Meet a Veevan: Business Consulting Career Kicked off with Veeva’s CDP Program
Meet a Veevan is a series that looks at the employees who bring us life. For this edition, we spoke to Orestis Ntarlas, Senior Business Consultant, Global Commercial Content based in Barcelona, Spain. Orestis enjoys building relationships and working with colleagues and clients from diverse backgrounds. He is finding many opportunities to do so in this critical, global consulting function.
What is your Personal and Professional Background and how did you get to Veeva?
Orestis: I am a Senior Business Consultant within the Global Commercial Content team, working from both home and the Veeva office in Barcelona. Though I appreciate Work Anywhere, I particularly enjoy the chance to collaborate with colleagues in our office environment.
I have a diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering and also earned an MBA. My initial job after my education was in innovation consulting where I helped to design new products, services, and offerings but I rarely saw the tangible impact of my work. I then moved to the Spanish branch of a mid-size; UK-based software company focused on supply chain risk management and worked on implementing their software. This was more in line with my interest in marrying technology and business, but I did not feel aligned with the company culture. The culture was quite traditional, with little diversity, and in my job, I had no direct contact with customers, so it was hard to see the impact of my work. If you are going to spend eight or more hours a day in a role working, it’s important that the tasks and culture are equally satisfying, and you believe in what you are doing.
At the time, I never heard of Veeva, but saw a job posted on LinkedIn. I began to do my research — watching videos, reading testimonials, and even reached out to some of their employees in my network and all were telling me good things. From the time I had the second interview, I knew it was the right company for me. I also enjoyed the case study that was part of the interview process. I liked working on it and thought how enjoyable would be to perform similar tasks on a daily basis. Once I started and learned more about the company culture, I could see it was real, not just what I was told in the interview. After interviewing and receiving an offer, I joined the Consulting Development Program (CDP) which set me up for a good overview of the company and the opportunities ahead with a number of interesting possible paths to pursue.
I am just past my four-year mark at Veeva and my current job aligns perfectly with my interest in utilizing my skills and knowledge in both business and technology consulting. I help clients optimize the process by which they manage all the commercial (promotional) content that will be sent out via all their communication channels. I also try to help them become more efficient in the process. I enjoy customer contact and being part of an industry where I can be passionate about making a difference. Whenever possible, I stretch beyond my role to help with special projects such as the preparation of white papers or anything else I can do to make them successful.
It’s hard work at Veeva, but I revel in being persistent and achieving consistent good outcomes. In fact, reliability i s my superpower. I am known to deliver the best quality possible — a discipline that I can attribute in part to things I do outside of work. Among my favorite pastimes, I enjoy playing classical guitar which I have done since the age of 12. In the past year, I have also put more emphasis on physical fitness and good health and now add many challenging obstacle sports to my repertoire. I enjoy facing challenges in sport and this helps me get through difficult times.
What’s unique about the Work Environment and Culture at Veeva?
Orestis: Life Sciences is not as highly digitalized as other industries — due to compliance and history. This has created a big opportunity for Veeva for the last 14 years and Veeva is growing with the industry. That impacts all of us who work here because we are also on this journey with Veeva and our customers. There is a big transition required to convert the business processes and tools to digital channels and this impacts our customers’ ways of working involving both materials and events. I am their partner in guiding them in this new way of doing things and helping them grow. I never get bored.
Beyond the incredible things happening in the industry, I was also surprised by the type of culture I found at Veeva. My impression of US multinational was that there would be a strict culture with a considerable amount of employee oversight as I had seen in my previous companies. Veeva is certainly performance-driven, but does so without micro-management.
How will Veeva help you grow?
Orestis: Upon joining, I expected to primarily be a group contributor, but within the first 4–5 months, I already felt that I was making an individual contribution as well. I received many thank you notes from colleagues and customers and could see things were being done more efficiently. I see that Veeva has given me the opportunity to go deeply into meaningful professional relationships with customers.
Every year in our performance reviews, we are able to specify objectives. One of mine is to grow in the area of relationship management. In the first two years, I have also enjoyed getting things off the ground — along the line of new products. I have also been able to grow by joining different teams, as there are startups popping up within Veeva all the time. But I would also like to have the experience of launching new teams. I know that being part of a large and growing enterprise like Veeva, there will be new areas and openings all the time that will provide these growth opportunities.
What would you say to someone who was thinking of working here?
Orestis: The good thing about Veeva is that it’s a company that makes the Life Sciences industry and the world a better place, getting drugs to market faster. On an individual level, Veeva provides many opportunities — many areas of the business where you can find interesting work and contribute. Communications are very open and you can do different things with everyone helping you to connect the dots so you can find your space. The mission, culture and values support your growth. Although the company is over 5000 people, I am treated as Orestis, I am not a number.
Originally published at https://medium.com on February 24, 2022.
