Medtronic draws on its people to transform health care

Rob Clifton’s career journey took him out of the country for a couple of decades. Now, he’s back in Canada as president of Brampton, Ont.-based Medtronic Canada since early 2024. And he’s feeling as energized about it as any of his newest employees.

“It’s just the motivation, the pure enjoyment I’m having coming back to Canada after 20 years of being international and then having the opportunity to lead Medtronic,” says Clifton. “I can’t think of a better position inside of Medtronic that I could have landed in.”

Clifton is hardly new to the global medical devices firm. In 2012, he joined a medical supply company responsible for Latin America that was bought by Medtronic within two years. As part of the finance organization, he worked for a year, integrating the two companies, before moving into business development and strategy.

As a top employer, there are so many possibilities for employees to move through different areas and achieve their career goals.

“Now, the fit is absolutely right to come back to Canada and be part of driving health care for everybody here,” says Clifton. “There are 40 million Canadians who deserve the best health in the world, and I think Medtronic has a responsibility and is uniquely positioned to help deliver the best care to all citizens.”

Medtronic is renowned for the pacemakers its people have created. That’s how the company started in the 1950s, with bulky, visible pacemakers. Now, notes Clifton, they are the size of a vitamin and are inserted through the femoral artery.

Clifton’s vision, besides providing the best health care, is to be the place Canadians want to work, whether in Brampton or in Medtronic’s Montréal and Vancouver offices. Plus, he adds, making the company and its employees the partner of choice for all customers.

The direct customers are the hospitals and the provincial health care systems, notes Marc-Sebastien Verrault, health systems strategy director.

Medtronic engages with its partners to ensure that the products needed are readily available, so that the right product can be used with the right clinical indication at the right time, and for the right patient, he says.

The ingenuity of Medtronic’s people makes the company an ideal partner, adds Verrault.

“The quality of our products definitely sets us apart. Our therapies and products touch 72 different clinical indications – for example, with our cardiovascular pacemakers and stents, or in spine surgery with rods and screws,” he says.

Robotics is another popular set of products Medtronic’s expert technologists have developed.

“That’s really something where I’m seeing an uptick,” says Verrault. “The robotic arms are articulated in a way that allows much greater agility and flexibility for the surgeon operating on a patient’s prostate, for example. We see it in soft tissues, in orthopedics and in spine surgery.”

To Clifton, that innovation comes from the strength of Medtronic’s 1,100 employees in Canada. “We bring technology to solve some of the most difficult disease states,” he says. “So, when we can find that sweet spot of intersection between the people and the innovation and bring them to bear against problems within health care, I think we can really change and affect patient care in Canada.”

“Our partnerships always centre around promoting better access to quality care and better outcomes for patients,” Verrault adds. “Our mission is very simple. It’s our North Star. It’s to alleviate pain, restore health and extend life.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Canada's Top 100 Employers winners, published November 15, 2024 in The Globe and Mail. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.

Medtronic is dedicated to training and education

Josh Tarini joined medical devices firm Medtronic Canada as a diabetes clinical specialist. Fourteen years later, he is the senior manager of training and education.

“I have a big passion for teaching, leading a team of specialists and working with health care professionals,” says Tarini. “Medtronic is very committed to medical education.”

The Brampton-based company has some 300 employees in the Greater Toronto Area. Many fan out as field employees, including account managers as well as clinical specialists who work alongside doctors and nurses in clinics and hospitals.

“These are our employees with their feet on the street,” Tarini says. “So, when we run large-scale education programs, we count on them to help us invite attendees and build the right curriculum.”

Medtronic began in the 1950s making bulky, visible pacemakers. Now they’re the size of a vitamin, leadless (wire-free) and can be inserted through the femoral artery. Along with cardiovascular therapies, the company also has innovative devices across diabetes, neurosciences and medical surgical areas.

“Education, both internally and externally, is what ultimately allows for the optimal use of our products and then the best possible patient outcomes,” says Dave O’Neil, senior business director, central zone. “It’s a virtuous cycle of education. If you’re wired to be a learner, you’re going to be constantly learning.”

Medtronic’s central zone is Ontario and a lot of the firm’s business is clustered around the academic hospitals in Toronto, London, Hamilton, Kingston and Ottawa.

“We have many therapeutic areas of focus and that requires constant training and education with our team, especially with those who interact directly with health care professionals as well as the actual clinical health care providers,” O’Neil says.

This fall, Medtronic arranged a program on spinal robotics for orthopedic and neuro spine surgeons where they saw the robotic spine technology and heard from physician experts who use it.

“We often see a very high representation of the hospitals and clinicians from the GTA and that’s in part because of the density in this area and in part because of the number of teaching hospitals,” says Tarini.

Commitment to training and education also helps employees live the company’s mission, which is to alleviate pain, restore health and extend life.

“It is just so meaningful for our team members to be involved, immersed and connected to our customers,” O’Neil says. “There’s the intrinsic reward of living the mission and that’s extremely gratifying.”

Medtronic sets high standards for its employees due to the technical demands of the work, which directly affects patients and customers. That leads to tangible recognition.

“We do offer external awards where we recognize employees who go above and beyond the normal scope, and beyond the expectations of their role,” says O’Neil. “We can do spot awards for points or other small awards that allow them to feel they’ve been recognized.”

All employees can recognize their peers or colleagues through Medtronic’s points program, similar to a loyalty plan, where people collect points and trade them for small appliances, sporting goods or even travel.

“It’s like a catalogue-based system,” O’Neil says. “It’s a neat system where we can recognize our team members for doing a great job. When people receive these awards, they’re incredibly appreciative because they know they’ve done something above and beyond.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Greater Toronto’s Top Employers winners, published December 3, 2024 in The Globe and Mail. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.

Health care sustainability is essential to Medtronic

Padina Pezeshki has had an impressive journey with medical device maker Medtronic Canada. In 2020, she was hired as a medical science advisor and clinical research specialist for the company’s medical surgical portfolio. Today she is one of the firm’s medical science liaisons. She continues to cover her initial portfolio, but she also covers sustainability.

“I got into this because green and sustainable practices are a trending topic within the surgical field and the operating room, which I support, and this is personally close to my heart,” says Pezeshki. “I started looking into it more, learning about it, making personal connections and I grew to own it more formally.”

Brampton, Ont.-based Medtronic recently received several sustainability accolades and awards. Pezeshki highlights two — one for emitting 42 per cent less carbon dioxide per every dollar of revenue and another for being one of the world’s most ethical companies.

“I think those awards alone speak to the way that Medtronic is aligned with sustainability, environmentalism, being green and just mindful of the planet and health,” Pezeshki says. “Living a healthy life isn’t possible unless it’s on a healthy planet.”

Medtronic began in the 1950s making bulky pacemakers, devices that are now the size of a vitamin and inserted through a catheter. The Canadian headquarters has electric vehicle charging stations and there’s a hybrid work model so employees can reduce commuting.

“Our headquarters happens to be our first LEED-certified green building, which is a blueprint for other Medtronic sites,” says Pezeshki.

Maisie Cheung, senior marketing director, says sustainability is one of Medtronic’s five strategic pillars in Canada. “So we aspire to be in the forefront working with the health-care systems here to look for meaningful initiatives to reduce their carbon footprint.”

Cheung adds that her group has just recruited an environmental scientist to join the marketing team to help make the right sustainable initiatives to pursue with customers.

“The more sustainable our products and business model are, the better we all are as global citizens and certainly as Canadian corporations,” says Cheung.

While the first front is to work with Canadian health-care systems, the second front is to work with industry and green associations, she says.

“We’ve been invited to sit on the industry committees in terms of sustainability. We’ll work with partners to define what are the near-term, mid-term and long-term targets we can all strive to achieve,” Cheung says.

Medtronic is also a founding member of the Canadian Coalition for Green Healthcare, which focuses on the development of an environmentally sustainable, net-zero and climate-resilient health system.

“We are also in one-to-one discussions with our biggest customers to talk about our list of sustainable ideas and, together, to prioritize what’s most meaningful. Needless to say, these are the largest organizations in the country in terms of health-care delivery,” Cheung says. “Carbon emission is really in the supply chain, so several initiatives on our list explore with customers how to address that specifically.”

Pezeshki adds, “For the whole company, we have an operational carbon neutrality goal to be achieved by our 2030 financial year.”

Finding the right supplier to collect waste and transform it into raw material for industrial use is a challenge because it’s an emerging field.

“From a research and development standpoint, we’re starting to design products with the purpose of sustainability without compromising patient safety,” says Cheung.

“We are trying very hard to design effective products that have a big component of reusability.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Canada's Greenest Employers winners, published April 22, 2025 in The Globe and Mail. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.