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Negotiation Skills: The Mark Of An Effective Medical Sales Rep With Danielle Hansen

Posted on November 18, 2020

MSP 26 | Negotiation Skills

 

There are two kinds of negotiations that you will come across every day as a medical sales rep: external ones with your clients and internal ones with your team. In either case, you need to build an entire skillset around negotiations so you can always remain on top of your game. Danielle Hansen may not be a medical sales leader, or even a medical sales rep, but she is definitely someone everybody in our field should learn from in this respect. The Director of Global Strategic Sourcing at the medical device firm, Coloplast, Danielle possesses an extensive background in international supplier relationship management, contract manufacturing, negotiation, project management, and continuous improvement. Prior to Coloplast, she has handled various related roles in different companies, including Medtronic and Stryker. She now joins Samuel Gbadebo to talk about what goes on in her career and the biggest thing sales reps need to remember during negotiations – leverage.

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Negotiation Skills: The Mark Of An Effective Medical Sales Rep With Danielle Hansen

We have an interesting guest. First off, she is not a typical guest. She is an employee of a medical device company. She has not been a medical device sales rep and she is not necessarily a medical device sales leader either. She comes from the other side of things in strategic sourcing. She’s the Director of Global Strategic Sourcing of Coloplast. Her name is Danielle Hansen. The reason why it’s such a pleasure to have Danielle on the show and what we get into is because she deals a lot with negotiation.

She touches upon how important the value and the skillset of negotiation, and how deeply rooted it needs to be into the effective sales rep if they’re going to be that impactful sales professional that makes things happen. In addition to that, she’s had a very explosive career. She is the epitome of someone that looks for challenges, throws themselves into things they might not know how to do it all, and then finds a completely new avenue and direction to take things that take her to an entirely new height. I hope you enjoy the episode.

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Danielle, how are you doing?

I’m doing well, Samuel. How are you doing?

I’m fantastic. No complaints. We have with us, Danielle Hansen. She’s the Director of a medical technology company. Danielle, why don’t you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

I’m the Director of Global Strategic Sourcing for Coloplast Interventional Urology. The Interventional Urology Division develops and produces market products for surgical treatment of our urological and gynecological disorders, such things as voiding dysfunctions, erectile dysfunction or urinary incontinence. From my standpoint, I’m working with our team of global suppliers, managing those relationships with our team, and making sure that we’re able to get good quality products in the hands of the sales representatives, and then ultimately their customers.

Can you describe for us what a day in the life of a Director of Global Strategic Sourcing looks like?

Especially in light of everything going on with COVID, our biggest focus is working with those suppliers. We’re making sure that we have established relationships with them and we’re able to get quality products, and firefight through any issues that we may have within the supply chain as a result of COVID.

From a sales rep perspective, why is it good for a sales rep to understand about what you do?

From our standpoint, we are constantly focused on making sure we have good quality products in the hands of our suppliers or our reps. We’re making sure that as we’re going forward, we do have that product on hand and then it’s available to customers. The job comes with a lot of different things and we’re constantly making sure that we’re mitigating risks. We’re focused on making sure that it is very much a quality offering for those sales reps so that they have a good product to sell.

Can you explain to me what’s Coloplast? How long have you been with them and everything you do?

I’ve been with Coloplast for a couple of years. The division that I’m part of is Interventional Urology. We’re an area of healthcare that people truly feel embarrassed about talking about. It’s different than a lot of other healthcare areas. People keep what’s going on with them in these areas to themselves, even sometimes hiding it from their spouses. One of our main product lines is an actual penile implant for men that can’t use Viagra or other options, or they don’t work for them. We have a pump up technology that helps them with their erectile dysfunction. It’s an area that is extremely untapped at this point because many men refuse to talk about the fact that these issues are occurring to anyone including their physicians. We also have catheter products and other products for uterine prolapse, slings and things that will hold them into place, and then kidney stone removal devices and stuff like that.

Is erectile dysfunction your latest market? Is that the newest product or is that the focus and everything else is ancillary?

We have two different sides of the business with interventional urology. One is on men’s and women’s health. The men’s health is erectile dysfunction and the penile implant. The women’s health is more on the uterine prolapse and splattering continents. We’ve got devices that are surgically implanted for both of those. We also have our single-use devices, which are devices that are not implantable, that support the businesses in these areas such as catheters and other things that may be utilized during surgery, and then also thereafter.

I’ve always been curious about erectile dysfunction products. Are those things that a man who no longer works down there can use for the rest of his life? Is something that needs to be redone every so many years? How does that work?

MSP 26 | Negotiation Skills

Negotiation Skills: The biggest focus of global strategic sourcing is working with suppliers, establishing relationship with them, and ensuring a continuous supply of quality products.

 

It’s different depending upon the man and how things take from a surgical standpoint. It’s at least ten years that they’re getting out of those products, sometimes longer. It’s dependent heavily upon the person and how it takes within their body.

Every case is different.

It very much depends too on where in their life they have it implanted. Some men have it implanted at twenty years old. There are others that are much later in their 70s or 80s and they’re getting it implanted at that point in time. That life cycle is heavily dependent upon the patients that it’s dealing with and where in that life cycle they’re utilizing it and having it implanted.

With the Director of Global Strategic Sourcing, what is that role? If you could shed some light on what it is that you do?

I have a team based in the United States and then I have two teams in France, one in Paris and one in Sarlat. Those teams and I are working to manage our supply base. I’m making sure that we have a quality supply of products at the right cost, negotiating and managing those relationships with the suppliers. That covers both indirect services and things that we need to run the manufacturing facilities as well as the direct side, which is going into our products.

What has it been like? You’ve been working from home for a while.

I’ve been working from home since about the March timeframe.

Before COVID, did you go into an office, or are you still able to work from home?

To be honest with you, we’ve got a lot of older white males that think you have to be butt in the seats in order to do your job. Most of them are still old-school thoughts that you can’t work from home and be successful. Some of that are changing because of COVID and it has thrown us in that direction, but it was not much of an option to work from home prior to that because of some of the philosophies that are held by some of the people in leadership. Because I am managing a supply base and the bulk of my team sits in France, most of my job is being a road warrior, jumping on a plane and go to different places. This job has changed quite a bit because prior to COVID, I’d be jumping all over Asia. I’d be in France and Africa. It’s been shut down, no travel since March, which has completely ceased the travel. I’m not seeing all these different places. I’m not running in and out of the airports. I’m not trying to catch a plane. I’m stationed at my desk.

How has that affected how you see work?

I have been in med device for many years in a lot of different companies. I’ve been at Medtronic, St. Jude Medical and Stryker. When I was at Stryker, I was entirely remote. I worked there for about a little over three and a half years. In those types of situations where you are in a remote, you get used to it. It’s very similar to a sales-type role. When you have to come back into the office after being out in the field, that’s a struggle.

You’ve been struggling is what you’re saying.

It’s a struggle especially when you have so many old thoughts on the only way you’re doing work is when your butt is in the chair. You can’t measure me based on that because on any given day, I’m talking to you at 3:00 in the morning in whatever time zone I’m in. That’s the unfortunate part that they’re not seeing and not understanding. My job is not an 8:00 to 5:00 job. It’s very much one that changes depending upon where I am in the world. I still have to be on point no matter where I am.

I find your career tracks fascinating. I want us to talk to you about how you made some of the decisions you’ve made. With your role now, how did you arrive there? Is that something that you knew you wanted to be in? Is that something you discovered?

It’s something I fell into more than anything. When I was an undergrad, I had a triple major in undergrad in Spanish, operations management, and legal studies and business. I was dead set on being an attorney. I had sat for the LSATs. I was ready to go. I was filling out my applications and everything. I was in my senior year. I might have as well interview for the hell of it to get some good practical experience. I wasn’t looking for an opportunity. I had an offer from 3M and Medtronic. When I graduated, the Enron scandals were huge. It was one of those things where I was looking at Medtronic, looking at the fact that they did have such a deeply rooted mission statement, and a real focus on the patients and who they served.

There are few careers like medical device where you can say you’re truly making an impact in someone’s life in everything you’re doing. Share on X

It was one of those things where I stepped back and I said, “This is something that I need to consider more seriously.” I ended up taking a purchasing internship where I was supposed to be a buyer, the tactical purchase orders, reading the computer system, and issuing those orders. They brought me on. Day one, instead of having me doing any kind of buying, they threw me into contract negotiations. My boss at the time didn’t like anything to do with contracts or negotiations. He handed multi-million and billion-dollar contracts to the intern to negotiate. They threw me in.

Why did you go that direction instead of continuing with the law?

It was one of those things where I was working about 50 hours a week, putting myself through school, and at the same time getting a triple major. When I was going to fill out the forms, the essays and everything that come with that for law school admittance, I couldn’t get through it. I had a roadblock at the time and it was something that I could not fill out. I could have done it but it was not coming to me. It was an opportunity for me to see another path. It was supposed to be a three-month internship. How I looked at it is I could still go to law school after the internship, but at least I get the experience. When I jumped into that experience, I saw that I’m negotiating these agreements. I’m working on these contracts. I don’t have to have a JD in order to do so. I’m getting that practical experience and I’m utilizing my Spanish major as well with the suppliers that I’m negotiating in Spanish, Costa Rica, Nicaragua or Mexico. It enlightened a whole different area to me and one that I’ve stayed in ever since.

The opportunity that you discovered completely changed the trajectory that you had planned for. A textbook example of that.

It was a practical application. I would still be going to law school in the fall. That’s what I had planned. When I fell into the position, after two months, they offered me a full-time position. For an intern, usually, you get menial tasks, filling up coffee, doing stuff that doesn’t have an impact or isn’t important. I was translating letters from physicians from Spanish to English. I was negotiating agreements. I was able to work with the suppliers and found the negotiation area was something that I was passionate about.

Is this all at Medtronic?

Yes.

From Medtronic, you went to Honeywell. You had already got experienced. You discovered you loved what you were doing. You were given all this work as an intern that you weren’t expecting. You got good at it. Was that an active decision to go to Honeywell? What happened there?

When I was at Medtronic, I was focused on Lean Six Sigma towards the end of my career there with Medtronic. Medtronic did a great job of training people in Lean Six Sigma philosophy, but they didn’t do a good job of practicing it. It wasn’t ingrained in the culture. Honeywell, in contrast, is a company that has lived and breathed Lean Six Sigma throughout everything they do, including folder clicks in a computer system. It was a great opportunity to further that Green Belt training that I had, get more experience in a much more mature company, which Medtronic was. It did step outside of the med device, but it gave me an opportunity to see a more mature consumer electronic company as well as building products too.

How did you learn about that opportunity or that it was even something that you should consider?

I had someone that I had worked with in the past that had reached out to me about that opportunity.

The Lean Six Sigma, is that certification would you say is best applied to someone of your position?

There are few people in my position that have Lean Six Sigma in their background. The reason that I went down that path is it teaches you a problem-solving methodology. It walks you through how do you approach problems and how do you think about removing waste from systems to reduce lean time. There are a lot of good impacts that you can have in sourcing as well as the supply chain area to focus on leaning out the fulfillment streams, and making it easier for our customers to get the products that they need quicker.

The law was no longer but you were into something that you loved. You’re getting certifications with Lean Six Sigma, which doesn’t even directly apply to what you do, but you found it useful. You still went back to Harvard law school right after Honeywell. What prompted that?

Harvard Law was not my JD. It’s an executive certificate program. I took three different executive certificate programs through Harvard. It was focused on both leadership development and then also negotiations and their master negotiation course. It gave me an opportunity to delve deeper from a negotiation standpoint. Most of what I had at that point in time was experiential learning. I had not taken a course on negotiation. The three courses that I took at Harvard provided me an opportunity to further develop that and understand more about what are some additional tools or techniques that I could use that I didn’t already have the knowledge of. I practically applies those directly to what I was doing.

MSP 26 | Negotiation Skills

Negotiation Skills: There’s a reason why the other party still talking to you. What you have to focus in from a negotiation perspective is getting to what specifically that reason is, because that is going to be your leverage.

 

Would you say it made you much more effective?

Without a doubt. It was one of those things that take you back because when I went to the program, I was one of the youngest by about twenty years. The next closest people to me were twenty years older than I was. They are much more well-refined in their career path, where they were going and whatnot. I didn’t have even the credentials that they had, but being able to go through the program and being able to see what your success was. There were a lot of mathematical models that they brought in. You could see how you did compare to the rest of the class and your negotiation skills. That was something cool because I was negotiating with contract managers from the New York Knicks, who do all of the basketball contracts with the players and union negotiators. A guy from Los Angeles who was the head of their LAPD SWAT team doing hostage negotiations. It was one of those very humbling experiences where you get to see these are people that have been for the 30-plus years doing this as a career.

Would you say that a class like the Harvard Negotiation Masterclass you took, could that be especially useful to sales reps?

Without a doubt. That launched my career in an additional direction. After taking that Harvard negotiation course, that launched my career also into teaching. I’m also an adjunct professor in negotiation strategy at the University of St. Thomas. I’m doing stuff at St. Catherine’s University here as well. It focused on negotiation training and making sure that I’m driving in the MBA, but also in the executive education programs. I have my own consultancy where I do negotiation training for sales reps, regulatory personnel, who are responsible for negotiations and lobbying with the government. I’ve done negotiation training for buying teams, sourcing teams, also project managers that are also responsible for negotiating personnel, and how they’re going to get additional team members on their projects.

You’re full of surprises. You have a consultancy where you train in negotiation. Lightly describe how does negotiation training similar to what you offer helps improve the selling of a sales rep?

It’s a couple of things. From a sales perspective, people are approaching it thinking that they don’t have leverage. In most of the classes that I teach for sales reps and sales managers, their focus is always on the buying side. It is the one who holds all the cards. They have all the leverage. We have no leverage going into that. A sales rep focus is on maintaining that relationship, especially when I’m looking at heavily regulated type products because it’s not easy for them to continue to switch. In those types of situations, it’s walking those sales reps through what specifically is it that they have? What is the reason that the other party is still at the table? Often, those sales reps are overlooking the fact that the other side is still talking to them.

Time is of the essences and we all don’t have enough of it, but if the other side still talking to you, there’s a reason. What you have to focus on from a negotiation perspective is getting to what specifically is that reason that the other party is talking to you because that reason is going to be your leverage. If you can uncover what that specific lever is, from a challenger sales perspective, you will be able to challenge that sale. You’ll be able to push forward and figure out by asking questions, by using some of the problem-solving techniques to make sure that that other party sees how you are differentiated and not a commodity product.

Help me understand then because you went from a contract manufacturing, then you got your electives with the Harvard Law School, your executive education. You went to St. Jude Medical and then Stryker. The St. Jude Medical and the Stryker, what were those opportunities about? Why didn’t you leave Honeywell to go pursue those after your degree?

Honeywell decided to go through a layoff process. I was still newer in my career. At that point, I was essentially cheap labor. They had a lot of people that had been with the company for many years and they ended up using that as an opportunity to get rid of the people that were later on in their career. They kept me as one of the three that were left after laying off about 50 personnel. They had made the decision that they were going to outsource those supplier relationship manager positions to China, Mexico, and any other geographies that those suppliers were in. All of the suppliers that I was managing were in Mexico, Indonesia, China, and the writing was on the wall.

It was one of those things I could have waited until they ended up laying me off in future layoff, or I could do something about it. It was an opportunity for me. I had someone that reached out to me that I had worked with at Medtronic, who was trying to build a team at St. Jude Medical and asked if I would consider joining their team. It was perfect timing. It was one of those things instead of waiting around for that layoff to come, I decided to do something about it and got back into my device. It is the area that I’m truly passionate about because there are a few areas of careers where you can say you’re truly helping and making an impact in someone’s life with everything that you’re doing,

You jumped into St. Jude Medical and you were there for a year and then jumped into Stryker. Was that expanding the skillsets? What was going on?

Medtronic and St. Jude Medical were both on the cardiovascular side. I had quite a bit of experience with those technologies. The Stryker opportunity was one that a recruiter had reached out to me and they were looking to bring me out to their San Jose facility. At the time, the San Jose facility’s average age of the worker including upper management was 25. They were looking for someone who had been strengthened in new med device and could bring good processes, sourcing structured place that wasn’t there, and then help mentor and guide the people that were there. It was a good opportunity for me to help on the teaching side, help on the mentoring side, get me some more experience in an entirely different area because this was focused on endoscopy. As soon as I got promoted into more of a corporate development type role, I was focused across the entire company for Stryker including orthopedics, neurovascular, and a lot of other areas within that.

You went on to CPC. Is the experience with that Stryker role what turns you on to being an adjunct professor or were you headed there anyway?

I was never headed towards an adjunct professor. I had a teacher of mine that had reached out to me that I had been in contact with. She was one of my undergrad teachers. She had asked me to come and sit on an advisory board. That advisory board looked at what could have been done differently in the program in both undergrads, as well as my MBA with St. Thomas. What should they be offering that they’re not already offering to better enhance people’s skillsets for when they do go into the working world? The one thing that I spoke loudly about with the presidents there was that negotiation wasn’t offered. I had to go to Harvard in order to take a negotiation class, and I would’ve gone to St. Thomas if it would have been an offering. The president asked me right then and there, “Do you want to teach it?”

I had never taught before. I had done some things that Stryker and at my other companies, but I had never formally taught as an adjunct professor. He gave me an opportunity and he’s like, “I can tell that you’re passionate about this. I can tell that you’d be the person that would be great to start this here and to make sure that this program grows.” I’ve been successful in making that program grow. They had initially started me out with doing a summer term, and now I teach four times a year. I teach every single semester that they have. I have summer, fall, J-Term, and then I also have spring semester. Executive education has been added on, and I do that four times a year. Also, any custom courses where companies come to St. Thomas and say, “We’d like for an accelerated negotiation course, or we would like something custom-tailored to sales reps or to regulatory or whatever function that may be.” I put together that custom course and run it for them.

Negotiation is more than just a class in school. It is a life skill. Share on X

How big are your classes?

For an MBA, I have classes up to 36 people in a course, and then for Executive Education, that’s between 10 and 15.

The next time I talk to you, you’re going to be having that negotiation division started at the University of St. Thomas.

I would love it, a new major.

You’re an adjunct professor. You’ve had all this experience and then finally, Director of Global Strategic Sourcing. You’ve been in that position for a few years. What’s that been like?

It’s been interesting. From Coloplast standpoint, it’s my first time working for a company that’s not headquartered here in the US. Working for a European company is different. The thought processes are different. The way that they run business is different. It’s been a good opportunity for me to see something through a different lens and different culture, and also work with an entirely different group from a med device standpoint. This is the first time I’ve had any experience with urology. Also, managing a team in France that comes with its own unique experiences.

Because you’ve been experienced, has what you’ve had to do in this role come naturally, or have you found yourself stretched and having to get innovative in how you do things?

For any good career step, you are being stretched in certain regards. You have to figure out what those regards are. In this particular situation, it’s stretching me in a lot of regards. It’s a great opportunity for me to delve more deeply into the urology market to understand that customer base, to understand some of the challenges that we have, being a urology company that a cardiovascular company does not have. We are elective procedures as opposed to life-saving or life-sustaining. It’s different in that regard. Also, having headquarters being in Denmark comes with its challenges because I think of everything from a lean perspective. In a lot of cases, having that European side of things takes longer to get some things done.

The fact that you guys are elective surgery focused, how has COVID affected this in that regard?

COVID is affecting us all, especially in any company that’s had elective procedures. At the end of the day, we’ve got a strong team in place and that team is focused on making sure that we’re coming out of this situation stronger than we were even before. That’s a strong testament to the leadership that we have in place, and to all of the people that are focused on making sure that our patients are getting what they need.

Danielle, you’ve done some incredible things in your career and I can listen to you all day talk about this. I’m going to take it back to a little bit of a negotiation. With negotiations, going back again to the sales rep, do you think negotiation not only helps the sales rep become more effective with customers but also with colleagues in leadership?

I do. When I’m focused on negotiation training, I’m not only focused on those external negotiations, which often when you go to negotiation training that’s all you get. It’s that external, the buyer versus seller. When I focus on negotiation training, it’s tailoring multiple different types of negotiations because we all are dealing with them on an everyday basis. Negotiation is truly more than a class in school. It truly is a life skill. Everything that we do when you think about it is truly a negotiation. Some of the most difficult negotiations are those internal negotiations because you’re dealing with those people on a daily basis. Things that have occurred, past projects that have occurred or things that have gone wrong from a personality standpoint, those all come into play. It exponentially increases the emotion that’s included in that process. Because of that, some of those internal negotiations are even more difficult than the external negotiations that many of us are trained upon.

You sound like you’re giving relationship advice.

Relationships are negotiation.

You’re spot on with that one and you’re right. I’m sure when you’re working with someone that’s worked with your time and time again, and they’ve seen your successes and failures, they have their own bias that you need to negotiate through to get something done productively. Many people I talk to have this plan from the very beginning, you included. What’s interesting about your choices and your career path is that it seems like you followed your plans, but you throw yourself into whatever opportunity you get. You allow yourself to see where else you can go. Is that accurate or would you say something else is at play?

MSP 26 | Negotiation Skills

Negotiation Skills: Some of the most difficult negotiations are the internal ones, because you’re dealing with those people on a daily basis.

 

I would say that’s 100% accurate. I thrive in challenging situations. I’m one of those people that if I don’t have a challenge, I start to get bored. I like situations where I feel proud. Because I haven’t done this or experienced it before, I don’t know if I’m going to be successful, but at the same time, I’m going to learn quite a bit and I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that I am successful in whatever I’m doing. It gives me an opportunity through each of these different opportunities that are presented. It gives me an opportunity to further develop or enhance skillsets that I either didn’t have, or I had but it needed to refine.

With all this being said, it’s a good thing you didn’t go to law school because then you wouldn’t have had this career.

I think it is. I had looked at going to law school later on in my career when I was at Stryker. From my standpoint, there’s no return on investment, especially from the standpoint of I would essentially be starting from ground zero again.

You did get an MBA, didn’t you?

I did get my MBA. I got International Marketing.

Would you say that’s served you quite a bit?

It has. From an MBA perspective, it gave me a lot more respect for the marketing and sales side, especially on international playing fields. To understand those different cross-functional areas is extremely important. When I’m then negotiating with the sales functions or marketing functions, it also helps me to understand more of their viewpoint and where they’re coming from.

For anyone that has the opportunity to read to anything we’ve talked about, what would you share about getting into the medical sales industry and then navigating your career well, what information would like to share with anyone?

From navigating a career standpoint, you need to focus on not only having a plan but also being flexible. There are a lot of things that will change, especially as you’re going through the course of life. There are a lot of things that will be presented to you. There are a lot of challenges that you’ll come up against. The biggest thing is making sure you’re looking at it from a learning perspective, and make sure you understand that some of those challenging situations are going to feel uncomfortable during those times. At the end of the day, being able to push through them, being able to be successful through them, and have those key learning helps you greatly across the board as you’re growing your career.

Thank you for talking with me. It was great. We hope to catch up with you and talk to you soon.

It sounds good. I appreciate it.

Wasn’t that a fantastic episode? Danielle’s story is interesting because she found new opportunities, threw herself into them with everything she had, and discovered an entirely different direction to take things. It exposed her to even more opportunities. That’s not an uncommon theme. Almost every guest I have has something along those lines of being given something small and turn it into something significant. Danielle fits right up there at the top of the list. What I loved also is the negotiation, utilizing that leverage. As a sales rep, I’m sure you know how important it is to utilize leverage. With that being said, I don’t think all sales rep realize how much leverage they’re giving away believing that they don’t have any, and not securing an opportunity to influence a provider or someone on the provider staff to do something little different.

It was great to have you on the show. I’m glad you took the time to read this episode. If you’re someone out there that is looking for a position to get into medical device sales, pharmaceutical sales, genetic testing sales, molecular sales, then you need to go to EvolveYourSuccess.com and take the assessment. Let’s have a conversation about how the medical sales career builder can help you find and secure the position that you’re looking for. For those of you that want to improve your performance in the field, you’re a sales rep and you’re saying, “I know that I can bring my game up to a different level.” Visit the website and look for the Sales Builder program. Let’s have a conversation and talk about something that is designed to ramp up your performance. Get you some real clarity on where you want to take your career and have you taken leaps and bounds to get there. Thank you and make sure you tune in next time for some more amazing episodes.

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About Danielle Hansen

MSP 26 | Negotiation SkillsDanielle Hansen is a Director of Global Strategic Sourcing at Coloplast and Founder/President of the Coloplast Women’s Council. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of St. Thomas teaching in the MBA and Executive Education Programs. She possesses an extensive background in international supplier relationship management, contract manufacturing, negotiation, project management, and continuous improvement. She graduated Cum Laude with a triple major in Legal Studies in Business, Spanish, and Operations Management in 2004 from the University of St. Thomas. In 2009, she completed her MBA with focus in International Marketing also from the University of St. Thomas. She attended 3 Executive Education Courses from Harvard Law School including International Business Negotiations, Leadership & Negotiation, and Advanced Negotiation Master Class in 2013. In addition, she is certified as a Lean & Six Sigma Black Belt (LSSBB) & Certified Professional in Supply Management (CPSM). Through her tenure, she has earned numerous awards including the 2018 Mentor of the Year Award, 6 Star Financial Results Award, Employee of the Month, People’s Choice Award, and a Collaborative Inquiry Research Grant. Danielle continues to train on topics of negotiation, contract management, continuous improvement, supplier communication, conflict management, emotional intelligence, & strategy.

Danielle is passionate about improving people’s lives and has had the opportunity for the past 15 years to impact/improve people’s lives on a daily basis through ensuring continuity of quality supply of medical device, bio-pharmaceutical, and industrial industry product while at Coloplast, CPC, Stryker, St. Jude Medical, Honeywell, & Medtronic.

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