Nidhi Oberoi is a dedicated medtech executive with over 17 years of experience and currently serves as Business Leader, Imaging Franchise at Terumo Medical Corporation. She discusses her journey from India to the heart of the medtech industry, her impactful work on innovative heart valve treatments while at Medtronic, and her advocacy for women's health. Nidhi shares her leadership philosophy centered on empowerment, the importance of mindfulness in business, and her vision for a future in cardiology and women's health.

Guest links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nidhi-oberoi-278a111/

Charity supported: Save the Children

Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at [email protected]. 

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Episode 060 - Nidhi Oberoi

[00:00:00] Lindsey Dinneen: Hi, I'm Lindsey and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world.

[00:00:09] Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them.

[00:00:15] Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives.

[00:00:28] Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives.

[00:00:38] Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives.

[00:00:42] Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Leading Difference podcast. I'm your host, Lindsey, and today I'm excited to introduce you to my guest, Nidhi Oberoi. Nidhi is a seasoned MedTech executive dedicated to the mission of serving clinicians and patients. With over 17 years of experience working on commercialization of innovative technologies, She has led various strategic and operational initiatives that have transformed standard of care. Her bold, collaborative, and empathetic leadership style allows her to push boundaries and inspire teams to create durable value. She currently leads business initiatives for the structural heart business in Medtronic, which serves patients with heart valve disease. She's also an advocate for evidence based care for women's health. Nidhi has an undergraduate degree in economics from India and an MBA in marketing and entrepreneurship from Syracuse University.

Thank you so much for being here, Nidhi, I'm so excited to speak with you.

[00:01:44] Nidhi Oberoi: Yeah, thanks for having me.

[00:01:46] Lindsey Dinneen: Of course. Well, I would love, if you don't mind just starting off by sharing a little bit about yourself and your background and what led you to MedTech.

[00:01:56] Nidhi Oberoi: Yeah, absolutely. I was born and raised in India, and just like any typical Asian Indian household in those days, if you were a bright student, you were generally expected to pursue a track in sciences, medicine or engineering, or maybe a second option in accounting and finance. Predictably, after I completed my high school, I was on my path to pursue a career in sciences. But then I changed courses and ended up pursuing an undergraduate degree in economics, and eventually an MBA in marketing and entrepreneurship from upstate New York.

Now, as I reflect back and realize that what attracted me to business eventually, it was this realization that it's both in art and a science. The science aspect helps to ensure that the business can financially run smoothly with a strong P&L, while the art side of the business is the ability to set the vision, the direction, inspiring people, innovating, connecting with people.

So what I really was interested was in a career in marketing and general management. You asked me what led me to medtech, I'd say my entry into the healthcare industry was by chance. I got recruited into this industry through a summer internship when I was doing my MBA with a company called Conva Tech, which was part of Bristol Myers Squibb then. And by the time I had completed my internship, I already knew I wanted to be in the healthcare industry given the impact you have on the patient's lives. I did have opportunities to interview with other companies like Philip Morris and others, and I just decided that this is what I wanted to do.

And after I graduated, I started working for a company called Covidian, which was then a spinoff from TCO International. And Covidian was eventually acquired by Medtronic. It's been 16, 17 years since I've been working for this company and it has a really strong mission of elevating pain, restoring health, and extending life of patients around the world. So that's that's my story there.

[00:04:07] Lindsey Dinneen: Excellent. Thank you so much for sharing that. I'm curious. Of course your career trajectory has been really interesting and you've had a lot of different experiences along the way. So what are some of the key things that say maybe your schooling or your early career really set you up for success for what you're doing now?

[00:04:29] Nidhi Oberoi: Yeah, so there's just so many different experiences that either have shaped my interest, where I wanna go, or has shaped my leadership style. Now, as I mentioned, I decided to move away from sciences to a more kind of social sciences field, economics and then business, and that was due to the fact that I was not the person who could just crunch numbers sitting on the table. I liked connecting with people. So I think some of those personality traits helped me decide what I wanted to do.

And I would say one of my core value is impact, purpose. And so healthcare, it was just natural for me to gravitate towards healthcare because you are truly impacting people with different technologies. And I'd also say, as I grew further along in my career, early on when I joined Covidian, I had some great leaders who gave me a lot of ownership, and that shaped my leadership style as well. And that's how I operate. I empower my teams. I coach them along, but give them a lot of accountability. So there's so many different experiences, but these are some of the experiences that come to mind as. As as I reflect back now what that has shaped my career and also my leadership style.

[00:05:55] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. And speaking maybe more into your leadership style, I'm really curious if you could tell us a little bit more about that philosophy of yours. I love that ownership mentality. It sounds very counter to what a lot of folks don't appreciate, and that's micromanagement. And so I'm curious, how do you bridge the gap yourself as a leader between making sure that, your team stays on track and the goals and really key, important performance indicators are met, while also giving them that ownership and that empowerment to make decisions and do things in a way that best aligns.

[00:06:35] Nidhi Oberoi: Yeah. So I think there's so many different facets of leadership, and let me highlight some of the others that feeds into the third aspect, which is the empowering team. So I think as a leader, first thing first, you need to provide clarity, direction, focus. I've been part of so many different teams where if people can relate to what they're doing, why they're doing, they can get lost, right? So I think that's the first thing. You need to have the ability to cut through the noise, provide direction to the team, organization you're leading.

And then the second part is inspiring and bringing people together to execute on that vision. So this is the culture piece. You are listening to others, you're hearing others' perspectives and being inclusive. And the last thing, which I mentioned early on, is empowering your teams and making them accountable. So to your question of how you bridge the gap, I think you have to give clear direction. And when you empower teams doesn't mean that you don't coach them, right? You are just telling them that you trust them to do the job and you are here to help them.

And one of the technique that I use is I ask questions, so I don't give answers. When you ask someone in your team to lead the project, they come to you. Then you ask questions. And I've seen, based on my experiences, that gives them a sense of ownership that this is something they're thought through. And oftentimes I've heard from people that they feel like they become a better version of themselves because I ask a lot of questions. I make them think. So that's my approach on how I kind of bridge the gap, but also make sure along the way that you're supporting them in the right direction.

[00:08:24] Lindsey Dinneen: Absolutely. Yeah, and you mentioned as you were speaking a little bit towards how your past experiences shape who you are and how you kind of relate to the world now, you mentioned core values, and I would love, if you don't mind, if you would share a little bit more about your core values. I noticed that on your LinkedIn profile, that was something that was very highlighted as being extremely important to you, which I love. I'd love if you would share a little bit about maybe how you developed your core values and how those play out for you.

[00:08:57] Nidhi Oberoi: Yeah, absolutely. I think core values is something that you always have, but you just sometimes need a little bit of handholding to unfold those, right? And so in my case, a few years back, I had an opportunity to work with a coach, and she really helped me understanding what I'm good at. These are things that you already have, but you may not realize or you may not know how to articulate.

So for me, the number one thing that came out was purpose. And I'm like, "No wonder I'm in the healthcare industry. I'm big on impact. I like building things." And so that's where it's coming from. The other core value of mine is excellence. I like to do things with excellence. I put my heart and soul into things. I'm a very passionate person. But also you gotta have an eye on quality versus decision making, right?

Over time, I've learned excellence is my core value, but it's a journey, it's a process. It's not a destination. So you don't have to dwell on things. Sometimes things go wrong and you just have to keep moving on and have a growth mindset. So there's a good aspect of the value, but there could be a blind spot, like in this case for excellence and I've learned to manage that as well.

And yeah, so I think these are some of the core values, which is, I think, also part of being a leader. You have to have self-reflection. You need to dig deeper and understand what you stand for. And, this has just guided me along the way. And yeah, so those are some of the things that I'd say has really helped me all along in my career.

[00:10:41] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, of course. So, tell me a little bit more about your current position and what are you looking forward to as you move forward in your own career as well?

[00:10:53] Nidhi Oberoi: Yeah, currently I'm in the structural heart space, and these are really old and sick patients. And it's just amazing to see these patients getting impacted by our technology, getting back to their day-to-day life. And as part of structural heart, also, most recently I've been able to work on therapies. I've been focusing on the congenital portfolio, which is, these are devices that are used to treat patients that have congenital disease, and it's very impact driven because you're dealing with children here who tend to get multiple surgeries throughout their lifetime. So my role right now is to focus on business initiatives. Some of it is expansion across geographies. Some of it is increasing supply for these products. I mean, there's not a big business case for these kind of products, but the impact is huge.

So that's my current focus. And, moving forward, in my career, I'm looking to grow into a general management track, and that's what attracted me to marketing because I consider marketing as running a business within the organization. So for me, running a business would be something that I would be looking forward to. And that's why I have spent time in so many different kind of roles, whether it's marketing, it's commercial transformation, whether it's global roles. So that's how I've been building my skillset so that I can one day lead a business.

[00:12:25] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, that's very exciting. Okay, so you're building all of these skill sets. You're working towards this incredible goal. Do you have an idea of what kind of business you would want to get into? Or is this, " We'll see," and I'll interview you again when that happens?

[00:12:38] Nidhi Oberoi: Yeah, I think cardiology, there's so much opportunity in cardiology. There are so many people getting impacted by cardiovascular disease around the world, and there's so much innovation too happening, not just on the treatment side, but also on the diagnostic side. So I would say either something in the cardiology space would be very attractive because it's innovative. There's such a huge population that gets impacted by it.

Or the other area of interest for me is women's health, and I think it just makes me smile how there's progress being made. I know there's so much work that needs to be done. We know there's not enough evidence, it's underfunded, but I think the work is starting there, and better evidence generation will lead to better decision making, which will lead to better outcomes. So I would say either in the cardiology space or the women's health space, these are the two areas of interest to me.

[00:13:38] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. And I noticed again, with LinkedIn, you are very passionate about women's health and I love that. And I am wondering if you could speak a little bit towards some of themes that I kind of picked up on, things like stigma with women's health, medical gaslighting and self-diagnosis. And I know there's a lot to that and it's probably too much for one conversation today, but can you highlight a couple of the areas that you particularly find concerning, that are things that we can all do better?

[00:14:11] Nidhi Oberoi: Yeah. Yeah. I think first of all there's such lack of education and awareness. As women transition through different stages of life, I feel like a lot of it is taken for granted. We don't question it. And as someone who's been following this for a little bit of a time, I almost feel like it's my duty and being in the healthcare industry, to raise awareness about this or encourage them to be more educated patients. When they go to a doctor, if they don't get answers, they should ask more questions. So I think, so that's that lack of education and awareness piece. There's a lot of work happening. There's so many advocacy groups. Women are coming together, supporting each other, so I think that's happening as well.

The other thing that really bothers me is on the diagnostic side. I wrote an article around women get mammograms. Just because there's not enough evidence out there, sometimes you just have to go through a number of tests to have a diagnosis, either a positive or a negative. So I also feel like maybe the advent of technologies like AI in the diagnostic field can help improve that, because it starts with the diagnostic side, and we just don't have enough right now. And like I said, it can either be a good thing or bad thing. I've also heard of women going through a number of tests to find out that they don't have anything, which is fine, but it's just a lot of money along the way getting to the diagnosis.

And then, the third thing I'd say is as we get more intelligent with evidence, it will lead to better awareness among the physician community too. And that's what gaslighting comes because there's not a lot of evidence, there's not a lot of awareness. Even physicians sometimes can't guide you in the right direction. But if you have more studies coming out, it will make them more aware and guide their patients in the right direction. So there's just so many different things, but I feel like you could start being a self-aware patient and not just assume as you go through different stages of your life that this is what it comes being with a woman. Be more proactive, ask questions, research, talk to other people and get help.

[00:16:32] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah, that's really great advice, and I appreciate your perspective in sharing with us a little bit about maybe even some of the things that we all can do as we're trying to hopefully push the quality of women's healthcare forward and make it more widely available and whatnot. So thank you for sharing. As you have been going throughout your career-- and you obviously care so much about purpose and you have a lot of passion for helping people and for the healthcare industry in general-- are there any moments that really stand out to you as affirming, "Hey, I am in the right industry at the right time?"

[00:17:11] Nidhi Oberoi: Yeah, there's been so many moments and I would say most of these moments are when I've interacted with patients. When I started with Covidian, I was leading an initiative which would help a lot of women who were having open hysterectomies-- this is like 10, 15 years back-- to have a minimally invasive hysterectomy through a new procedure technique. So it was called single incision surgery. And I happened to talk to some patients, and it was just amazing to hear those stories where they were telling me how they could get back on their feet, travel, within just a week after the procedure. So that's the defining moment.

And then, when I was working on one of the businesses where patients have very varicose veins, I met a patient who was a mom of four. So she had four kids within a span of six, seven years, and she had very visible varicose veins on her legs. And that impacted her quality of life. And when she got the procedure done with our technology, she was just so happy. It was not just cosmetic, but also less painful, and being more present with her kids because of that.

And then I'd say most recently in the cardiology space, these are really sick patients, older patients with multiple conditions, and just hearing their stories of getting a new heart valve, it's amazing to see how, again it's getting back to life. So it's always, when you meet these patients, those are the defining moments, and it just reaffirms why you're in healthcare and why you need to continue to work in the healthcare space.

[00:18:58] Lindsey Dinneen: Yes. I love that so much. Yeah, so pivoting the conversation a little bit just for fun. Imagine that you were to be offered a million dollars to teach a masterclass on anything you want. It can be within your industry. It could be related to anything your background, your experience, but it doesn't have to be. What would you choose to teach?

[00:19:19] Nidhi Oberoi: Yeah, that's a great question. I don't think I have an expertise right now, but maybe something on mindfulness and yoga. One of my goals is to do a yoga teacher training, but the importance of mindfulness in business. There's so many things you can do: power walks, taking a break, journaling. These are so underrated, but I think these things are necessary. It's more important than ever now, given the fast change. There's so much, so many changes happening at such a fast pace. So I would say that would be my topic, but I don't think I'm ready yet to have that masterclass.

[00:20:03] Lindsey Dinneen: Fair enough. Fair enough. So I'm curious, how long have you been incorporating these kinds of really important mindfulness practices into your own life and your own routine. Is this something that you've had for years and years or is it a more recent development?

[00:20:19] Nidhi Oberoi: Yeah, I think it's more recent. I would say three to four years, although I wonder why I did not do that. I think within the organization, as you are managing multiple things, it just forced me at that point of time when I was juggling a lot of things in my life and I wanted some pause and clarity. And I actually, years back, I had take a yoga class and then I started doing core barre yoga as well. So I realized that it really has a big impact on me.

And then I just try to be more disciplined and try to take out time, if not every day, maybe every two days, but I would say it's more of a recent phenomena. It does require a lot of discipline. Earlier you start, the better it is because you're not going to get it right away. It takes a lot of discipline and commitment to incorporate these. And you won't be able to do it all the time, but at least starting that and trying to incorporate day to day life is a good start.

[00:21:26] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. I found personally that starting my day with a much more intentional routine that includes things like meditation and those kinds of mindfulness practices makes a huge difference in how I feel throughout the whole day and the week in general. So, and that's a more recent development for me too. So it's one of those interesting things about how that evolves over time. So I love that. Thank you for sharing about your own journey. All right, and then how do you wish to be remembered after you leave this world?

[00:21:59] Nidhi Oberoi: As I said purpose is my core value, big on impact. So I just want to leave the world a little bit better and do my bit. And whether it's working on things, like working on technologies and providing access to health care to patients, probably globally. So it's just continuing to make an impact in the healthcare space and leaving the world a little bit better than I inherited it.

[00:22:27] Lindsey Dinneen: Yes. Excellent. And final question, what is one thing that makes you smile every time you see or think about it?

[00:22:37] Nidhi Oberoi: Yeah. There are so many different things. As you start meditating or focusing on mindfulness, it's the small things in life that you start enjoying. Being in Minnesota, the good weather is difficult to come by. So sunshine really makes me happy. But yeah, I think being present makes you more joyful. You just start enjoying everything in life. The other thing I would say is just simple acts of kindness. People helping other people is also something that just moves me and touches me.

[00:23:11] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, of course. I'm really curious. Okay, so I said final question, but then I have a follow up. So when you said being present helps bring you joy, could you share a little bit more about what you mean by that?

[00:23:24] Nidhi Oberoi: Yeah. So I think being present means that you are not thinking about your past and you're not thinking about your future. And so what that means is all you're focusing is what's in the now, and I'm going to start speaking the language of someone who teaches yoga or meditation, but being present really is you're not in the past. You're not in the future. You're just enjoying your day, the moment, as it comes by, it's as simple as that. You're centered. You're aligned with yourself and you just focus on what's in your control. You don't dwell on things either of the past or in the future. So I think that's a very, that's a beautiful moment to be in.

[00:24:11] Lindsey Dinneen: Yes, I couldn't agree more. Well, thank you for sharing a little bit more about that. I really appreciate it. And thank you so much for your time today. This has been such a great conversation. I've loved learning about you, and I'm so excited about your career future, especially with your goal of starting your own company at some point. So I will be cheering you on for that whole process. I know that's no small undertaking. But in the meantime, I just want to say thanks again for your time, and thank you so much for working hard to change lives for a better world.

[00:24:45] Nidhi Oberoi: Well, thank you so much. Thank you for the opportunity. It's been so fun chatting with you. You're joyful.

[00:24:52] Lindsey Dinneen: Thank you. Well, excellent. We are so honored to be making a donation on your behalf as a thank you for your time today to Save the Children, which works to end the cycle of poverty by ensuring communities have the resources to provide children with a healthy, educational, and safe environment. So thank you so much for choosing that charity to support. Thank you also so much to our listeners for tuning in. And if you're feeling as inspired as I am right now, I'd love it if you'd share this episode with a colleague or two. And we'll catch you next time.

[00:25:30] Ben Trombold: The Leading Difference is brought to you by Velentium. Velentium is a full-service CDMO with 100% in-house capability to design, develop, and manufacture medical devices from class two wearables to class three active implantable medical devices. Velentium specializes in active implantables, leads, programmers, and accessories across a wide range of indications, such as neuromodulation, deep brain stimulation, cardiac management, and diabetes management. Velentium's core competencies include electrical, firmware, and mechanical design, mobile apps, embedded cybersecurity, human factors and usability, automated test systems engineering, and contract manufacturing. Velentium works with clients worldwide, from startups seeking funding to established Fortune 100 companies. Visit velentium.com to explore your next step in medical device development.