Frontline to MD: AJ Moreland on Leading the Unconventional Way

AJ Moreland came to MedTech the long way round. He spent the first half of his working life on the frontline as a firefighter and paramedic, then moved to Australia and decided it was time for something different.

He started as an account manager at B. Braun, found his footing, and moved to Dräger - where he spent eight years and ultimately became Managing Director for the Pacific Region.

In this episode, AJ shares:
The needle decompression story: Midway through his paramedic career, AJ's mentor - a US Air Force captain and doctor - sent him alone into radiology to perform a needle decompression on a decompensating patient. What AJ didn't know: his mentor had called the ICU and sent six resident doctors down to watch. You have it. You just need to believe in yourself. That moment became the foundation of AJ's leadership style - find the capability people don't know they have, and put them in the room to prove it.

Imposter syndrome at speed: AJ's rise from account manager to MD was fast. Looking back, he estimates he was burning 30% more energy than he needed to - trying to prove he deserved to be in the room. Who was I even trying to prove it to? Naming that pattern was a turning point.

Self-awareness is only the first step: Knowing your blind spots is not enough. Some people get stuck there. They don't do the work on what to do about it. The real hard work is step two.

Leadership is a torch, not a spotlight: Early in his career, AJ received feedback that he was unintentionally dominating meetings - not from ego, but from drive. The phrase that reframed everything: leadership is not a spotlight. It's a torch. Raise it high so others can see. He still negotiates with himself on this. Every meeting.

Fast decisions and the cost of delay: AJ believes over 90% of decisions should be made quickly. Delay doesn't protect the outcome - it costs the people waiting. If you're slow, you'll cost the business more than you would by making a swift call with possible failure.

Failure as clay: AJ doesn't frame failure as something to avoid - it's the material that shapes you. Attempt 40 things with the right mindset and you'll get 30 or 35 right. Versus trying to perfect 10.

The 4:30am ritual: AJ used to be a night owl. Now he's in bed by 7:30pm, up at 4:30am, 15 minutes of mindfulness, a coffee - and sometimes his son Cooper joins him for a baby hot chocolate. That window is where he sets the tone.

Finding mentors that push, not just support: Find the ones who push you into the uncomfortable more than they comfort you. You may not recognise them as a mentor straight away. But in time, you'll see the feedback they gave you was a gift.

What do you want to do?: When aspiring leaders ask how to get ahead, AJ turns the question back. Not what title do you want - but what do you want to do? Answer that first. Then find mentors who resonate with that why.

LinkedIn and the candidate who found Dräger because of a post: AJ has a love-hate relationship with social media. But he's seen its impact firsthand - a finalist candidate once told him she'd been following his LinkedIn for years and had always planned to apply to Drager when she was ready. I will now get a restraining order. Authenticity travels further than you think.

AJ's story is a masterclass in knowing yourself, doing the work, and leading people - not from the front, but from alongside.

Transcript

Tara: [00:00:00] Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us today. This is the Innov8 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, innov8 search for the med tech, 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.

So AJ, thank you so much for joining me today. For those of you that don't know aj, you are AJ Moreland and you are heading up as MD of the Pacific Region Dräger. Correct. Now, I'm so [00:01:00] excited to have you join me today and I want to hear all about your career journey, and I know our listeners will really look forward to that too.

So let's get into it. 

AJ: Thank you for having me. 

Tara: So first of all, just tell me about how you landed in this sector, into med devices, life sciences, and then what your career pathway has been into this position in  Dräger.

AJ: I think, landed is probably an interesting term. It wouldn't be a, smooth flight from point A to point B.

It's probably more skydiving and happened to land on this particular x on the spot. I can split up my career into two Halfs., The first half I was actually in emergency services. The frontline of being a firefighter paramedic in different capacities. Very drawn to helping people.

So for how I grew up, evolved into that. And then I ended up, traveling the world for a little bit and, I found a partner, that was Australian and came over to Australia. And that was about the time I said, you know what? It's time for a little bit of a career change.

I had some college degrees and a little bit of business experience, entrepreneurial mindset. And decided I [00:02:00] wanted to hit to the corporate life. So, called the dark side, so to speak. And started off as an account manager in Med Tech. That was roughly 10 years ago. And here we are today.

Tara: That's fantastic. People are gonna want to know how you did that. 

AJ: Well if I can figure out, I'll let everybody know. 

Tara: We'll dig into it. And so when you said you started as an account manager. For Drager or for another company? 

AJ: Actually, I started at, B. Braun.

Infusion Pumps, was my products there. And I was there for just about, a year and a half great organization, great people, met some, really great mentors. In fact, some of those mentors now work at Drager. Under my leadership team. But still great organization and people that, helped mold me and say, you know what, this is an industry I wanna work in.

And then I moved over to Drager as an account manager. On that side. And been with Drager for eight years now. 

Tara: And so within that phase of time you've built up to being the md so let's dig into that. A lot of ambitious people out there who are really wanting to make an impact in healthcare and are looking for advice about how to develop their own career.

So let's get into how that happened. That's what I've been [00:03:00] quite impressed about. So. What were the experiences or can you remember milestones that have happened in your career that have prepared you for being in an MD position? Your leadership position? 

AJ: There's quite a few, I think the first one is my chosen first half of my life as a first responder, I didn't know at first how much that was gonna impact, especially the style of leader I've become. But it really resonates over the recent years that, you know what, actually this is really key.

I mean, if you think about it, number one the pure deep empathy. That I personally have for people comes out of, being that sort of caregiver, mentality from obviously growing up as well as that chosen first half of the career. I think the second part is, being a paramedic on an ambulance your job is to assess the situation, look at all the information very quickly, make a decision, and then act upon it. So it's probably very clear that a lot of my decision making comes from a little bit of that background that, hey, there is time that you need to make these swift decisions.

And how do they have [00:04:00] impact? Sometimes the impact can not be the desired outcome. And then sometimes it will but your job must continue on. And I think the third one is about, remaining calm under pressure. I've, been in some scenarios that have been, what would be perceived as quite heated.

And come out of those meetings and some of the team members say, how did you remain so, calm, here's this, say this person on the other side of the table yelling at you. I would comment that it's not the worst situation that you can be in.

So I think having that understanding that, there are worse off situations than some of the ones we perceive ,in that given moment. Give you a sense of calm and collectiveness. 

Tara: So is it, context for sure, like you've said, but you must have developed an ability to really regulate your nervous system. It. As a first working as a paramedic

that you bring into the boardroom if you like. 

AJ: I would say that's an everyday negotiation with myself. 

Tara: How do you do it? 

AJ: I'll probably put disclaimer here. Anything that we speak about today, I probably do not say as an expert or [00:05:00] polished or perfected. I can only share where, I've had my own learned experience.

But at the same time. It's a negotiation with yourself each day. I have my own, false blind spots and triggers that, I think was a big pivotal milestone, is that when you really cross that boundary of number one, where's that self-awareness? How do you understand your blind spots, your triggers, your faults?

That's number one. The number two. What do you physically do about it? I think that's the hardest second part of that. Because it can be really tough to hear people tell you about your blind spots and your troubles. And at first it can be really, confronting. Then when you start to understand that those are gifts from your mentors or others in leadership positions, how do you then now act upon that.

And I think that was one of the greatest gifts that I went through, and actually showed a lot of people up above, Hey, he's got a growth mindset. He's willing to do the work, that puts himself in a position that he can do this himself. And then how can he share that with other people as well?

Tara: Excellent. So, aj, you've talked about mentors a lot and you've talked about how they've helped you [00:06:00] develop from being an account manager to the leadership position you're in today. And it sounds like also having some of those tough conversations with yourself to develop your, self-awareness, which is so important.

Can you share anything about the mentors? You don't need to name names, but are there specific mentors that really have helped you, that you could share insights with the audience? 

AJ: I think there's definitely a handful of them that I will never forget. And in general, I think the one fascinating thing about mentors is you don't necessarily identify them right away.

I think that you identify them as a mentor later in the journey. , And usually I think. Why you can't know is because they push you harder. They can confront you, with different pieces of feedback that can feel quite challenging. And in that instantaneous moment you don't feel like they're supporting you.

But once again, getting to that moment where actually, you know what, that's a gift. And they are supporting you. How does that then push you to do something different? And it's actually one big, piece of feedback I usually provide out there is you have to find people that push you.[00:07:00] 

And the more uncomfortable then they comfort you. If you find somebody that comforts you more than they push you in the uncomfortable, you're probably gonna have a challenge on not really identifying one of some of those key growth factors, but if we get into some of the mentors, in fact, I think this one's at front of mind just because I was using as an example two weeks ago.

I was having a mentoring conversation with, a young up and comer female in an organization that's got really great aspirations in leadership. And she wanted to know more. And one of the topics and challenges for her was around confidence. And in that conversation, she perceives me to have this huge, giant confidence, and how do I learn from that? And I had to share with her. I'm like. I gotta let you in a little secret that's not always been there. In fact, it was pretty much non-existent to my younger, adulthood. And one of my mentors, I think was really responsible for helping me find that. And also gave me a focus on how do I identify capability.

So, US Air Force, captain, he was a doctor. Brilliant man. Very charismatic, [00:08:00] very down to earth. Cool, calm and collective under pressure. I had some discussions with him as a paramedic that I wanted to go to medical school. I'd always had this dream. I skipped it, bypassed it initially after high school.

But I had this self-doubt and this confidence issue and he said, you've gotta do it. You've got the skills, you've got the capability. And I self-doubt him. Well, he decided to throw me in the mix. He put me into contacted surgery, had me go into surgical procedures and, get to toy around with that.

We were doing more complex medical stuff and teaching me a little bit more, building those skills up. And then there was this one day, it was, well one night, we got a call from radiology that, there was somebody that was decompensating on the table, on a CT scanner. Their lung had collapsed, which is now putting pressure on their heart.

And they needed a needle decompression procedure, which a paramedic is authorized to if they don't do it very often. We had, practiced on this, skill set with him and he said, Hey, got off the phone, said aj, grab a decompression kit and a nurse head down to radiology. And he said, I said, are you coming with me?

And he says, no, I'm [00:09:00] not. I said, why not? He says, you got this. And I was like, okay. Walking down to radiology nerves. A shot. What I did not know. And of course I found out very soon, thereafterwards. He called up to the ICU and said, Hey, do you have a bunch of residents up there training tonight and university for doctors?

And said, yep. He says, can you send that group down? I've got a paramedic doing a needle decompression. He'll be able to teach them how to do it. 

Tara: Oh my goodness. 

AJ: Not only was I going into this solo, randomly on the spot, I was now gonna go into a room full of six doctors in their internship, and I've gotta teach 'em through this.

So I had to shake off the nerves and do it. And guess what? Entered their arm, said, yep, we're gonna look for this, gonna look for midclavicular between second, third, intercostal, decompressed. And I got back to the emergency department and I was like, what did you do? 

Tara: You'd be furious.

AJ: That said, why? He said, aj, you have it. You just need to believe in yourself. He says, how did you do? And I said, great. And he says, I knew you would. 

Tara: He wouldn't put you in that situation. Right. If you wouldn't. 

AJ: Huge, teachable moment on having the [00:10:00] confidence in unlocking the skill sets that you don't think you have.

So like from that mentor, I grasp onto that and I brought that into my own leadership style. I really like to find real unique, skill sets and capabilities that people don't know they have. And now how can I drive them? And I love seeing that aha moment. Repeated on them. So that's an example.

Tara: I love that. That is amazing. And how would you advise other people if they're either seeking mentors, should they do that internally within their company? How do mentors come about? How can they seek them externally? What would be your advice there? I mentioned, one earlier is you've gotta find somebody that pushes you more into the uncomfortable more than they support you. If it's flipped a little bit, I think that you won't find that right mentor. To truly find those people that will push you into that growth mindset. And that real curiosity to understand, what is the experience of yourself, and others, upon you.

And what do you do about that? How do you find. The what [00:11:00] ifs about what you want in life? I mean, there's a constant conversation, that gets, put upon me and they say, Hey, how do I progress up the chain like you did? Okay. That's a complicated question. But my question back to them is about what do you want to do?

And they will typically respond with a title. I want to be a global products manager, I wanna be a managing director. And I'm like, I didn't ask what title. I said, what do you wanna do? And they're like, I don't really understand the question. Like, do you want to inspire people? Do you want to be a subject matter expert where people come to you for the answers?

Do you want to, you know, take care? Like what do you want to do? And so answer that question. Then find those people that resonate with that Why? And let them become your mentors. Don't choose the titles. Find people that you say that's a skillset or capability that I want to unlock.

And how do I find, experience from them? And are they going to give me the type of feedback that's gonna be confronting? And do you think that people should have a mixture of, obviously they've got their own mentors within your company. Usually, depending on the size of the company, you [00:12:00] obviously can have paid coaching and you know that's obviously a path that some people can go down and then how would they find people externally, like going to industry conferences, LinkedIn, like how would you advise? Have you ever done that? 

AJ: Yes, in fact, I believe very much in third party, coaching. If we can find the coaching internally as well as the capacity to do so as well. That is obviously very ideal.

But there's a lot of times, even requests for me to coach. As much as I would love to on occasions I can tell. I'm not the right coach. And we've gotta find the right coach. So I've done that on many occasions. Sometimes I can find them very quickly and it's, there's still a lot of, trying to connect the dots, a little of intuition that their passion topics quite match the ideal topics of which we need to coach here.

Do you see a match in industry and alignment there? But sometimes it's harder. We've got a great leader in the organization. That it was probably took me a good nine months to find the right person. And time will tell, even as she starts that mentorship with that third party in six months, is that still the right one? 

Tara: It would change, right? 

AJ: [00:13:00] A hundred percent. We will calibrate that. Even myself, I've gone through, three different coaches in my evolution. The coach I have now would not have been the right coach at the first one. So that's a great example and shout out to my coach Bernard right now. Amazing. 

Tara: We may need to get the details. Excellent. Alright. Thank you for sharing that. And so, you know, you've talked a bit about your leadership lessons along the way. How would you describe your leadership style or philosophy? There are many ways to do this, but I think to simplify one key, there was a, this phrase or quote I saw ages ago that sort of hooked onto me, which is, leadership is not a spotlight. It's a torch. Raise it high so others can see. That really resonated with me on so many levels. I think the first one, I'll be a little bit vulnerable here is probably early in my career I. Didn't fully understand that whole spotlight topic. I even got some feedback that I was unintentionally being the spotlight in some meetings.

As [00:14:00] I worked through that, I was confronted that I'm not trying to be what's going on here. Once you understand the experience of other people. What their experience, which my intentions were, vastly different. My intention was to, my job was to provide input, provide some guidance and so forth.

But in the reality, I wasn't even allowing other people to have a say, have an opinion, and do curiosity. So, that spotlight topic really became resonating on my early leadership journey, and still a negotiation with myself every day and every meeting. And then when you raise that torch high, how do you help shine a light that helps others lead forward?

So once again, you're not technically in the front leading the torch. You're side by side with them leading the torch so they can see where they're going. How do you support them? That is probably a very overarching style of my leadership is to, find those right people. Those right skill sets.

How do I extract and support them and guide them through the journey that's ahead of them. Removing the obstacles as we come upon [00:15:00] them.

No, thank you. That's great that you've been able to be vulnerable because you know, you do learn by making mistakes and you learn by getting good feedback like that.

Right? Like I, as uncomfortable as it is, it's super important to get feedback, to be able to improve. So that's really good to know. And during this last eight years in this particular leadership journey you've been on. And obviously whatever you can share. Can you sort share a challenge, like a really significant challenge that you've had, that you've had when you've been in this sort of executive leadership position?

And what did you learn, like what was valuable from that you've been able to bring into your journey now? 

AJ: I'd say on the personal level, if you look at my journey, it was quick from account manager to MD was very swift. In multiple roles over a short period of time. I think some people would say that's great.

Congratulations. I can look back at the journey, and look at parts of that, I had to overcome imposter [00:16:00] syndrome, for those that probably know what I'm talking about, or at least my definition is about that feeling that. Am I meant to be here? Do I have the right skill? Am I the right person for this?

Do I have the experience and skills to do what people are expecting of me? As that went on, I would say that there was plenty of these nights where I was up till 2:00 AM and some of the commentary I like, look at aj, he's working hard till 2:00 AM. He's smashing it.

I can go back and look and reflect that I was expending. Upwards of like 30% more energy overcoming imposter syndrome. Than I really needed to. Trying to prove that I was meant to be in that role. And at the end of the day, who was I trying to prove myself to? Could answer that question.

So that was probably a big pivotal, journey that when I had that awareness that realization, what do you then do about it? Which there was lots of steps, to overcome that. But overcoming imposter syndrome on that type of rise in different levels was a huge, moment for me.

Tara: And can, this [00:17:00] is something I hear very frequently. So what were some of those steps if someone else is going through this right now, waking up at 2:00 AM like me, what could somebody be doing? What are some of the things that work for you? 

AJ: I think everybody's a little bit different. And I would say that I've gone into like multiple steps of my journey. When I had that realization, like, there's, you've gotta do something, you're gonna red line here. And it's my own doing. Number one was to work on that. What do I need to do to create, certain boundaries?

Where am I actually stepping into do work for others because I'm trying to help them, but in reality, I'm taking away from what they're capable of doing. Or learning or experiencing, and making sure that I set steps up to handle that takes more work in the initial start. But the long-term success of what they're proud of doing and what they feel responsible and expectation and their purpose now offsets the workload that you think you are intended to do on their behalf.

Second part is all about, the disciplines in your personal life. For me, probably a few more [00:18:00] kilos now in my forties than my twenties. But, having consistency in gym time, making sure that I get to different places. I mean, flying here to Sydney, hit up a certain gym every single time, get in the morning or in the evening.

Trying to keep that discipline of self-regulation got into mindfulness. I remember when I was introduced by my second coach and I said, absolutely not. I'm not sitting around a campfire doing Kumbaya or whatever, and he says, Hey, you have a complete misconception of what this is.

Still, I struggled with, some of the more formal, mindfulness. We found a way that was my style of mindfulness. And so, I came to the conclusion, this piece can help with bringing yourself back down in the present moment. As managing director, you could have, a thousand different topics on the go.

And they're, they range across the entire scale. So here's an average business day. Your meetings can be, 20 different topics. You need time to transition between topics, plenty of people out there will be on a meeting where [00:19:00] here's a 30 minute Microsoft teams meeting.

You jump off at the 30 minute mark and then open the new one. Well, they say the brain takes an average of six to seven minutes to transfer your focus on those topics. Well, that means that the next 30 minute meeting, they don't have up to 30% of my focus in that meeting, which means I'm not present.

How are they now experiencing me that actually. What they might be experiencing is that their item doesn't matter because I'm checked out. I'm not focusing, I'm not understanding. So how do you put different key elements that bring your presence back into check? Because it's not only about myself, it's actually about how other people are experiencing you that when that time is there.

Their topic is important to them and to me, no matter what the topic is. 

Tara: I just literally recorded a podcast last week with another leader, which you'll hear soon, and it was the same thing. It's like you could have walked out of a really, whatever it might be, stressful board meeting, and you are over at the water cooler, and that conversation with that person is equally as important.

But how do you [00:20:00] transition? So that's good. You've obviously built that into your day where you can, to have those breaks 

AJ: has its challenges.. But you're correct.

Tara: It's awareness again, isn't it? 

AJ: It is, and one of the things that pop up all the time when people wanna schedule a meeting that says, I know you have a busy day.

And I'm like, my day, they're always busy. My job is to be here for you. So don't ever apologize for that. And always make the time. And when that time is there. Make sure that time is very valuable, that whatever their topic is, it has your 100% attention.

Tara: Great advice. I love that. Thank you. Have you ever had like a real failure or setback that's had, I'm sure, I hope you've had some failures, that have had a profound impact on your leadership approach now that you are happy to share. Do we have a couple hours here? Because we can go this now. We can go all day.

AJ: I've, I think. There's a long list of failures. Some that you could technically start to regret, right? But I think as you think about it more, they all make you who you are. To some level of degree, you have to be [00:21:00] comfortable with failure. There's different pieces of elements.

I had the entrepreneurial business topic that, it ended up failing. You know, me and my partner we invested in, it didn't go so well. We had to ditch the investment and you could look at it and say, well, we lost money. Actually didn't. How much did we learn about, profit and loss?

How did you understand the cash flow concepts? How did you understand your cogs impact? I mean, the real fine tune of understanding. The emotional connection that's your money. And then you translate that into like leadership role. Well, it's not your money, but you can understand how this definitely affects the overall organization.

So you can look at any failure you have and find the overall lessons. That continue to, mold this clay sculpture of who you are now. So, I could label off a bunch of, failures there, small and large. But at the end of the day, I think they once again make you a human being.

I think in my leadership role here, it's something I've been focusing on actually over the past 12 months with a certain function of the business is [00:22:00] about. This fear of failure, in showing some vulnerability about that. It's okay. I put it into perspective. Let's say here's a given role, and of course I'm gonna sensationalize this a little bit as an example.

Here's a role they're responsible for, say, 10 topics. This person will then feel like I've gotta get all those 10 topics absolutely perfect and correct without any failure. It's not accepted. Nobody's, given that expectation. That's okay because in reality what ends up happening is they overthink. They spend too much time. The decision making processes is, not fast enough that actually it's more impactful waiting than it is making a decision with possible failure. In reality, they technically have the ability to do 40 things. Not over burning them, but if they did 40 of them with different, processes and framework and mindset of failure, and guess what?

It's okay if you fail on five or 10 of those things because guess what? You got 30 or 35, correct. Versus 10. So that's [00:23:00] a metaphor in itself, that trying to help some people through that really try to focus on 10 perfect topics. 

Tara: Creating that culture that it's okay to fail and make mistakes.

'cause we are definitely gonna every day. So that's good that you can lead like that. When you do need to make tough decisions and I'm sure you've had to make a lot of them. How do you prepare yourself for that. How do you approach that? 

AJ: I think there's gonna be your natural part of approach.

For those that are familiar with, what we call whole brain thinking or HPDI, Herman Brain Dominance Instrument. 

Tara: No, I haven't heard that. 

AJ: It's, probably recognize the graph. You get the green, yellow, red, circle. And it gives you your. Natural thought processes. So you've got a profile.

My profile is triple dominant and then it has an under pressure example. And under pressure I have largely, it maintains calm, it doesn't move too much. So it's an identification and it remains very calm, collective, and composed. But there is a slight shift under pressure.

I make decisions more about the people and less about the. [00:24:00] Money. Now, please don't tell my boss upstream, even if they're listening there. I will make decisions based more how does it affect the people? That's internally, that's customers, and so forth. So that is my natural, under pressure.

Now, if you sit down and actually process what's the right thing to do? I mind map quite a bit. So I will try to separate and come out with the most objective, logical plan. Then from there. I think what is, it's about transparency. Your decisions sometimes they're not gonna make everybody happy.

Sometimes they're not even gonna make the dominant part of your audience happy. But what is important is to be very transparent and honest as possible with that, because it's not about pleasing people. But you still have to get them to an understanding that when I'm trying to find a way to communicate a very tough decision, in internally or even to a customer.

I answered the question I write down and said, if I'm that person, what does this mean for me? Period. And any basic human factor wants that. They can look at all the strategy slides and the [00:25:00] outcomes and things like that all day long, but if they can't walk away from that, how does that impact me personally?

If I can't answer that, I will probably have failed in communicating a tough decision outcome. 

Tara: That's good. And that's mind mapping, like obviously I know different decisions have different kind of weights attached to them, but how long do you give yourself to prepare for this? I know sometimes you probably get an hour, other times I'm sure you have 

AJ: An hour I wish I had that luxury sometimes now 

Tara: 30 seconds. 

AJ: You just know real timestamp on it. I am probably known for fast decision making overall. 

Tara: Under pressure. 

AJ: I don't have a rule, but I would say that over 90% of my decisions are made very swiftly. Then that other 10% is where you do slow down.

And try to think through a little bit more logically. 'Cause I do have the belief, especially in today's society with all the changes, social economics, tariffs, logistics, market trends. If you are flipped where you're slow to make decisions, you'll actually cost the business and the people more than you [00:26:00] are by making swift decisions impossible.

Failure. So, I strongly believe in that. And also strong, quick decision making allows for other people. So to continue on with their part. The longer you delay on decision making the more people cannot continue with their part. You become a roadblock and then you actually can get the feedback that, do you even care about my topic to make a decision?

So I'm constantly put in a spectrum of, alright, what is the time needed? Do I need to communicate that I'm still making a decision or collecting more, information and then at the same time making sure that they feel quite heard and understood of, what does that impact them?

Tara: No, that's so good. A lot of the time when, I specialize in executive search in this space and that's a lot about what I have to dig under is how somebody makes their decisions under pressure. How they're communicating them and what the impacts of those have been.

That's very familiar. So I've learned a lot more about your leadership style. I'd love to know more now about kind of your team, how you attract people [00:27:00] into your team and into your organization, and then how you develop and retain people in your organization. What's your approach to that? 

AJ: That could be a PhD thesis.

I think. It varies. There's times where, you need to go to market and find that exact skill set. You absolutely lack that. You have an immediate need. I would say that still, that's probably the rare, I'd say more times than not, you're not necessarily looking for skills, at least me.

I'm looking for aligned values. And I'm looking for that probable talent. Remember that piece where I can see it? I can see that you can get there and that if we spend enough time and investment on you could be here for 20 years. I tend to probably lean towards finding that particular skills can be taught. , Of course there is how many of the skills in a timely manner can they be taught. But there are some core values and some core, inner DNA about capabilities that can't be taught. Can you see those through the recruitment process? This is something I really on the lookout for.

Then if you look at, other means, I think that [00:28:00] sometimes there's absolutely, having a really good internal recruitment process is very valuable. I think our HR team and in recruitment, partner internally an absolute champion. But there's also times that absolutely use the network such as yourself.

There's a greater access to, different talent and network that. You have an understanding of where things are moving. You have an understanding of different people that might have questions. They might have thoughts about where they want to move in their different careers.

And then the more you know, us as an organization or our leadership team as well as those candidates, you can go that connects to that. And actually there might be something here that's hard for us to do, internally. And then there's just, interesting, I think is my LinkedIn profile.

Which gets a lot of interesting conversations. I have a love hate relationship with social media. If you go to my Instagram, I think I have five followers. LinkedIn, I started posting on there a little bit about different topics. It's gathered a little bit of a following.

Over the years I started to understand the impact it can have on recruitment, retention, culture and [00:29:00] things like that. I think one of a really good example was I was part of a last round part of interview for a role in our organization, got invited, and at the end I always hand the table over to the candidate because it's, we're not just trying to find the right person, it's also equally important for you to find the right company in the right role.

What questions do you have? And then also I was saying, why Drager? And she said, oh, because of you. And I went. What, excuse me. And she said, I've been following you on LinkedIn, been following your journey. I love what you post about, Drager, the culture. And because you're the managing director, I can see that's going to filter down and aligns quite well.

So when I was at my job, I always felt that if I ever was going to look for another role. The first place I was gonna look was drager. Well guess what? I was ready to move and the first place I went was drager. And you had a roll open and I said, thank you. I will now get a restraining order.

But there are all examples of where there's difference topics around leadership. Or my son, [00:30:00] Cooper. When I post his little journeys people resonate. I've had moments that reach out saying, Hey, whatever the thing, what you said today. Really aligned with something that's happening in my life today.

Thank you. So I think you can harness this, the power and influence that it can have in a very positive way. It scares me still. But, I've seen the massive benefits that it can provide, not only for recruitment, but for the people in the organization they seem to find different examples of purpose share and, success, and be able to say, Hey, this is who I work for as an organization.

And then because I'm the managing director, I have an influence on. What is the direction in the leadership of that local organization. So, I respect that. Scared at the same time. 

Tara: But you are right though, aj it's so powerful and it's something I guide a lot of executives on that, your reach can only go so far personally and for you to attract people to your organization and share what that culture is and what that looks like and who you are as a leader.

It's the first place that the candidates will go to research. [00:31:00] You, like it's the MD and the CEO they're looking at. Then they'll talk to other people in the organization. So I think it's great that you're harnessing it. I know it's not comfortable for everybody, but I think it's really good that you are harnessing that, and I've met you in person several times and online and it matches, which is exact, it's authentic. Which is great.

AJ: I think that's one of the keys, is authenticity. I do get asked, does somebody else do that? Part of the social media. Absolutely not. How do you choose? I choose things that are happening in conversation or in my life? At the time. So, it's usually sometimes very sporadic.

Sometimes I'll walk away for weeks and then all of a sudden I will post a couple in a week. So it depends on what's going on in life. 

Tara: Absolutely. Like our lives are right. Now let's kind of take a little bit of a step out and just look in general, you're obviously in the med device, MedTech sector what are some of the, trends and innovations you see shaping healthcare in the med tech sector?

AJ: I think the first and foremost, especially where drag's a part of the picture. Digital healthcare. The term [00:32:00] itself is quite a buzzword, even though it's been around for quite a long time. It's got a lot of momentum at the moment. It's got a lot of positives, but it's also ripe with obstacles.

Especially in the, Australian and New Zealand sort of environment. And then even in the industry itself, if we look at may say topic A, which is about, interoperability, another buzz word, so to speak. What we speak in interoperability is about how do all these different pieces of equipment connect to each other? How do they talk? How do they speak? How do they share data in a very safe, data privacy, cybersecurity way? Then the second part is, now how does that all get funneled to something where, alright, here's a bunch of data, now what do we do with it?

How do we view that? How do we assimilate that into something tangible? Then for the part threes, now that, where's that tangibility go into? How does that now help us make changes to what we're doing now from policy, protocol, patient care? I think the healthcare industry is really trying to find their foot because there's a lot of options out there.

If you look [00:33:00] at industry, we've got quite a few players from big name companies that are getting into the digital healthcare sector. With different degrees of success. I think where we have a lack of success and Dragers in this bucket too, like how we try to map through this is that we come from here is the products we traditionally have sold over many years.

I'll speak on Dragers behalf, we invented the ventilator. And of course that's evolved over the past, 70, 80 years. And ultimately it's gone from this very basic mechanical like device into something that both still has the mechanical part, but has this massive digital, user operation point of it and software.

So how does that now gonna work with, healthcare and users? How's that gonna work with the direction and roadmap for, how they're gonna use data and digital? We have different varying, appetite of maturity in, healthcare District. A and Metropolitan City has their own massive roadmap.

They have their own infrastructure from digital to wifi, [00:34:00] to servers, to this is what we want to be at in 10 years. Great. But then you can go straight down the street, 10 kilometers to another metropolitan hospital, and then they have none of that. So that also a challenge. Number A.

Then B is, and I can say this, I was former healthcare. We really trouble with change. Healthcare is one of the most challenging environments to have change. And ultimately change is, go back to that most basic question. What does this mean for me personally?

It's quite challenging. We take the anesthesia space. We've been selling anesthesia for, since it was invented by drager. And ultimately you can go to the stakeholders that are involved in buying an anesthetic machine. Well, those stakeholders have been involved in buying an anesthetic machine for years.

There's a lot of comfort. I know what it means for me. I know have an understanding. There's a couple of players in the market that there's probably only gonna be a few changes and updates and new things, but overall I'm pretty comfortable with the procurement. So it's a known process, a decision making and outcome.

I'm also comfortable with that outcome for the next 10 [00:35:00] years. Then you pull in digital. Well if you go to that same stakeholder panel, well, you're talking about servers and patches and cybersecurity, and plus this hospital was in the news for lack of, I don't know what that means for me.

I don't want my name. And all of a sudden we have a lot of discomfort brought into stakeholders that are not normally in the decision making process that are brought into digital healthcare. So part of what we're trying to achieve is obviously our end on the maturity of being both a traditional, baseline product provider.

But also the digital healthcare provider. And ultimately we see a lot of stakeholders that say, I'm gonna choose a company that I know won't mess this up. Like, how comfortable do I feel that they have the experience? Do they have the skillset? Do they have the infrastructure, the regulatory knowledge?

The cybersecurity, the data protection measures all in place that this will go off without issues because there's so much surrounding digital healthcare. Lack of policy, lack of fiscal policy, financing, alignment of [00:36:00] different organizations from federal to state to local.

This is scenario where we wanna play a part at the local level, but also wanna be involved at quite a national, we just, signed up to MTA as well. And we're gonna be a part of helping try to navigate the framework around digital healthcare. And where that sits for the future.

Tara: That's awesome. Thank you so much for that insight. Now you have to do a lot, everything you've just talked about and managing a massive team and guiding the direction of the business. How do you manage it all? You've got family, how do you prevent yourself? Getting burned out. And how do you make sure that you sustain the performance that you need to be able to show up for your team?

AJ: You've got to find how to turn off a switch. I think each individual person has their own ways. For me, I used to be a night owl and hated mornings. And for some reason, I'm not sure if I just got older, I flipped. If I can be in bed at 7:30 PM I will. 'Cause I naturally wake up around the four to 4:30. AM Mark. And that's my time. [00:37:00] That's, I go into about 15 minutes of mindfulness. I have my cup of coffee and, then occasionally Cooper wakes up early and he gets his cup of coffee, which is just a baby hot chocolate. But we will switch on the news. We'll have really interesting conversations.

And then ultimately, how does that start the tone of your particular day? You might have gym, a few emails. Then from there, it's all these different moments of, how do you have that balance? How do you have that presence? How do you understand where, your line is moving up.

And you need to find ways to bring that calm back down. Having accountability partners in the organization. I say, Hey aj, I'm need to take a moment. That's good, to bring that back down. Nothing bad, but you shared with them that what does it look like when. I'm probably not at my best version of myself.

Because if I'm not at my best version or not trying to achieve that, how am I gonna be there to help other people? Get to their best version yourself. I'm constantly talking about that. I think some people use that best version of yourself phrase a little bit as a gimmick. I [00:38:00] personally believe in that.

Because like I said, if you show up at 8:30 in the morning and you are at 60% of the best version of yourself by not taking care of that work life balance. It's really hard to expect yourself and the other person to expect you. How do you help them get from 60% to a hundred?

If you can't do it to yourself. 

Tara: I love that. 

AJ: So you do have to be slightly selfish in a weird way. Take care of yourself before you can take care of other people. 

Tara: You do. And I think, I love what you've shared there. You've obviously got so much self-awareness and you do a lot to regulate yourself.

I love that idea of the accountability partner at work. I really like that. Okay. Final thing today, aj. I know I've had you here for a long time and I really appreciate you giving up your time.

AJ: That's okay.

Tara: Anything that you'd like to share with the audience, either in terms of what they can be doing to prepare themselves for perhaps following, not in your footsteps, but whatever their footsteps are going to be, or any goals or aspirations for you personally as well in the future?

AJ: I think I've briefly mentioned a few of them, so I come back [00:39:00] on it. Number one. Find mentors that you can build a relationship that give you the honest and brittle feedback. It may be hard to hear, you may not even want to hear that.

From the start. But in due time you will be able to find how that's an actual gift and then what do you do about it. So find people that push you. To be more in the uncomfortable than they support you. They still have to support you. But those true people that care about you will give you that uncomfortable feedback and push you.

Tara: That's true. 

AJ: The second one is find that why. What do you want to do? Not the titles. Remove all the titles. If you're paying attention to the title, you'll be trying to just get to that title. And you'll probably miss the journey. Or you'll get the journey wrong. Find out about what you want now.

And believe it or not, what you want now may change in a year or two. And that's okay. In fact, as we move in generation, statistics are showing that it's changing even more rapidly. And what our appetite to do in life is, and that's also okay. But if you can't answer that, you'll find a path that probably just passes you by and you had missed [00:40:00] opportunity.

I think the third thing is, the self-awareness topic is quite key. I think one of the things, if we can get somebody to have that self-awareness, huge, right? It's the first step. The first thing. But the second step is some people get stuck that they only have the self-awareness.

They don't actually put the work into, now how do I do something about that self-awareness? So it's a two step process. , And that's the real hard work.

Tara: Excellent. Brilliant. Thank you so much for sharing all your insights and advice. I'm gonna be coming to you to be my mentor now, and I really appreciate your time.

Thank you so much, aj. 

AJ: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.