Sirtex Medical

As a Sr. Global Director of Product Management, I’ve come to see product management as the role that quietly connects everything. We sit at the intersection of clinical need, commercial realities, and operational constraints, and our job is to pull those threads into something that actually moves patient care forward. I started in cardiovascular devices in marketing and project management. I made a habit of saying yes to cross-functional projects, speaking up when I saw gaps, and taking ownership of solutions. Over time, that gave me just enough fluency in operations, regulatory, legal, sales, and R&D, to really understand how decisions get made. That access and experience have shaped how I lead more than anything else: good product leaders are translators and problem solvers as much as strategists.

I’ve also learned that timing can matter just as much as a business case. There have been plenty of times when I built what I thought was a very strong case for a tool, resource, or product adaptation, only to see it sit on the shelf for years. Then, when the risk of not acting became impossible to ignore, those same ideas suddenly moved. Those moments are humbling, but they reinforce an important lesson: a product manager has to be passionate and persistent, but also patient. You keep listening, keep connecting what you’re hearing from the field, and be ready with a clear plan when the organization is finally ready to move.

Balancing innovation with regulatory requirements, for me, starts with how you frame the work. In healthcare, a “great idea” that can’t be approved or safely integrated into practice isn’t a success story; it’s a dead end. I try to bring regulatory, quality, and clinical colleagues into the discussion early and treat them as partners in designing the path forward, not as the people who say no at the end. The question becomes, “How can we responsibly do this?” rather than “Can we do this at all?” That naturally forces you to think about risk, evidence, and access from the beginning. I put ease of use and operational fit in the same category. If a product is hard to order, store, set up, or use safely, it won’t scale, no matter how novel it looks on paper.

In healthcare, a ‘great idea’ that can’t be approved or safely integrated into practice isn’t a success story; it’s a dead end.

A few industry trends are changing how we think about product management in devices. One is the intense pressure on the cost of care, especially as office-based surgical suites and alternative sites of service continue to grow. Physicians are more accountable than ever for the financial impact of their choices, and they feel that. It’s no longer enough to talk about clinical outcomes; you also need to equip your customers with tools that help them demonstrate economic value and impact. Another big trend is the way data and AI are creeping into everyday product decisions. For product leaders, it’s less about chasing the latest buzzword and more about using data to spot changing behavior, identify access barriers earlier, and see patterns we might miss on our own. At the same time, expectations around ease of use keep rising. We’re designing for physicians, but also for nurses, inventory teams, and administrators who all interact with the product in different ways.

Aligning teams around one product strategy starts with telling a clear, simple story about why the product matters and who it is for. I think of it a bit like conducting an orchestra: value propositions, segmentation, launch plans, pricing, and access all have to work together, but each region will play them in its own way. I spend a lot of time understanding customer segments in different geographies, then building a targeting and positioning approach that fits locally while still feeling like part of the same global story. I’m a big believer that success isn’t just numbers on a spreadsheet; it’s also the impact you see in priority accounts and the consistency of the message your teams carry into the field.

For people who want to move into product leadership in healthcare, my advice is pretty straightforward. First, be a connector. Learn how different functions think, what they worry about, and what success looks like to them. Your job is to bring those perspectives together while still being the person who knows your product inside and out. Second, lean into an entrepreneurial mindset. The best product managers are comfortable dreaming big and thinking ahead, but they’re also very grounded about risk. They don’t stop at the first “no”; they look for another angle, a better question, or a different way to frame the problem. And third, stay very close to customers. Go to conferences, listen to conversations, pay attention to what questions are being asked, what excites your customer, and what frustrates them. Be willing to lean into new tools, AI, new platforms, ideas from other industries, not because they’re trendy, but because they might help you solve a real problem better. Above all, you need passion and perseverance for doing the right thing, for pushing your organization forward, and for bringing solutions to market that genuinely improve access and outcomes for patients.