Work

Four brands I created at three companies. All still in market.

Product, then campaign, then category, then platform. Each one was a rising responsibility, and each one is still doing its job for the company that owns it. Here is what each was created to do, what shipped, and what was mine. The links go to the companies' own pages; I have not copied their material here.

Berchtold, later Stryker

Precision Beam Technology

My roleProduct Manager, Capital Equipment, Video Integration. First role after the MBA, with the surgical lighting business as my own.
Created toGive a commodity surgical light a story in a crowded category. The product was competing on the same claims as every other light in the room.
What shippedA new generation of surgical lighting launched at the AORN congress, with a trademarked technology name that simplified a great deal of optical engineering into three words a sales force could say. A scientific advisory board and a creative agency helped build it. The launch won an industry product award the following year.
What was mineThe business, the launch, the brand name, and the agency brief. The company was acquired by Stryker soon after, and the mark went with it.
Still in marketYes. The mark is on Stryker's site today.

The public page at Stryker →

Olympus

Simply See More

My roleSenior Product Manager, Endoscopy, Surgical Imaging. Recruited to relaunch Narrow Band Imaging for urology.
Created toTake a good imaging technology with a tired brand and give the sales force a reason to call.
What shippedThe clinical evidence became a claim strategy. The claims became a campaign: a website with a physician finder, advertising, a panel of leading urologists at the American Urological Association meeting, and a partnership with the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network.
What was mineThe claim strategy, the campaign, and the agency brief. The evidence came from clinical studies already in the literature.
Still in marketYes. The campaign name is on Olympus's Narrow Band Imaging page for urology.

The public page at Olympus →

Olympus

Big Screen Surgery

My roleSenior Product Manager, OEM Partnerships, M&A Integration. Moved into the role after one year to lead the company's entry into the connected OR.
Created toSell three companies' products as one offering. Olympus had endoscopy video, an acquired video integration company whose product worked, and no OR infrastructure. I added the infrastructure through an OEM in Toronto and put all three on one quote.
What shippedJoint development so the products worked together across US, German, and Japanese engineering. A showroom outfitted to feel like a working OR, with the demo scripted around it. A traveling OR built with the events team. A capital sales force with no OR infrastructure background trained to sell three portfolios as one. And the brand for the new category.
What was mineEnd to end, with one direct report on the integration and the portfolio. The engineers, the distributor, and the events team did not report to me.
Still in marketYes.

The public page at Olympus →

Intuitive

Intuitive Hub

My roleStaff Product Manager, leading platform commercialization for Intuitive Hub.
Created toGive the company's first surgical video and data platform a name that could carry a platform rather than a feature. The name came out of a long brand and creative process; I wrote the brief.
What shippedThe platform itself, roadmapped and commercialized from an acquired technology into a video tool built into the robot that recorded and annotated every procedure on its own. Global pricing through the executive pricing council. The contracting that let capital sales attach software to every deal. The requirement that the platform appear on every capital quote. A sales force trained to sell software to an IT buyer. Then telepresence, moved onto the platform and opened to every customer who had bought it, with the evidence that made it a pillar of the company's first digital subscription.
What was mineThe roadmap, the pricing, the contracting, the sales enablement, and the telepresence work. The interoperability function I founded earlier earned the platform charter; the platform result belongs to the platform work.
Still in marketYes, on the current generation of the system.

Intuitive Hub → · Telepresence, in My Intuitive+ →

Where it started

Before Berchtold I spent five years in enterprise healthcare IT at Cerner and Surgical Information Systems, selling capital to hospital IT committees and then implementing perioperative software, in the operating room for every activation. That is where I learned how hospitals buy and what makes them keep using what they bought. Everything since has had to fit into that world.

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