Bracco Medical Technologies

Responsibilities: Lead a team of 130+ across Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Purchasing, Customer Service, In House Repair, Field Service, Fulfilment, and Operations Engineering for MN, Netherlands facilities. Member of Executive Committee, reporting to CEO.  
Key achievements
-Recruited back to turn around low performing Operations team. Personally managed Supply Chain group for 2mo while finding a high performing leader. S&OP improvements to increase both Forecast Accuracy and On Time Delivery. Improved our Customer Service to 70% Net Promoter Score average in 2022. 
-Meeting targets for Operations & Service – EBITDA and margin targets, beating inflation by 4%, while supply constraints forced air shipments of finished goods, managed Service P&L. Maintained stock while Sales overachieved 20%. Resolved 70+ component supply threats in 2022.  
-Led development of first ever Operations & Service 5 Year Plan including second sourcing, contract improvements for cost and supply continuity, improved management of tier 2 suppliers, vertical integration, manufacturing in region.  
-Bracco lead on external partnership involving device (injector) & drug (contrast) combination, with entry on US market planned for early 2024
-Launched monthly All Hands Ops meeting, led by passionate team members, to share our challenges, successes, and express gratitude for the amazing team 
-Recruited leaders from my network to build our cross functional strength and improve our collective performance: GM, VPs, Directors and several individual contributors. 
-A leader of my executive peers. Led multi-week action sessions to “Fight to Win” in face of tough priority and funding challenges. Brought development plans and succession plans to BMT to focus on talent development and ensuring pipeline of future leaders. 
-Reinvigorated BMT Culture Club as executive champion. Recruited top staff to drive our values, increased team connectedness while increasing our community service.

Vice President, Global Operations and Service

Philips

Responsibilities: Process development and industrialization activities for MN and CA sites, supporting new product introduction and sustaining activities of catheter-based products. Member of Peripheral Vascular Category Leadership Team.  IGTD site leader for Plymouth, MN. 
Key achievements
-Recruited by colleague to lead startup of Plymouth MN 225K sqft pilot-to-plant facility. Recruited and pulled talent from my network, filling roles across all functions - operators, technicians, engineers, managers. Grew site from 0 to ~60 people in 2021. 
-Created mfg engineering and product industrialization engineering teams. Set vision and leadership for the team and ensure alignment through listening, adjusting plan as needed, weekly 1:1s, staff, townhalls. 
-Diligence lead representing Operations on four potential acquisitions, including integration of Intact Vascular into Philips. Tripled capacity within 6 months of acquisition while maintaining yields and quality, while also transferring manufacturing site to Mexico with process improvements to reduce COGS.  
-Led make vs buy decisions on several internally and externally manufactured products – moved two catheter-based products and a thrombectomy system in house while changing external sources for two products. My team actively supported all projects.  
-Successful transfer and regulatory submissions for moving drug coated balloon product from CA to MN, on schedule and budget. Transferred, and improved processes, within tight timeline to ensure supply for customers. 
-Led initiatives to identify the future vision for the MN site – kaizen funnel, kaizen, Hoshin planning. Selling our core capabilities across the organization to bring more business to MN. 
-Partnered with R&D and Marketing on product roadmaps to ensure process group and support functions have skills and equipment needed to enable future products envisioned by the business

Director, Product Industrialization Engineering

Responsibilities: Moved to R&D after restructure to eliminate VP R&D through Director levels.  Angiography Franchise Lead. Lead product development team in creation of new products – equipment and consumables 
Key achievements
-Formed top talent team of twelve engineers, project manager and product manager to develop platform and next gen contrast injector, including integration of FFR and IVUS product 
-Program lead for new equipment and consumable product 510K – traditional submission within 4mo of project kickoff

Director, R&D

Responsibilities: Led all engineering functions – Sustaining and Manufacturing Engineering – within Global Operations organization. Grew with ACIST from $80M to $140M+ business of internally designed and manufactured electromechanical equipment, transducer manufacturing as well as contract manufactured IVUS and FFR catheters and disposable molded products, produced in millions of devices per year.
Key achievements
-Led initiatives to enable growth from $80M to $140M+ revenue while running well within expense and capital budgets. Delivered projects averaging $2M annual savings. 
-Supported successful catheter & console product launches – Ramped FFR capacity at US contract manufacturer 700% in first year, while maintaining <3% product complaints and 93% yields. Ramped IVUS capacity at Vietnamese contract manufacturer 450% in first year with <5% complaints and 90% yields. 
-Management liaison with Contract Manufacturers, focused on supplier development.  Built strong, trusting relationships that led to improved quality, lower costs and projects within schedule & budget.  Leveraged relationships in time of critical need (Recall). 
-Partnered cross functionally on supplier selection/consolidation/second sourcing, sterilization process changes to benefit logistics, make vs. buy decisions. 
-Partnered closely with Sales & Marketing to identify, prioritize, and execute on projects to provide key product enhancements to increase revenue and customer satisfaction. 
-Turned around an inherited low performing mechanical team. Performance managed three engineers out and onboarded three new engineers within one year, leading to dramatic increase in project completion and cross functional praise for dependability & quality. Mentored reporting manager and moved back to an engineering role while retaining as key technical talent.
-Due diligence on IVUS catheter acquisition. Identified critical risks later mitigated during integration.

Senior Manager, Operations Engineering

Responsibilities: Leader of eight continuation mechanical and electrical engineers, technician and drafter.  Oversight of internally designed and manufactured capital equipment as well as outsourced contract manufactured injection molded consumables, produced in millions of devices per year. 
Provide continuation engineering services to the organization.

Manager, Sustaining Engineering

Boston Scientific

Responsibilities: Core Team member for Drug Coating Design & Stability on two large drug eluting stent programs, from concept to commercial product.  
Key achievements
-Provided leadership, direction and coaching for eight engineers, four technicians from US and Irish sites to develop drug coatings.
-IDE and PMA submissions for two products.  Lead on response to agency questions – developed strategy, completed testing and authored responses under tight timelines.
-Structured and led a twenty-three person team (13 engineers, 5 technicians, 5 managers) in a focused 5 month effort to mature a technology for adhesion promotion of polymer drug coatings onto a metal stent.  Developed hypotheses, efficient experiment plans, managed schedule and testing support resources.  Organized and led daily meetings to triage execution and twice weekly meetings for team data review and strategy reassessment.  Developed & delivered four presentations to senior management sponsors, each time commended for solid plans, diligence and results. 
-Participated in several Medical Advisory Boards to gather voice of customer feedback for next gen products.  Hosted several key opinion leader physicians for onsite visits.  
-Developed novel specification setting approach which led $4M per year savings.  Presented plans to Chief Technology Officer and submitted and negotiated final specifications with FDA.
-Led effort to develop five new analytical methods for a large drug eluting stent program, with method validations completed one month prior to need for Design Verification testing.  
-A leader in Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) techniques.  Mentored staff of 3 managers and 14 engineers and technicians on efficient experimentation and use of statistical tools.

Senior R&D Engineer

Seagate Technology

-Drove reductions in contamination to increase product yields and customer satisfaction
-Led a fifteen-person worldwide team of engineers and managers to develop a Best in Class contamination reduction cell. Supported Far East implementation via a one-month work assignment.  Led to $12M per year in yield savings plus gaining market share.
-Six Sigma Black Belt trained

Senior Engineer

-Process development, R&D and manufacturing engineering support of high volume disk drive products.  
-Developed and designed texturing & cleaning equipment systems for future disk products and managed tool and system builds.  Ensured all deliveries were prior to commit dates.    
-Selected to pursue Master’s degree full-time due to achievement and business needs

Engineer/Scientist

I am a positive, servant leader at heart with mission above ego. I listen to the team, work for them and organization to remove roadblocks to our collective success. I do this while being as transparent as possible so the team understands the “why” of our direction. I stay engaged, close enough to the teams to understand their needs and push us for excellence, but not so close as to stifle them. 

I feel a duty and privilege to develop people in my care through development plans, stretch assignments, feedback, mentoring and enabling assignments in other functions. All this with loads of recognition for jobs well done. 

I am a partner that works cross functionally. I understood long ago that we need trust to be effective so I work hard to earn it. I look more at what is right for the greater good than my own function as we don’t win unless we do it together.   

Some of my profiles will help you understand me better: 
-DiSC style: Si - Steadiness, Influence
-Strengthsfinder: Arranger, Achiever, Self-Assurance, Relator, Analytical
-Discovery Insights: Green, Yellow, Blue, Red

My medical device experience includes catheters, stents, balloons, drug coating, drug eluting stents, drug coated balloons, IVUS, FFR, molding, sterilized disposables, electromechanical equipment with functional experience in operations, supply chain, purchasing, procurement, manufacturing, service – in house repair/field/call center, product development, R&D, M&A, process development and contract manufacturing.

Contact: tpriebe2002@yahoo.com

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