it was, um, an ulcer, right.

But, uh, you know, at 20, um, yeah, it's six or seven. I didn't know what a heart attack was, right? And it turned out to be an ulcer and, and it was fine. That was actually, um, a [00:26:00] moment where I kind of stopped, and that was one of the other reasons why I then applied to business school was to say, look, um, at, at that age, uh, I really shouldn't be in the situation where my health is being put at risk.

So yeah, I did a lot to, you know, eat healthily, exercise, you know, do all of that kind of stuff. Lost a lot of weight, but just really from a balanced perspective, uh, it made me appreciate what was more. More important in life and you know, the work will always be there. Yeah. Uh, but it's about sort of slowing down and, and, um, you know, doing what's best for, for yourself.

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, and your family, of course. Yeah. So that was probably, uh, another one. And the final one, um, was a business related one. I think I mentioned to you that I had worked in a private equity owned media company. Yeah. And, um, the remit there, as I mentioned, was to. You know, to try and outgrow the decline in the print revenue decline.

Yeah. And I think I was overly optimistic in terms of how we could do that. Um, when I first got there, we had media agencies spending a lot [00:27:00] of money with us. Yeah. Because they had blockbuster drugs and we were, we were riding on a high Yeah. Uh, for about the first nine months. And then the money. Dropped.

And when the money drops in a private equity, uh, institution, you have debt covenants, you have all kinds of things that kick in. Okay. Uh, we struggled to make payroll, uh, a few times. We had to lay off a whole bunch of people. And I think really for me, that was a pivotal moment around. I think if you talk to my, my team today, they'll say that I am paranoid.

Yeah. And I'm paranoid because of that experience. Yeah. Where I thought that optimistically, oh yeah. You know, the money will keep coming in and we can still take our time to grow these digital, uh, revenues when in fact we didn't have that time. So that, that was definitely a career shaping move for me.

Yeah. Around. Um, absolutely. Um, well, I, I would say also having lead metrics as well. Yeah. So that we can check how the company's doing. Yeah. You know, not just, oh yeah. We are waiting for the ad revenue to come in from the agency. Yeah. So having those, those lead [00:28:00] metrics and then being paranoid, I would say are the, are the two other lessons.

Tara: Of making sure everything's the activities there, that that revenue's gonna come through. Yes, absolutely. Exactly right. It's a good way to be thinking. Not always looking backwards. Of course. Yes. And then just digging into that piece you talked about, around, you know, a young age, working all those hours, like I'm sure is the, the world of consultancy, but also it can very much be like that in our industry, in most industries.

So, yes. What, what. Lessons did you bring forward with that? So, you know, what do you do now to protect your energy and balance so that you can perform for your team and for the business and for healthcare at a high level? 

Kartik: Yeah, look, great. Great question. And I, and I think probably for me, uh, the one thing that I.

Do and I have to do, uh, is exercise every morning, even if it's just 20 minutes. Yeah. Um, and that's something that sort of, I do it in the morning, it clears my mind. Yeah. It sets me up for the next day. Yeah. Uh, even if I'm [00:29:00] traveling, I'll try and get up that sort of hour earlier or whatever so I can squeeze something in or make sure that I, uh, do something when I, uh, uh, get to my, arrive at my destination.

So, yeah. That's an absolute, uh, must for for me. Yeah. Um, I think the work life balance question is very, very individual. Mm-hmm. Uh, I think we all, um, look at work and life in, in different ways. Yeah. Um, and, and so what works for me, and I stress this works for me, doesn't necessarily, won't necessarily work for you or for anyone else.

Yeah. Is that I'm always thinking about the business. That's just the way I'm wired. Yeah. Uh, there are people on my team when they go on a holiday, they switch off. For two weeks, three weeks, whatever it is. They don't take their work phone, they don't take their laptop. And that's great. I I couldn't do that.

Yeah. Now that doesn't mean when I'm on holiday, I'm working constantly. Yeah. I'll check in for about five, 10 minutes every day. Yeah. And, and that just, you know, I is, is kind of what works for me. Mm. Um, the other thing I do is I plan my week. Uh, so, and again, this may not [00:30:00] work for everyone, but on a, on a Sunday, yeah.

Uh, evening, typically, I'll say, right. What have I got for the upcoming week? Yeah. I have a daily standup with my leadership team on Monday morning, so I'll prepare for that. Yeah. Uh, and I'll set up the week and I'll have two or three goals that I want to achieve, uh, that week, which, and I'll then come back to.

Sunday to say, well, did I really achieve those goals? If not, what went wrong? What could I do sort of differently? Yeah. And then probably the third thing I would do is I always try and, um, preserve time to work on strategic, uh, initiatives. So my coaches tell me that at my level, I should be spending 40 to 60% of my time thinking on thinking and on strategy.

Yeah. And you know, some weeks I'm there, other weeks I'm not there. 60% they say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's really, really important for me to, um, block that time. Yeah. And why that's important from a work-life balance perspective is the worst thing that. Can, can happen is you just [00:31:00] get bombarded with meeting after meeting, after meeting.

And that does happen. Yeah, for sure. Uh, and it certainly happens within our organization as well. Mm-hmm. But those are some of the things that I sort of, uh, do. Obviously spending time with family and, and, and friends, particularly on the weekends. I try not to work on the weekends. Yeah. Other than that, those couple of hours on the, on the Sunday and that really, uh, sort of helps as well.

Tara: Sets you up. And if you do really need to go into that deep thinking time, you know that strategic thinking time. Mm-hmm. Because again, we're all different and this is just what works for you. Yeah. But where do you, in what environment or what are you doing or what gets you to that ability to think the most clearly other than exercising and blocking out the time?

Is there an environment that that works best for you? What, what have you noticed? 

Kartik: Yeah, look, for me, I'm pretty, um, the same whether I work from home or I work, um, in the office. Mm. Uh, except during school holidays, if the kids are there then, but I do have a little cabana pool cab [00:32:00] outside. So I've, I've got, so I do need quiet space.

Um, and I do have an office, uh, at work, fortunately, where I can shut the door. So for me, the environment. As long as I've got some quiet, yeah, it doesn't really matter. I tend to, uh, do best midmorning. Okay. Not early morning. Yeah. Not an early morning person, but, uh, I have probably the most energy around 11:00 AM so I try and block out those times there.

Um, and then I, I don't have notifications turned on in teams. I don't check email. So it's just finding that quiet environment. I leave my phone, I don't jump. I do have the Apple Watch. Yeah. But generally I don't, um, pick up the phone or answer calls within that time unless it's urgent and someone's calling me sort of two or three times or something like that.

Tara: So you really, it sounds like you're very aware of what gives you energy. Yes. What times of day work and what you need Exactly. To be able to perform effect Exactly. Is fantastic. And that's half the journey, isn't it? [00:33:00] Exactly. Right. People are getting to the level of, you know. Not that anyone's necessarily aiming for a title, but they're just progressing in their career.

Exactly. It's getting that self-awareness piece is the most important thing. 

Kartik: The other thing I've done, uh, with my team, um, and I've had a bit of a knee injury, so I haven't done it recently, although I'm recovering so I'll get back to it, is walking meetings. Mm. Um, and so I, I do that either, you know, if I'm face to face with someone, obviously we're both walking and we are taking notes either on our phones or using, um, fireflies or AI to, to, to capture those notes.

Yeah. Um, but even if it's with someone remotely. Yeah. Um, you know, for example, I can be walking. Yeah. And the other person can obviously with the camera off be doing the notes and maybe next time we, we sort of switch. So yeah, I, I was doing that and most of my direct reports are based in Sydney. So most of the time, uh, we would go out for an hour and it's just, it's just great how that, it's just brilliant.

So I, I do need to get back into that now. 

Tara: So now that you are recovering, it's funny, I did that one day and really overcommitted it, ended up working for about nine hours, [00:34:00] but I tell you. I know, like you've said, you just need that quiet time idea too. Yes. But what I notice is if I really can't figure something out and then I think I'm just gonna drop it, get out in nature and walk, the answer will just come.

Kartik: Absolutely. Yes. And I, and I get a lot of the answers while I'm exercising as well. We go. So for me, yeah. A lot of people say they get ideas in the shower or whatever. Yeah. For me it's uh, actually when I'm exercising the movement, because I think there is some research on that where you work on something, you stop it, it sort of, you know, um.

Percolates in your brain. Yeah. And then maybe a couple of hours after you, you sort of land on something where you think, oh wow, that's the answer. Or that could work. 

Tara: But you've It's come from the percolation. Exactly. Yeah. Love that. So Kartik, what's your, um, approach to making tough decisions? I'm sure there's a lot of them.

Mm-hmm. You know, how do you sort of get yourself prepared to make those tough decisions and decide? 

Kartik: Yeah, so I think the, the first thing is to take the human element or the emotion out of it, which is, you know, [00:35:00] sometimes hard to do. So. Uh, you know, the old sort of, you know, play the ball, not, uh, not the player.

Mm. Uh, adage that I'm sure you've, you've heard. Um, so I always start with, you know, what's the best decision for the organization, uh, and for, um, us to achieve our purpose. Yeah. And then sort of work backwards from, from there. Yeah. And then if. The decision does involve some restructuring or some redundancies or on adverse, uh, impact and we can't avoid it.

Yeah. Because, you know, we always try and to avoid these things and it's often the the last thing we do. Yeah. Then I found that just treating people with respect, um, goes a long way. Yeah. I mean, you hear all these stories about, um, people being laid off, you know, on group emails and video calls, and that's just, uh, horrible.

In, in my opinion. Yeah, so I think firstly just treating people with respect and dignity. And then the other thing I find is when you make tough decisions, if you explain the [00:36:00] why, the other person may not agree, but they'll understand and they're more likely to accept. That decision. So again, the worst thing you can do if you're laying off someone is we've just laid off X number of people.

The best thing you can do is to say, the reason we are doing this is because of this, this, this, and this. Again, not saying people are like it. Yeah. But they're more likely to, you know, people need that closure. Yeah. Uh, and then they can move on. 

Tara: Yeah. They need the decision making behind something. 

Kartik: Yes, exactly.

And the rationale behind it. 

Tara: Absolutely. Yes. And how do you balance sort of, you know. Short term objectives that we all have in, in the business world with those sort of longer term strategic goals and sustainability. 

Kartik: Yeah. Look, this is a, this is a tough one. Mm-hmm. Um, I mentioned earlier that for me it's gotta be that sort of 40 to 60% Yeah.

Uh, of time that I need to dedicate. To, to strategy. Yeah. Um, in our organization. I'm sure it's the same in, uh, other organizations. Uh, so many things come at you. Mm-hmm. And I've had [00:37:00] so many discussions with folks that say, look, I'm really struggling to find the time to work on strategy. Mm-hmm. And actually, what I've discovered is it's a, it's a mindset and that word find.

Is different from the word that I think you also used before, which is preserve. Yeah. Because if you're trying to find time to do strategy it, it won't happen. If you are planning in advance and then you're doing whatever you can to defend and preserve, yes. It's more likely to happen. So what I try and say is, think of it differently.

Think of it as a mindset shift. Mm. Again, there are people that say, oh, I've got my day job and then I've got the strategy. Yeah. Again, that's a mindset. Issue because if you think of it that way, unless you don't have reactive work to do Yeah. And who never has reactive work to Yeah. You're never gonna get to that stuff.

So I think that's really, really important is, is to make sure you have the right mindset when you go into, uh, planning your day or your week or, or your month. 

Tara: Yeah. I, [00:38:00] I really remember, and I remember what I was doing in my life and where I was living, and it was a long time ago when I was in sales, but I really remember the shift.

When I decided every Sunday evening, I was gonna just sit and plan for the week ahead. Absolutely. And now it's just something I can't, I feel really out of control if I don't agree. And the right things don't get addressed that week. Yes. Just makes you feel great. Absolutely. Going into the week, yes.

Doesn't always happen, but most of the time Absolutely. Right. Um, now look, you obviously managing a large organization. Of course this is an area of passion for me, but what do you do to, you know, what strategies do you employ for recruiting and then and attracting into your organization the best people to form that group around you and your purpose?

And then what do you do about developing and retaining that? Talent. 

Kartik: Yeah. Look, it was a, a great question and uh, this Steven Bartlett webinar that I mentioned earlier that I listened to Yeah. It was directed at, at people leaders, and he said, anyone that [00:39:00] is a business leader mm-hmm. You are in the job of recruitment.

Mm. That is your number one job. Wow. You get, you said, when I was younger, I used to think it was, you know, meeting the numbers and blah, blah, blah. Those are all consequences of having the right people on the right seats on the bus. Mm-hmm. So that is what we spend a lot of time doing, is what I spend a lot of time thinking about.

Um, with my direct reports. I mean, I had a, a vacant role recently, which I filled. Um, and, and obviously it starts with a, with a great recruitment process. Yeah. Being very clear on the, on this. Specifics of every role. And it sounds kind of, you know, obvious, but there's a lot of, uh, people that don't do this, you know, mapping out the role.

Absolutely. Having a rigorous interview process with a scoring system. Yeah. Um, you know, you know, Amazon has the bar raiser process, which you may know about. We don't do that yet. Uh, but we certainly try and be, um, impartial, uh, in our, in our interviewing and get multiple people to, to interview candidates.

And then something I do specifically [00:40:00] is then. I then try and talk them out of the job. Mm-hmm. So I do two things. Number one, I always ask the question, uh. On a scale of one to 10, where 10 is a perfectly functioning organization with beautiful processes in place, and one is a completely dysfunctional organization with no processes, where do you work best?

Mm. And and the reason I ask that is 'cause I know that, you know, Gettinger is probably somewhere in the lower middle. Mm. Um, and that's not a bad thing. It means that we have a continuous improvement mindset. Yeah. Yeah. And if you've only worked in organizations which are eight, nine, and 10, you may struggle in an organization like ours.

Yeah. So that's the, the first question. And then what I do. After I've told them all the great things about the organization, I then have, you know, and they've met lots of other people. I then have another conversation where I try and, um, convince 'em not to take the job, and I will tell them the worst possible scenario in their role.

You know, [00:41:00] this could happen and that could happen, and et cetera, et cetera. And I say, I want you to sleep on it. Yeah. And I want you to call me in 24 to 48 hours. And tell me if you still want the job. Yeah. And if you don't want the job, please tell me you don't want the job. Yeah. Because this is as much about you feeling comfortable as it is me.

Yeah. So I find that works to a certain degree still. When people get here, they're like, oh, I know you told me that, but I didn't realize it was, I mean, there's only so much you can, you can say in words Absolutely. Until you experience it. But I at least like to give, uh, people the, the, the sort of fair warning that yes, there are great things, but there are other things that, you know, you may find challenging.

Tara: Yeah, I think that's great, Kar. You know, I think there's nothing worse than overselling anything. Yes. And I think your challenges could be somebody else's, um, something that really motivates them, and it's getting that right. But it starts with transparency. 

Kartik: Exactly. Right. Exactly right. So that's kind of on the, on the recruitment and then sort of once they come in, obviously having a great onboarding [00:42:00] program.

Yeah. You know, that first 90 days, as you would know is absolutely critical. Yeah. And then in terms of assessing talent, we have something called People Day. Yeah. Which we do every six months. It's something I used to do at, at ge. Yeah. And, uh, we basically, um, have a rating system of all of our, our, our people.

Yeah. That's not really that important. But what's important is we, we talk about people and their development. So who's doing well? Who's in the right seat on the right bus? Yeah. Is there someone that, hey, is, is, is kind of, we want 'em on the bus, but they're not quite in the right role or have aspirations to move to a different role.

And that's where we bring in training. And development. Yeah. Um, and we talk about, hey, where do we need to develop our people leaders? So for example, over the last year and a half, we've had, uh, a people leaders meetings. The first time we've done that, an annual summit, we've got an external, uh, l and d person in to talk about feedback, coaching, how to lead in turbulent times.

So we've done a lot with our people leaders. They are the, the sort of [00:43:00] glue I always think that holds the organization. Yeah. Uh, together. Yeah. So we've invested a lot in that. I was very, very fortunate to be at GE for 10 years and GE back then invested a lot of money in learning and development. Yeah.

They had these sort of Crotonville courses that I used to go to that had, you know, other leadership courses. So I've seen the benefit personally in, in having those uh, courses. So I wanna make sure that as many of our staff are able to, to grow and learn and develop with the organization as well. 

Tara: Yeah, that's great because I think it's.

Especially in, in Australia, you know, a lot of the time we are quite commercial functions of a global business. Exactly. And often it can be the top performers that sort of through time end up being in leadership positions. Yes. Rather than it's a totally different ballgame leading as As opposed to being an individual con contributor.

Exactly. And then I can say leading leaders. Yes. So it's. So important to have that development and coaching and, and improve continuous improvement. 

Kartik: Yeah. Look and that's something we, [00:44:00] we realized as well. Yeah. I mean we do have global leadership programs that getting it, I'm sure many other, um, company, global companies do, but with all those programs, it's, they usually pick maybe one or two or three or four people from Australia.

Mm-hmm. So then what do you do? With, with everyone else. Yeah. So this is why, and, and we realized as well that we had some very strong technical people Yeah. That we had elevated into leadership positions. Mm. And sometimes that works out and sometimes that doesn't. Yeah. But what's absolutely essential is that they're given the right.

Coaching support and tools to do their job. Yeah. For many of them, it's their first leadership role. Yeah. Um, and so that's where we saw this, this gap to a certain degree. And we've really tried to, to close that gap with those. Yeah. And it's ongoing leadership. So yes, we had the summit. But then we have quarterly sessions as well with this same coach.

Yeah. Uh, to pick up on various topics. And then we wrap it up with the summit the following year. So it's, it's really a leadership program. Yeah. Rather than just a distinct leadership training course. 

Tara: Yeah. That's really good. [00:45:00] That's great to know. And look, you know, we're in healthcare and it is innovative and we're here to improve patient outcomes.

Like how do you foster a culture of innovation and collaboration? Amongst your team? 

Kartik: Yeah, look. Great. Great question. I mean, as a, a local country business, uh, the things that I can control and things that I can't control, right? So I can't generally control r and d and product innovation. So that's obviously done at our, at our corporate headquarter level.

Yeah. But what we can have a lot more control of is the way in which we run our business. So there's a bunch of initiatives. That we've, uh, sort of put in place, uh, to look at the ways of working, uh, whether we are direct or indirect in certain areas. Yeah. And we had a, a leadership, uh, offsite back in May this year.

Uh, and that included a number of other people as well. So there are about 20 of us, uh, in the room, uh, where we talked about, you know, where do we want to be as an organization. [00:46:00] Mm-hmm. And where do we need to experiment, grow. And invest. And so what's come out of that was that there were six work streams.

We've prioritized that to four work streams. Yeah. And that's all around test and learn and experiment. Yeah. Uh, with a number of different things. We, we sort of track progress about every month or so, Hey, what's going well? Where do you need additional support? And the idea with those work streams is, you know, it could take many years for all of those to, uh, complete.

Yeah. But of course we learn. As we go and we adjust, uh, as we go. So I, I generally find that sort of iterative test and learn methodology, um, is a lot better than when I first started in my career, where it was, you know, big, long, 6, 9, 12 month. Projects. 

Tara: Okay. So you've seen that change over time? 

Kartik: Definitely.

Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. That's 'cause I mean the, the world is changing so quickly. Yeah. The environment is changing so quickly. If you, if you sort of do the, the, the old sort of waterfall, uh, methodology of, of locking something in for a year or two [00:47:00] years, then everything change. Yeah. Everything will change.

Tara: And with ai Exactly. It's completely changing. Exactly. Right. And that's good. I've keep hearing that a lot. The sort of test to learn, fail, fast, iterate, whatever it might be to innovate. Exactly. Right. So look, we're in, again, we're in such an exciting area in med devices and life sciences and doing something amazing in supporting, improving healthcare.

You know, what are you seeing, Karthik? We've talked about AI a few times. Yes. But what trends and innovations do you. See, shaping the future of our industry. 

Kartik: Yeah. Look, I mean, AI is, is the obvious one. So I won't, I won't talk about, uh, ai, but actually going back to first principles and if we look at the overall kind of healthcare system, yeah.

We're obviously focused in what happens in the OR or the CS. D or the, or the ICU. Yeah. But I think firstly realizing that the health system is a system. Yeah. And there's a lot of things that can be done from a prevention perspective, you know, from a primary care perspective before you even get to, to the hospital setting.

So I think companies that [00:48:00] realize this will do well. So I think connected health in some way, shape or form, whether it's at the, the prevention stage, uh, or it's the post discharge stage. Mm-hmm. You know, the at home care, I think that's. A really, really important, uh, trend. I mean, if you look at hospitals these days, um, you know, they can't get enough staff.

Yeah. The staff that they do get, uh, are constantly, um, you know, burnt out, burning out. Yeah. Um, and it's a real challenge. Yeah. Um, and, and so one way to, uh, to try and, uh, to. To sort of come over that challenge, so to speak, is to find other ways of, um, of, of monitoring and taking care of patients, but also within the hospital system.

Um, improving workflow efficiency is a key. Uh, area. And that's where we've tried to have a number of products and services and solutions that, that do that. So I think that's the other kind of key thing. And I think basic, uh, digital health integration [00:49:00] of, uh, different machines. I think that's really the starting point for that.

Tara: Yeah, absolutely. And how do you stay ahead? Like you say, it's rapidly evolving. You've talked about these sort of. Short term test and learn, you know, how is an organization with what you can share, do getting a stay ahead. 

Kartik: Yeah. Look, that's a tough one because as I mentioned before, things are changing ever so rapidly.

Yeah. But I think it is, um, you know, talking to, to peers, you know, developing a, a. Peer network, obviously not, not anything confidential. Yeah. But just, you know, trying to be head of industry trends. Yeah. Um, trying to see what's going on in other markets as well. Yeah. Outside of Australia. Yeah. Where sometimes, uh, an innovator, but sometimes we lag behind other markets.

So that's one of the advantages of being in a global organization. Yeah. As you can see. What other countries are doing and how other healthcare systems are, um, evolving. Yeah. And then the other thing, and I think, um, this is what I try and do with the experience and background I have, is to look at adjacent industries.

Definitely. Um, certainly having [00:50:00] been in several different industries, I would say healthcare is probably the, the least digitally sophisticated absolutely. Compared to say, financial services where I spent a lot of my time. So I think there are. Things that we can learn from other industries as well.

Tara: Mm-hmm. Definitely. And look, you know, there'll be a lot of people listening to this podcast that, that look at what you are doing and other people that I interview and think, you know, that's great. Like, I want, I want to get there one day and I love what they're talking about. I want it have an impact in that way, you know?

What advice would you give to aspiring leaders or, you know, it might be people in your own organization? Outside to, to reach a level where they can make that kind of impact. 

Kartik: Yeah. There, there's actually quite a few, and I, and I keep a list actually of Yeah. Uh, lessons that I've kind of learned and updated every, every so often.

Um, and these are just things that I've learned in, in my career. Yeah. Um, and then the first is, um. Execution is the ticket to play. There are no shortcuts. And I, and I say this because, [00:51:00] um, yes, people target this at Generation Z, but there are a lot of people in the, that, that start off in their careers that want to be CEO in five years.

And that's great from an ambition perspective, but at least in my opinion, there is no, uh, shortcut to execution. And also. Learning through different business cycles. Yeah. 'cause it's, it's easy for people to do well when the markets are always up. Yeah. It's, it's often how you perform when there are a downward cycle.

So I think people need to, you know, go through at least one business cycle and we may be going through a turbulent one at the moment. So it's, it's, it's actually, it's a scary time, but also a great time, uh, to be in business if you can sort of weather that storm. So that's probably the first thing. Yeah.

Uh, the second thing I would say is that. Again, people, um, uh, when they're young in their career, like to do different things and that's awesome. But I would say build an area of expertise. Be known for something before you go abroad. It's gonna be much easier to say, oh, so and so is known for their expertise in X before you [00:52:00] go abroad into, into kind of a other areas.

I found that that sort of works pretty well. Yeah. Um, I would say. Do something that you like and are good at. Yeah. Not something that someone tells you to do. You know, there are so many people telling us sort of what to do, uh, et cetera. I think it's really, really important that, uh, each person looks at themselves as a Japanese concept you may know of called Ikigai.

Yes. Uh, so to do an exercise like that for yourself I think is really, really important. Um, I would say one of the. Key things going forward, certainly that we look for is learning agility. Mm. And so I would say, you know, learn fast, adapt fast, be curious. Mm. Uh, that, that is what is gonna get you noticed, uh, along with execution.

You know, deliver on what you say you're gonna deliver. Yeah. And then, you know, put your hand up for those tough, challenging jobs or projects. You know, the stuff that no one wants to do. Yeah. 'cause that will get you noticed. Yeah. Particularly in large companies. Don't shy away. [00:53:00] Uh, from that, I think, yeah, I think anyone that is resilient, anyone that shows that they can take risks, that can experiment, yeah.

Uh, that can learn. I think that will be a valuable asset to any organization. 

Tara: And I love that. 'cause all of that, you know, obviously, like you said, you've gotta get some expertise somewhere and you've gotta dev become known for something. But everything you described there is a soft skill. Yes. And the, the common thread I see, you know, obviously I do a lot of work in executive hiring is.

The thirst for knowledge. It's like the people at your level absolutely. Act as if they don't know anything and they're constantly learning every day. Absolutely. And having the humility to know that they actually don't know. Yes, a hundred percent. Yep. Anything, you know? Yes. And they're always trying to strive to be better.

So I think that's really great and you've really kind of dug into what you think will make someone successful. And then to, to kind of round us out today, you've been so generous with your time and, and insight. Is there anything exciting, any projects or initiatives? You or Gettinger or the team are working on at the moment that you can share?

Kartik: Yeah, look, [00:54:00] there's a really interesting concept that we are trying to bring to market. We've, we've done it successfully in several other countries around the world, but not yet in Australia and New Zealand. That's our concept of hospital transformational partnerships. Okay. And what that is at a high level is, you know, most organizations are selling equipment or consumables or, or service.

Yeah. Um, and you know, we do that obviously as well. Yeah. Um, but what HTP is, is. Partnering with an organization and for example, in their CSSD? Yeah, looking at the workflow, uh, or theater efficiency, if I take that as an example. So we would go in and we would look at their theater, how it operates, and we'd almost do a.

Sort of an internal consulting project. Yeah. To figure out, you know, what is their throughput, how many operations are they doing each day, et cetera. Yeah. Uh, and then we do that sort of diagnostic and then we'd say to the hospital, look, if you implement our software, so we do have, uh, or efficiency software.

Yeah. Then we guarantee that we'll take you from X [00:55:00] percent to Y percent in terms of throughput. Yeah. And if we don't, you don't have to pay for it. Right, so this is really what I say, is putting your money where your mouth is, right? It's very easy for us to make these claims generically, but it's much harder for us to go in and actually do a diagnostic and say, no, no, we are confident that we can improve this by X percent or reduce your cost by y percent or what have you.

And every single country where we've done this, we've been successful and the hospital has taken our software solution as an example, because the cost of the software solution. Is peanuts compared to the, uh, the improvements that they, that they get. So that's something that's really exciting. We can do this with some of our clinical products.

We've got several clinical products, uh, with a lot of, uh, clinical evidence around reducing of. Wound leg infections, for example. Okay. For EVH endoscopic vessel. Yeah. Harvesting, um, starting to get some traction. Yeah. Uh, but isn't quite a standard of care in Australia like it is in the UK or, or the us.

Okay. [00:56:00] Um, so we've got a couple of different technologies that we want to put through this. We've also got some exciting new products as well. We recently. Um, acquired a company called Paragons, which does, um, organ transplantation. Yeah. Wow. Um, and they're currently heavy, uh, in the US and we look to expand their offerings to our market, uh, sometime in the future.

Yeah. And then probably the final one is, uh, a company we acquired a few years ago called Flu Optics. Yeah. Uh, which has a way to identify the parathyroid. Okay. Uh, gland during thyroid, thyroidectomies, um, et cetera. Right. And that's really, really important because in the studies that we've done, uh, previously without our device, there was about a 70%, um, detection of the parathyroid gand.

Wow. And without. Device, it's a 100% detection. And if you get that wrong and you, you know, cut the parathyroid by mistake, then the patient is gonna have, unfortunately all kinds of other, uh, issues. And so it's really, really important [00:57:00] for endocrine surgeons and ENT surgeons to make sure that they're identifying, uh, that gland, uh, accurately.

So those are some of the, the exciting things that are, that are coming in the near future. 

Tara: Thank you so much for sharing. Thank you very much. You've been so generous sharing your insights. There's a lot that people can take away and learn from that, so I really appreciate you coming in today. 

Kartik: No, my pleasure.

Thank you very much for having me. 

Tara: Thank you. 

Kartik: Okay, thanks.