Meet a Veevan: Business Consulting That Goes Above & Beyond Product Value
Meet a Veevan is a series that looks at the employees who bring us life. We spoke to Practice Manager in Business Consulting, Alexis Cohen for this edition. With an education in biomedical engineering, Alexis always hoped to land a role where she could impact lives. After earning her stripes in a large management consulting firm in another industry, she found a perfect fit at Veeva — where she strives to go beyond the product value.
What is your journey getting to this role?
Alexis: I have recently celebrated five years at Veeva. I work out of the Philadelphia area, which happens to be my hometown — though it wasn’t a direct route. The office is within an hour’s drive, but I take full advantage of Work Anywhere, visiting the office only when it makes sense to.
In college, I studied biomedical engineering and knew that I wanted to be part of the world of medicine, but I wasn’t sure where to focus my career. I knew I wasn’t a lab rat and preferred a more social work environment. I was fortunate to be recruited into a major consulting firm along with a great group of young professionals. I really enjoyed the challenge of project work and the variety of clients and industries. Unfortunately, the one sector I wanted to be part of, life sciences, was not among my clients. I knew I wanted to impact people’s lives, and just as I was thinking about it, my husband’s friend, who was selling software at Veeva, suggested I look at a position in business process consulting. I joined the business process team five years ago, moved into a consulting role within business consulting when Veeva first started that group, then later became the practice manager of my team.
In my current position, I work directly with pharmaceutical customers and their branding agencies to guide how they design and produce the materials they use to promote their products. This process and the content are subject to strict regulatory guidelines, and a single piece of content can take 20–30 days to get approved and out the door.
The global nature of my work makes it exciting and challenging while dovetailing beautifully with my passion for travel and experiencing new cultures.
What’s unique about working at Veeva and the culture?
Alexis: What’s truly outstanding at Veeva is that it lives its values, particularly around speed, maintaining a startup culture inside a large enterprise. Our CEO starts every call by articulating the values and how we are putting them into action as a company. My previous company was huge, and everything was process-driven. At Veeva, we are consulting and have a fantastic product to work with, which will ultimately help bring new drugs to market. We can constantly add value.
At Veeva, it’s autonomy over alignment, empowering us to be creative and develop new offerings, new ways of doing things, and dealing with fewer restrictions. To operate in this environment requires one to be a bit scrappy and a self-starter. I love that each person is excited, empowered, and interested in what they are doing. Even as a relatively new employee, I was invited to present at a leadership conference.
The bottom line is that the people at Veeva really make the culture work. It was apparent even from my first interviews and the case study that I prepared as part of that process. But, to be successful, we have to work hard. It’s not an easy job, but I grew up understanding from my family that nothing is “given” to you. My mother was the first in her family to go to college and had a humble family background in the grocery business. I learned to seek out opportunities and earn them. That’s helped me at Veeva. It’s essential to get out of your comfort zone and work in ambiguous situations.
How will Veeva help you grow?
Alexis: I joined Veeva as an experienced hire, so I contributed from day one, helping to keep things on track as a project manager. But about a year in, I felt that I really made an impact when I had the opportunity to present at a major summit.
There’s always room for personal and professional growth. For me, it’s all about the thought leadership part of my job. I aim to do more presentations at webinars, in person, write white papers, and other opportunities to build my practice and expertise. It’s easy to do the same thing over and over, but I believe the key is looking at what’s next. I enjoy working across teams and learning from colleagues throughout the company.
My team strives to go beyond the product value in servicing our customers. Even something as seemingly obvious as helping our customer move to “remote” work was crucial to what we provided in the last year. As we advance in the consulting role, we also have the opportunity to sell consulting engagements. This is particularly important when we see a customer needs help in an area and we know we can expand our role.
Another way to grow is to expand my team. My group, for the first time, is hiring new college grads as part of our Business Consulting Development Program. I am looking forward to the challenge of integrating four levels of consultants into our team.
What would you say to someone who was thinking of working here?
Alexis: When I think about recruiting someone to Veeva, it’s less about what I can say and more how I would convey the experience. I want to share that I am happy, joyful and believe that I impact and care about my job. Equally important, I enjoy the people and now have many close friends who happen to be colleagues. I would extend this to customers as well: We give them great people with whom to work, and they become friends. We create “sticky” relationships!
