2021 Employee Award Winners

Individual CEO Award Winners

Travis Pressler

This employee has always demonstrated tremendous initiative and takes on a great deal across the organization.  It is amazing how often his name comes up – “just talk to ……” or “He can help us with that”.  With the expansion in the organization, we have seen his. This employee is one we have all counted on and he is always accountable.  He is sometimes going in many directions, but his work ethic and work capacity are sizeable.  He and his team support our on-going production and keep the line up and running working with the Operations team.  He gets a lot done and definitely demonstrates another Bioventus key cultural trait – Results.

 

Gina Dye

This person leads a function that sometimes goes unnoticed unless something goes wrong. 2021 was no exception and was an especially challenging year for the Payroll team to ensure payroll was processed properly and meet the challenges to stay on schedule due to the unprecedented growth experienced by the Company. With the acquisition of Bioness and Misonix alone, the payroll volume increased by almost 50%. The Canada payroll was also added under this leader’s responsibility. They readily met these challenges and increasing demands with her flexibility and determination to get it done right and on-time.  They were committed to the employees to ensure a smooth transition, working many long hours and weekends to make sure employees received accurate pay.

 

Natalie Biscarret

Being an Early Adopter and a Change Agent are qualities of a leader and are critical as the organization continues to grow and evolve. This employee’s contributions allow Bioventus to learn from the past and create improved, repeatable processes as well as ensured business operations for emerging programs and projects are well thought out and include precision. She engaged emerging business partners on the Bioness transformation to Bioventus for both international and domestic needs, new product rollouts, and material master value add improvements. She eagerly engages throughout the organization and brings excellence and positivity, and most importantly, she doesn’t point fingers and puts personal agendas aside. Her assistance with international operations has improved efficiency and quality delivery resulting in resources being better trained and more knowledgeable of our systems. She is open to sharing her domain knowledge to others, especially to newcomers from our acquisitions and to International Operations.  Regardless of how time consuming, even if she is asked to assist other groups, she is eager to assist for the good of the company.  She knows how to rally a crowd and keep the focus towards the future.

 

Drew Zabor

This employee embodies going above and beyond the responsibilities of his day-to-day job and has been referred to as a Renaissance Man for any sales, marketing or product-related questions, especially as it pertains to competitive opportunities and threats. He was a key participant in the launches of Osteoamp Flowable and Reficio and led surgeon sales calls and visits – in the field, in-house, and on Zoom – as well as delivery device project for Flowable. He took the lead on reimbursement issues and denials, attended and spoke at distributor events, provided excellent research on competitive pricing issues, and successfully led initiatives to handle inventory issues and backorders. He had a very successful first year revenue for Osteoamp Flowable for the surgical division of $4.6 Million, a seamless transition from Exponent to Reficio without loss of revenue, and multiple successful surgeon and distributor sales calls. Drew Zabor was promoted to Senior Product Manager in August and is the recipient of this CEO Award.

 

Onno Siegersma

He is a very integral part of the indirect international team and really respects the core values of Bioventus in everything he does. A key member of the international indirect team when it comes to marketing, this employee is a wealth of information whether it is for HA, LIPUS, or surgical divisions. He knows how to find information and spends hours doing research to help us within the sales and marketing departments when it comes to understanding the different indirect markets we work with, competitor products, clinical papers and more. He wants to ensure that those on his team are happy and fulfilled with their work. He ensures to understand what our career goals and aspirations are and will help guide us in achieving these. He is very open to listening to people and their ideas, while also providing guidance and feedback in a respectful manner. He is the one who will establish the marketing objectives/plans for our new product launches, helping others us succeed in launching TRICE, Curavisc, Misonix and Bioness in Intl Indirect markets.

 

Ryan Kerr

This employee is a driver who is always looking for ways to improve and deliver results at Bioventus.  What makes the above remarkable during 2021 is he also completed 9 due diligence projects, participated in the CartiHeal assessment team, was involved in the Vistex, BrightTree, and Master Data team projects.  He also has championed the upgrade to EDI which is still in process. He sought out opportunities to work cross categorically to improve our business processes for multiple categories.  This was demonstrated through his actions working alongside Finance on ASP and Payer Invoice Processing, BI on HA claims data, Reimbursement Services and contracting for the EXOGEN process improvements. His work enhanced payer contracts by Implementing unit grid into Payer HA agreements to align units between Bioventus and payers; established contracting lines of business for all payers in SAP supporting the move to BrightTree that will increase our ability to collect the correct amount from our contracted Payers on EXOGEN and get data on coverage trends when fully implemented; and drove change across multiple departments to prepare Bioventus for the Durolane/Gelsyn-3 change to ASP in July of 2022. He does all of these things while continuing to deliver at a high level in a day job.  He is an excellent driver of change focused on improving our business outcomes.

 

Nicola Fulgenzi

When it came to the technical aspects of the International Operations for the launches of Bioness, Trice, and Curasan, he was the expert. He was pivotal in their launch success. His work ethic is only matched by his strong analytical skills. For product launches, he facilitated the IT projects on both project management and the manual entry of the various SKUs. He did all of this while also completing the duties of his day-to-day responsibilities. Despite the extra work, he would always smile when asked how he’s doing. Thank you Nicola Fulgenzi for all of your hard work!

 

 

 

Ryan Koch

In 2021, he stepped up to lead the development and launch of the 5th Metatarsal Strap project within the AHT group, even though he is a core team member of the surgical group. He was given a very limited and in-experienced team, and it fell on him to author the design history file and all associated design documentation. Further, with the constant turnover that he faced on this project, he functioned as both the project manager and the technical lead, leading a relatively new team through the design control process – often for the first time – in addition to regularly incorporating new team members along the way and overcoming team turnover.  He dealt with significant and numerous issues with the contract manufacturing, which he was able to overcome through teamwork, and also performed manufacturing engineering responsibilities – including modelling, drawings, and mold design.  He created the graphics and initial draft of IFU and led the team through all of the design reviews.  All of these actions culminated in the successful launch of the 5th Metatarsal strap in December 2021. As this project was outside of his routine sphere of influence, he had to build and maintain working relationships within the AHT group and further coach them on design control and risk management requirements. Thanks to his leadership and persistence in seeing this project through to completion, the product was successfully launched in December 2021.  The launch of this product has facilitated the ease of use of Exogen for patients with hard-to-treat fracture sites.

 

Nicole Sgherza

She is the driving force behind all Medical Affairs Operations. She is an inspiration to many others and is responsible for delivery on all the ambitious objectives which will enhance all of the product lines. Nicole manages all Medical Affairs Operations both US and OUS. In particular she has been instrumental in managing publication implementation, Medical Information Requests (MIRF), implementation of SmartSheet, managed more than 8 Investigator Initiated Sponsored Research (IISRs), and managed the transition to revised copy review process across the organization and has been responsible for monitoring, auditing and managing this process for the majority of 2021 and into 2022 in addition to all her other roles and responsibilities. She has also been instrumental in the integration process for Bioness and Misonix with respect to Medical affairs operations and support. She shows great initiative and is so resourceful that she will go and source and help she needs, learn how to do the respective task and then show her understanding by teaching others how to do it. She works effectively with Marketing, Commercial, Market Access, Sales Training, Finance and International. She has quickly become the point of contact and on first name terms with many of Bioventus Key opinion Leaders.

 

Christina Campbell

Her efforts have saved countless hours for individuals at the director level. She is able to quickly determine where errors have occurred and implement a fix to ensure all are aligned appropriately.  She was a critical member of the execution of the 2022 AHT Sales force realignment.  In her role as Senior Sales Analyst, she helped re-shape regions, territories, quotas, and teams.  She was able to connect with all the Directors of Sales and optimize all of the regions so that the customers were aligned properly and strategically. She has assisted with territory optimization efforts, the creation/development of reports/report optimization in Power BI to meet the needs of Directors & Territory Managers, 1:1 tutorial on creation of pivot tables, the availability of performance data for EOY performance reviews, and timely issue resolution for incidents sent to Sales Operations. The outcome of her contributions were that all 25 regions were designed perfectly to fit our 2022 plan for growth on the AHT side of the business.  The rollout of the new regions and reps in new roles was made that much easier because of the tools and information she was able to provide to all of the Directors of Sales. Creative, courteous, solution-oriented, reliable, responsive, and embraces change are just some of the words used to describe Christina Campbell.

 

Suzannah Stafford

Through 2021, She was faced with massive turnover and challenges within the UK/I sales team. She started the year having gone through an organizational restructure that saw the loss of 2 sales territories, 1 sales manager, and reshuffling of reps within existing territories. Despite all of the demanding changes she was forced to navigate, she was consistent in her message, attitude, and support of members of the team. She was always as direct and transparent as she was able to be given the circumstances, and regardless of the massive volume of work required behind the scenes to perpetually recruit, train, and develop strategy to support the stabilization and growth of the business she always made time to coach and listen to other members of the team and their needs. No matter how big or how small, if a report came to her with an issue She would work to resolve it. She never showed frustration or was dismissive, while at the same time was clear on her expectations with her staff and in doing so brought out the best in each and every one of us. Regardless of what was thrown at her, she never wavered in her commitment to the business, to her staff, and to our customers – because of this, despite massive upheavals, dramas, vacancies and disappointing quarters, she transformed the team from one with a culture of looking out for #1 and doing the bare minimum to one centered on achieving results, acting with integrity, and respecting one another. I have never worked with a team that is so universal in their respect for leadership and in their drive to overachieve on targets, not only for themselves but for the good of the team and the business as a whole. Everyone is willing to help one another and are constantly working to better themselves and impact patients’ lives.

 

Shaivee Deonanan

Turnover was contagious throughout 2021 and especially towards the end of 2021 for the Canadian reimbursement team. But, over the course of her first year with Bioventus, she has already become a leader on the team. She volunteered to take on a significant project to update the way we create new accounts and classify existing ones in SAP. She began learning about different ways to use SAP and has become a SAP Super User, successfully implementing a new SOP for new account creation that will support the organization as we grow. She has also taken on an informal leadership role, helping to onboard and train new colleagues. Faster onboarding of new employees led to better output and greater revenue recognized in Canada SAP changes make it easier to implement territory realignments and track trends in the data. Shaivee Deonanan kept her composure and continued to show up every day to ensure patients were being advocated for and ensured that much of the institutional knowledge remained.

 

Christopher Chiavario

He is viewed within Bioventus as both a very skilled electrical/software engineer and a strong coach and leader to the engineering team in Memphis.  He is a caring and thoughtful leader and colleague.  He has cast a strong vision for the team since his initial introduction and his enthusiasm and engaging nature have been a big impact on the team and the broader organization. He came to us from a local start up, and that mindset really impacted on his approach to diving into problem solving, breaking down boundaries, being open minded and flexible.  Many of the “old ways of doing things” were replaced with more effective ways of working and high expectations for team output and attention to detail.  He reached across Memphis, Durham, and Valencia and began working closely with Operations, Manufacturing, Quality, and other R&D Teams. He also engaged very heavily with the Marketing team (in Durham) to collaboratively envision the “future of EXOGEN”, pitching to senior leadership multiple times and receiving support and funding for this effort. Chris has completely changed the culture of the team in Memphis.  The team has renewed enthusiasm, engagement and accountability to the organization in Memphis and broadly.  Chris has a sort of contagious passion and curiosity that have moved into the wider engineering team.  In addition, he has actively organized the team and the team communicates frequently with key stakeholders.   He and his team worked with the Durham and Memphis team on timeline development, mold vendor selection, drawing reviews, mold design risk mitigation, bench testing, organizing some V&V activities, and resource prioritization, all in the face of significant, vendor-driven delays for various reasons. He engaged outside experts in a product and MDR gap assessment for cybersecurity, which included an educational session on MDR’s general cyber requirements and applicability.  He had a leadership role in the New Patient Encouragement Software, assisting significantly with scope definition / management, team formation, timeline development, testing strategy, schedule acceleration, and reaching compromise regarding design direction.

 

Bastian Naevie

While the Customer Care Manager was in Canada to fill a gap Bastian was filling the gap in AMS and showed leadership to the Customer Care team during a merge situation with Bioness. Besides keeping the employee engagement high with the team,  he also managed to merge Customer Care processes Bioness EU vs Bioventus. Bastian’s flexibility, leadership, acting as a role  model and manager for the team. The “go to” person. Also activating his project manager skills to facilitate the merge with Bioness.

 

 

 

 

 

Lauren Layden

She worked with the DUROLANE team — medical, marketing, and regulatory – to create and approve two new claims for DUROLANE. The ability to use these claims in marketing materials help us to further differentiate DUROLANE in the HA product class. Once the claims were approved, Lauren worked with creative team to create an eye-catching die-cut brochure to help pull through the claims in the field to HCPs. These new claims and materials will help the sales force pull through the messaging about how DUROLANE is distinctively different to help with conversations with customer and ultimately drive sales. She has been here just over a year and has already made a big impact on the downstream marketing for the HA portfolio. She has applied her background in marketing to patients to her role and has brought a new perspective to the team and the HA marketing materials. Plus, her contributions to digital engagement with customers and target customers resulted in surpassing the established engagement goal by 185%. She also worked to help create Bioventus’ large digital presence among HA customers and targets, which has set the stage for our portfolio of brands and has the potential to spread throughout other Bioventus brands. She also worked creatively to expand our KneeMail campaign to promote awareness among potential patients, employed engaging social media activities to build awareness, developed digital ads that capture the customer, and expanded our partnership with Spartan to build awareness among Spartan’s followership.

 

Shauna Messer

This employee has worked tirelessly getting approvals from Kentucky Medicaid for the Bioness Rehab devices. No other Medicaid plan is covering these devices and she has used her own time and energy to make sure these are now covered items for most of our KY Medicaid recipients. She also has a very good working relationship with the Traumatic Brain injury fund. Many of our TBI patients are approved for the devices. This employee is always available to her case manager and patients. She follows up on all insurance denials to see if there is anything that may have been missed to use as a way to overturn the denial decision. Through all her empathy and real desire for her patients to flourish, she constantly goes over and beyond the call for her position as Territory Manager. She has overcome the transition to Bioventus, learned all the policies and procedures and their impact on our patients. Shauna really cares for her patients, co-workers, therapists, hospital relations and anyone else she runs into on a daily basis while she is representing our culture. She removes barriers to our less fortunate patients. I was able to witness her at a patient screening day. She immediately got down on the floor, level with her patient, in her black dress pants. This does not seem like a job to her, this is something she really has a passion about, and I am so glad she is part of the Bioventus family.

 

Osman Khan

Several years ago when the new EU-MDR regulations were released, this employee stepped up and said, “I want this project and I’ll do a great job for you”.  He exceeded “a great job”.  He took on the project, told me what needed to be done, volunteered to take on extra responsibilities, and did more than I ever could have imagined could be done. He did a gap analysis, figured out what needed to be changed and when, came up with a plan, assigned new roles and responsibilities, encountered some obstacles and overcame them, updated the QMS, ensured the plan was completed on time and made sure that we were 110% ready when it came time for the upgrade audit at the Valencia facility. He did 100% of the audit on his own after a colleague tested positive for COVID-19 and lost her voice. His years of hard work paid off… we had ZERO findings during the audit.  In fact, the auditor said this was the first audit they had done for an EU-MDR upgrade that did not have significant findings. He had the support of Bioness (at the time) and me, but this was 100% his achievement and he deserves to be recognized for it. Without his work we would have not passed that EU-MDR upgrade audit which would have impacted business and sales in Europe.

 

Klaudia Cur

During the merge with Bioness EU a lot of things in regards of RA were not in place with Bioness EU. Klaudia managed the ERP systems with RA country by country every time when an order came in she had to run with it through different departments to have all the flags ready. We forget that we talk about Customer Care reps here, not about project managers or product managers so for a customer care rep to act like she is a product and project manager, she really became the role model how we as management want to see people moving but also for her colleague’s who automatically bombarded her as the role model in getting things going for us.

 

 

 

Al Guerra

He consistently demonstrates a growth mindset with evolution to improve the organization and ourselves.  With the acquisition of Bioness, he quickly embraced this as an opportunity to change the way in which we marketed, sold and managed the Bioness Vector Elite by creating and leading a dedicated Vector Team with Alicia Griffith and Josh Miller. His drive for success goes beyond just sales numbers but he also provides authentic optimism and always helps to refocus to the task at hand and ultimate goal of providing excellent customer service and support. As my manager, he is not only supportive of my own career growth but also challenges me to continue to develop as a leader in my own right.  I recently told him that he is just like a Vector Elite.  He allows me to stumble and self-correct to be challenged and grow but I always know he has my back to support me and he will never let me fall. He consistently demonstrates the ability to influence others, the encouragement of risk-taking and innovation, value ethics and integrity, the ability to act decisively, high emotional intelligence, and the ability to balance hard truths with optimism. He led the Encompass-Bioness partnership from a $600K investment from Encompass to a multi-million dollar partnership that continues to grow and has the potential for exponential growth. He has also led unprecedented growth for the Bioness Vector Elite with 39% YOY growth from 2020 to 2021 (with only taking over Vector sales in the second half of the year).  Under his leadership, Bioness Vector was able to reclaim market leadership.

 

Connor Mosley

This employee has made significant contributions in 2021 that make him a standout. Within all the Rehab portfolio of products he is able to write the programming and coding behind all of our technologies. With L300 Go and our app he was a key member of our app releases. With the Vector platform his coding, logic and testing is instrumental in the key software updates available in the Vector system to launch. Connor is the embodiment of an Emerging Leader.  Even in the short time I have worked with Connor, I have seen him really step up and take initiative and responsibility for a number of critical and time-sensitive projects related to StimRouter Plus, L300 and others.  Many of these efforts are urgent responses needed to Regulatory agencies related to audit findings or pending applications.  He has collaborated with Memphis engineering team on the EPG GO project and its possible utility for the EXOGEN next generation project.  He has collaborated with our Durham Regulatory team and leadership on a number of critical and complex Regulatory responses, especially around cybersecurity – where he again has been proactive in engaging and in getting work done on tight time frames. The recent departure of his manager has been viewed as an opportunity to step up into a more significant role and impact.  He is already talking about ways he will become more organized with increased responsibilities.  He is working to do a diligent job of documenting and organizing the work his does on programming, seeing that as an important contribution to the future and to aid those that will follow behind his work.  Connor Mosley can definitely be a future leader in this organization.

 

Tim Martin

He understands the importance of team work and never loses site of the goals of the company. 2021 was a record year for BITS, generating over $4.74mm ($4.64mm in the US) in global revenue representing YoY growth of 114% and this could not have been done without Tim building 6 additional BITS demo box units to circulate in the field for key inservices. He put together the entire BITS demo boxes that the field uses to demo their accounts so clinics can see firsthand how the BITS systems work and engage with the software program. He even repaired the BITS boxes that were returned to Valencia due to problems or issues. He immersed himself in the Bioness Integration projects such as the migration to Bioventus sign-on, changing of the wi-fi access, setting visitor workstations, site branding and more. When others couldn’t see the big positive picture of the acquisition and the integration process, Tim kept the attitude positive and that was contagious.  He even when out to Home Depot to match faded paint of the building on the day the signage was being installed. He manages everything onsite at the Valencia office from a facilities and maintenance standpoint ensuring the building is well-maintained and is the site’s IT administrator.

 

Terri Messina

In every situation and encounter I have had with her; she always has a positive attitude and willing to dive in and help. We had people resource constraints downstairs and she went downstairs and helped the manufacturing and operations teams by rolling up her sleeves and assisted without any hesitation. She had never even done what they needed her to do- it was her first time- -and she jumped right in, learned what needed to be done and competed the job. She helps with many of the commercial organizational projects working very closely with the field, Marketing and all depts in Valencia. She is very resourceful and pulls connections through whether it’s a new OKTA tile she is telling us to check out or helping with meeting planning or Concur reports. She is able to ensure a “caring culture” and one that raises employee morale, making us feel like we are a part of something special as one company.

 

 

Ryan Cusack

This employee joined Bioness, a Bioventus Rehab Company just two months after acquisition, and in doing so made a huge leap of faith and change of life during a time of relative uncertainty. He’s achieved his growth and revenue production through immersing himself in the clinical specialist role completely – taking mentoring & feedback professionally and whole-heartedly putting it into practice, by showing the utmost professionalism in his behavior, communications, appearance, and follow-up, & by his natural lead-by-example mentality. He has quickly become a leader amongst his CS peers for his upbeat attitude, ‘doer’ behavior style and ability to go above and beyond during challenging times of company transition. After only 3 months on the job, he led the CS team in ‘Operate Stop Gap’ execution by going above and beyond the ask of the CS Team. He delivered a self-created presentation at Bioventus (Durham office) to the South Team of his practices & procedures to manage workflow, minimize account impact & facilitate ongoing sales during a time of company transition. He contributes to all levels of the rehab division by promoting BITS & Vector Sales within his accounts and to his contacts. His expertise & knowledgeable for the BITS system, dynamic body weight support, & FES make him a leader both within the company and externally to his MD, PT & OT clientele. Above all else, he is inclusive of all, approachable and fun to be around. His calm demeanor amidst a climate of dramatic change has helped guide the CS field team to continue to deliver when uncertainty and at times lack of resources has been a challenge. He communicates with many CSs in the field and is able to gauge and influence well-being and encourage performance while staying positive. Ryan maintains an excellent work-life balance while also contributing to the greater spinal cord injury (SCI) community at large. When he is not working for Bioventus, he volunteers his time as the head coach of the NOVA Mutiny Quad Rugby Team. Here he provides athletic wheelchair rugby coaching, peer mentorship connections and leadership to individuals seeking to reintegrate into sports and society following a life changing SCI. Ryan is immersed in the northern Virginia PT network & has grossly multiplied DTC revenue in this affluent area. He excels in organization, follow-up and analytics of his sales. He is persistent, altruistic with his time and devoted to his clients.

 

Taylor Fisher

She demonstrated resilience and ability to overcome obstacles in a new company as well as relentless enthusiasm and a capacity to not take no (without real justification) for an answer. She took on the launch of Trice in Europe, coordinating across the international team in Canada, Netherlands, US, and Spain to get product on the shelf for sale. This was an absolute ground up launch with no similar products in our portfolio. She coordinated all the activities with Trice together with the international team, conducting the large orchestra of people to achieve a smooth launch. So smooth, that people outside the core team hadn’t realized it had happened. The Stage Gate Process is Bioventus’ key process for onboarding and monitoring new projects. With changes in leadership, the mechanism of evaluating and updating business cases had diminished. Even though she had only recently started within Bioventus, she grabbed the bull by the horns and worked with Alessandra to re-engineer the process, and get buy-in across the Stage Gate committee. The changes have been met with universal approval.

 

Leora Kurtyka

She has the most incredible attitude of any employee I’ve ever met. She has an incredible ability to find positives in some of the most unfortunate situations. She also takes feedback or mistakes and uses them as a way to train and improve the processes for all parties. Recently I had an urgent need for tissue for a 7 year old burn patient who was in critical condition after a truly heartbreaking story of how he got his burns over 88% of his body. She made sure we had everything ordered and triple checked the shipping and retrieved all tracking info and set alerts for deliveries before it was even asked for …at 6:45AM … all because she cares about these patients as much as we do who directly see them! She is taking the TheraGenesis launch on all alone and doing an amazing job! She gets excited for the chance to create a smooth and easy process for ordering, distribution, and willing to take any suggestions how we can improve or provide better customer service. When we have had issues with backorder, she took it upon herself to make sure there were organized lists of exact inventory, when new inventory would be available, and an extremely fair way of distributing the inventory we had. I have been told by the massive health system of UPMC as well as many of my smaller health systems that we have the nicest and most helpful customer service. Before I even know there is an issue with materials management, she already has fixed it and the customers leave with a smile and having a better day. Without her we wouldn’t be able to do our jobs appropriately and sales would definitely be reduced.

 

Joseph Taormina

His innate ability to build relationships based on mutual respect and collaboration, tenacity to work through issues, and calm, focused and confident demeanor, make him a highly respected and trusted team member. He is part of the team responsible for launching all electronic updates required for the successful ultrasonic instruments like the nexus, BoneScalpel Access and SonaStar Elite products. The successful launch of the neXus console required his intense efforts both during development and release, in addition to manufacturing and field support for the years following its commercialization. In addition, his intimate knowledge of technology made him a perfect fit for developing an effective and highly successful remote training program for the OUS service centers supporting, including travel to China to support technology transfer of legacy products. His demeanor, professionalism and dedication to the successful resolution of all challenges of development, launch and support of our surgical products, were critical to their success.

 

Lawrence Agtuca

It was his willingness to look beyond what was already implemented and working, to think of fulfilling a company need in a more efficient way, that enabled this significant improvement. This employee is responsible for implementing a comprehensive strategy for managing labels, label prints, and some packaging prints for both sterile and non-sterile products. He researched capabilities and resolved the correct strategy to convert labels previously managed via drafting software, which required manipulation and management of hundreds of individual files, to a database format that can manage and maintain changes to labels in large groups. This innovation unlocked significant time from critical resources for both authoring these prints, as well as continuing time savings into the future. Each of the labels for our surgical products (and many have up to 3 labels) is now created, managed, maintained and shared with our industry partners, in a highly efficient format. This change enabled drafting/designing and engineering resources to shift focus back to innovating and commercializing our world-class surgical instruments. He took the initiative to research an improvement, and more importantly work with the Operations, Quality, and Regulatory teams to bring it to completion. He also continued to contribute to development, testing, and project management efforts required of his position.

 

Vineeth Varghese

This person was the behind-the-scenes, driving force of two of the largest company initiatives in 2021: the acquisition of Misonix, and the product launch of OSTEOAMP Flowable.  He tirelessly worked behind the scenes with executive level decision makers to assess the potential acquisition of Misonix, bringing his expertise – included his vast knowledge of spinal procedures, his MBA-level valuation skills, and his Marketing background in strategic decision-making – in this space to help guide the final decision. Not only did he see this acquisition to fruition, but he also continues to assist in the integration efforts. Though the downstream Marketing team sees the recognition for a successful product launch, it is the upstream, strategic individual who sees the project from concept to launch and beyond who can be the true hero. He was the brains behind the limited product release for this launch, which has been heralded as a pivotal decision in the success of this launch. Through the limited release, we identified small tweaks through surgeon VOC that enabled us to put out a better product commercially when we were ready for it. Referred to as “A Quiet Leader for the Business”, he has demonstrated unwavering commitment, inexhaustible time and effort, strategic thinking and influence, ability to drive informed decision-making, having an innovative and entrepreneurial spirit, and an ability to challenge the status quo.

 

Richard Yates

His impact goes beyond just the people who work directly under him. He created the 15273 strategy which let to massive revenue for the company. He has also modified the freezer program and pushed the needs of reps up the chain in order to get things done. Recently there was a huge reimbursement issue where we were denying coverage for grafts that should be covered. Potentially millions in sales, and Rich led the charge to make the Bioventus team aware of it and it has been fixed for good. This itself makes the sales reps more successful, more willing to stay and be happy, happier customers, and healing patients. He has the patience of a God and the heart of a lion. He has led the Tiger Team which was a reimbursement program to educate and create a safe and open line of communication between the Sales force and Reimbursement. He has trained new managers every time he is asked without hesitation. Sometimes he has had new sales reps of his own to train and still takes on helping train managers or participate in new hire trainings. He is always looking at opportunities for his sales reps to be promoted or participate in activities that will help us develop into the roles we aspire to be in. It’s a rare thing to find a manager who makes people want to work harder for, but he has that impact on all of us. “The leaders who get the most out of their people are the leaders who care most about their people,” and Rich cares about his people sometimes more than he cares about himself it seems.

 

Team CEO Award Winners

US Branding and Integration Team

                 

       Derek Hurdle                Brooke Farrar                     Scott Petrie               Angela Nasto                Vanessa Williams

           

    Andrew Veldkamp          Mark Geiger                     Joel Behnke             Joyden De La Vega                     Stella McCalla

The US Branding Integration Team assembled to represent stakeholders from each brand with the objective of integrating legacy Bioness and Bioventus branding. This is quite a sensitive undertaking as there are many stakeholders with vested interests in the branding of the company and products they manage. The team met weekly to discuss and plan how to integrate Bioness company and product branding into the Bioventus portfolio to become a cohesive portfolio. The team planned and developed communications to inform and build consensus among the ELT, the product sales teams, and customers to ensure ultimate alignment and support. The team assessed each social media channel for integration technique in order to maintain followership and identified the channels to sunset. The team also undertook the heavy lift of rebuilding the websites to showcase the new Bioventus. The naming decision of the Bioness rehab business was also determined through this team effort.

 

Creative Services Team

                 

        Scott Petrie               Stephanie Phipps            Mark Sargent                Michael Ramirez               Eugene Downs           Joel Storey

In Marketing, we often rely on the work on Creative Services to essentially bring to life and create our marketing collaterals. From logos and brochures to banners, webpages, and videos, creative services is heavily involved in making our ideas a reality. For example, with the recent launch of Curavisc, we relied heavily on Scott and his team to help us create brochures, leaflets and webpages from scratch and have then turnaround in record time. Further, we recently updated the DUROLANE clinical resource guide for international, which was a HUGE undertaking and required a lot of help from the creative services team. No matter how many corrections or changes we had to make, creative services was always there to support me and put together a great piece. For the BSM, the team was always there to support us with all our needs from posters, banners, stamp cards, name cards etc.

 

Project Firetruck Team

                       

Carrie McCann     Jessica Gidney      Adrianne Brown    Sara Compton     Ramasare Nishad     Sriram Vellore    Beverly Yancey

                       

Yasir Minhas            Curtis Frund            Adam Lampart      Craig Nichols      David Williams     Brendan Byrnside      David Eggenberger

Project Firetruck was a project of cross functional employees to support the Surgical business growth and improve overall support for the customers. Driving improvements to the people, process, and technology surrounding the Surgical/BGS business units consignment to cash process. Carrie led the process and technology components. Adrianne Brown led the people portion. Process and technology: Cross functional team to identify the source of issues, that directly led to open order/unrecognized revenue, and process efficiencies that threatened our ability to book and revenue sales. This project is resulting in improved efficiency, fewer errors, an easier and more repeatable process and allowing for us to layer the Misonix Surgical business onto the BGS business.

 

Collagen Manufacturing Process Project

   

Mark Schaefer               Mitchell Vanderlaan

These two demonstrated a can-do attitude in seeing a major project through to completion with no complaints. They took on the responsibility of re-establishing the collagen manufacturing process at a new vendor, a process that involved a complete re-write of all work instructions and specifications, obtaining and ordering custom and off-the-shelf equipment, chemicals, and tissues, training all associates at the new vendor and being present at all of the runs for the PROcuff collagen. In the span of only 4 months, they were able to spec out, order, and set up all the equipment, train the vendor on the processes required to receive pericardial tissues, process these tissues, and generate 3 separate lots of collagen required to support all units needed for testing.  This transition allows Bioventus ultimate control of the manufacturing supply chain with the ability to scale the process as needed while driving down the costs of goods. It has also resulted in a reduced collagen scrap rate and substantially reduced costs from those quoted by the original development partner.  Both have proven themselves to be dependable and reliable, while providing clear guidance and the documentation required to repeatability manufacture the PROcuff collagen.  This was a win-win situation for Bioventus and the PROcuff project that would not have been possible without this duo tackling these actions head on.

 

HA Reimbursement Team

               

Ryan Kerr                Christopher Perry     Brendan Byrnside    Sahel Ghaghchy      Yasir Minhas

               

Theodore McCormick     Tim Donovan         Barry Cooper       Ben Fishburn              Derek Hurdle

This large cross functional team was charged with preparing Bioventus for potentially the largest market to impact the HA market in years.  Their work stream started last summer and is ongoing here in 2022 to ensure that if a market shift occurs with HA reimbursement that Bioventus will be in an enviable position to further drive patient access to our HA portfolio. Greater detail of the work included voice of customer activities, investigational competitive intelligence and finally building a robust & complex model to ensure correct pricing decisions for today and future forward.  This pricing scenario is something the market has never seen so the model building and tweaking was/is never ending and requires precise forecasting and best in industry market knowledge.  Should this market event occur-Bioventus will be ready and we have this team to thank. This group is having to strategically decide how to best move our HA price point to levels that in today’s market would leave HCP’s NOT purchasing our product.  This team has put us in the best position possible at this time.

 

Market Report Revamp

   

   Sayli Vaidya                    Lea Reed

These two colleagues worked together to bring the market report content to life in a logical, user-friendly manner. One taught herself Power BI basics via LinkedIn Learning) and in doing so, she was able to provide concise and clear direction of what the reports should look like. The other skillfully translated the plan and content into a powerful app for users providing strategic recommendations and guidance as to what is feasible within the PowerBI tool and how to best serve all users and stakeholders in the future. The recipient departments rely on the content and were concerned the .ppt was ‘going away’ … these two overcame this challenge by assuring all the various departments images and content would continue to be available and readable by desktop and phone. By transitioning the quarterly market reports to Power BI, stakeholders always have current and historical market trends with competitive intelligence readily accessible. Power BI allows users to access and use long-term and current data to drive decision-making across the organization. Additionally, users no longer need to search through historical market report in PowerPoint to find needed information, increasing productivity and accuracy. Importantly, this example can be used to demonstrate how Power BI can be used and deployed at the department level to share accurate information to all the stakeholders – increasingly important in a multi-product distributed organization.

 

AHT Commercial Team

                   

Christina Campbell  Sharon Dearing       Kattiya Formy-Duval      Chad Watson       Sharon Sweeney         Peyton Rollins

                   

 Sayli Vaidya           Terri Hamilton              Robert Bradley               Lerone Arrington           Dan Kennedy           Aaron Martin       

 

Radhika Vijayakumar

The 2022 AHT commercial overhaul project required a massive amount of cross functional leadership and execution. In the middle of 2021, the FPP project produced an outcome that would require the AHT business to completely overhaul the structure. This meant every sales rep in the organization (~300) would be carrying different products, have different customers, and possibly have different managers in 2022. This also meant that everything from individual zip code alignments, compensation plan modeling, back-end SAP configuration, and quota setup needed to be completed in a 60-day window with an expectation that all reports and details are live by the second week of January. However, this was not the only massive initiative that was launching at the same time, pulling the exact same resources. The Brightree process proved to be a roadblock that could have caused a delay in setting up our sales organization. The team did not let that stop them and on January 18th, the new AHT commercial organization was launched, and our salespeople had line of sight to their business, customers, quota, and compensation.

Every nominee understood that there was a sales rep, customer, and ultimately a patient who could be impacted by not having clarity to the data and information set up correctly. This was our driving force to ensure a best-in-class execution. This team spent many late nights and weekends testing, fixing, evaluating, and executing the final territory structures. This project was not straightforward as there were many nuances that impact downstream execution.

During this transformation the nominees were also pulled into other high-profile projects such as Brightree, Bioness data integration, Misonix strategy and commercialization integration, as well as assisting the Rehab business to ensure they were set up correctly to enter the new year. This team worked together to solve problems that came up and ensured efficient communication was delivered to help ease any gaps in the information.

The greatest outcome of this project was the post project debrief where we spend 90 min discussing what we could have done better, opportunities for better controls, areas of focus for 2023, and process improvements to ensure that we continue to drive this organization forward as the business gets more complex.

 

LMS Project Team

               

        Madelyn Archibald            Princess Pedew                        Chad Watson                          Amber Plotner                      Brian Poole

During the process of integrating Bioness and Misonix into the Workday and Cornerstone Platforms, this team uncovered multiple problems that needed to be resolved. One being that the systems were not set up to allow for customizations of the required assignments, including Compliance and HR trainings, for specific teams. Automatic assignments were turned off, leaving this team left with finding a solution which would allow the key compliance training to be assigned by December 31st.

This group was busy closing out a busy year with their own projects but took time to have weekly touch in meetings with one another to keep the progress on this moving forward. While others were celebrating Christmas holiday, Brian Poole and Madelyn Archibald were working to make manual assignments for about 427 Misonix and Bioness, with Brian saying to Madelyn, “don’t worry, I’m staying here with you until this gets done”.

Chad Watson graciously took on the role of helping to understand the LMS back-end systems and translating complex information into action steps that I could communicate to the larger team. Princess Pedew and Ambre Plotner provided reports and insights to keep the project moving forward based on their historical knowledge working in the systems, Madelyn Archibald took on the ownership of communicating to the leadership team to keep them informed and she ultimately is the one who manually assigned the training to each Bioness an Misonix employee.

 

L360 Orthopaedic Pilot Team

                       

  James Teague        Joyden De La Vega       Kim Miller         Kevin Morris     Michelle Bychowsky    Eileen Gonzales     Annika Brands             

                        

  Nathan Perry               Julia Downs              Erin White                 Angela Nasto          James Pini         Laura Kryglowski        Brian Phelps                 

                     

Brandi Slaga    Jennifer Giangrisostomi  Brian Rosenberg   Rita Shteinman     Robert Campbell      Joseph Banach   

The L360 Orthopaedic Pilot kicked off on September 13, 2021 and by December 5, 2021, the team had created new operational processes, collaborated to build trust between the AHT and Bioness selling teams, overcome challenges of building an entirely new business model “on the fly” and produced 30 prescriptions for patients to receive a device to help them recover from knee injuries.

Every member of the pilot team was asked to push themselves beyond their comfort levels, not be afraid to fail and collectively develop a business approach to introducing the L300 Go Thigh System into orthopaedic accounts. Team members demonstrated caring, learning and results by working together to integrate two unique ordering and processing systems, often working late into the evening, so that our sales reps could be successful when driving prescription for the L300 Go; taking the initiative to start market research and kickoff trial opportunity in California and Texas; proactively working to learn how L300 Go would be used in the ortho patient population; trusting one another and working together to develop a sales strategy for targeting new customers and planning their schedules to support one another on sales calls; and by taking the lead for all sales team members, hosting calls to check-in on progress, working with marketing to develop KOL’s, meeting with the field to ensure they had the support they needed, attending all internal meetings on the pilot team and conveying the voice of the field so the team could be successful.

Additionally, team members worked together to plan sales calls, develop a strategy unique to their territory and drive prescriptions in Ohio to further provide Bioventus with insurance payer information needed for Bioventus to be positioned to commercially launch the L300 Go into orthopeadics; stayed involved in the pilot process, working to identify areas where we had commercial coverage, introduce the team to third party support and guide the team to understand how to position the L300 Go to payers in orthopaedics; Laura connected marketing to key resources so the team could learn where competitors have succeeded and failed, understand payer perspectives and develop an efficient patient support process; and helping Bioventus realize its first sale in a Worker’s Compensation claim, which has opened a selling channel for Bioventus to move forward this year.

The field teams Rehab rep and AHT rep were able to “hit the ground running” with appointments setup within the first week after training. The goals of the pilot were to learn, understand the call point overlaps and overall gain insights into how the collaboration between the teams could work. This was the top down (ortho surgeon) and bottoms up (Physical Therapist) approach that we wanted to learn from in the pilot.

One member’s ortho contacts have catapulted the L360 KOL council which will be a huge driver in setting the foundation on the importance of KOLs in this pilot. Two of these team members have been instrumental in the pilot to navigate the process and uncover key learnings along the way. The field pilot team came together to figure out what and how to get things done which is instrumental in driving any sort of change within an organization.  They were able to work collaboratively with solutions at hand to discuss.

Through careful planning and targeting of accounts and overlaying key insurances as what was done in the Florida and Ohio pilot showed that results can and did appear with a surprisingly large number of prescriptions the team was able to prove there is a demand and that collaboration was key.

 

Vector Team

       

           Al Guerra                            Alicia Griffith                        Joshua Miller

This team embodies the Albert Einstein quote: “The leader is one who, out of the clutter, brings simplicity…out of discord, harmony…and out of difficulty, opportunity.”

This team was able to kick off the most innovative team structure and strategy to build a team dedicated to Vector. Vector had a different process, different call point and different type of sale than the other Rehab products. To be able to see this vision and then see where the team is today is an amazing thing to witness. The top-notch talent and skill set of the Vector teams includes strong dedication and will, a creative and innovative mindset, and determination to showcase and highlight the amazing product that Vector is and the sales and POs are the result.

The team had a strong vision of what they see in their customers’ want and, together with Marketing and field counterparts, were able to drive many of these accounts that were on the fence or thinking about Vector into solid POs and sales. Their follow-through with accounts is extremely effective outline and sharing how the field team can complement their current interactions with accounts and how best each of the teams (ie. TM, CS, Marketing) has an important role in the Vector sale and the impact each role can make in a sale.

Key Vector trainings and meetings took place to ensure everyone was on the same page and the vision and strategy of Vector was understood – this was the Vector team kickoff meeting in Valencia that brought the sales, Marketing R&D, tech teams and more together to highlight the importance of Vector. The meeting was led by one of the team members and was the start of the exciting momentum we saw in 2021 and beyond in 2022 with over 35 POs in date to date, this is a huge impact and revenue driver for the company. The determination that they showed from the start set an excellent foundation to jumpstart the Vector team. Their innovative spirit of taking what could be perceived as a difficult product and complicated process from sale to installation and beyond shows that with the right team and the right people they can accomplish so much more.

 

2021 Major Award Winners

Professional Growth and Leadership Award

Madelyn Archibald 

This employee joined us in February of 2021 and, to say the least, hit the ground running by demonstrating continuously her willingness to learning new things.

She started out by championing the overhaul of the BioLearn system, and developing a better user working in a cross-functional group (IT, HR, Sales Training, Quality) to try to improve the functionality and operation of the system and playing an active role in pitching the need for a full-time administrator.

She has fostered a “continuous improvement” mindset in Compliance, consistently bringing forward ideas that she has taken from industry conferences and webinars. (attended at least one position-related conference or webinar)

She pioneered the use of a new way of tracking attendance at training sessions, employing a free program offered by Google that registers all the attendees by name and event and produces reports instantaneously.

On top of her day job and stepping in to help others, she completed her Bachelor’s Degree in 2021, and has already enrolled in an online Masters’ as well as completing our “30 hour Challenge” in Bioventus University during 2021.

 

 Emerging Leader Award

Joyden De La Vega

Since the acquisition of Bioness, many of our legacy Bioventus employees have had the opportunity to work with this employee and see her passion for the product line she managed as well as the insights and creativity she provided in planning the 2022 Bioventus Sales Meeting.

She is a role model in work ethic and determination to get things done.  She has the ability to influence those in other cross functional organizations to accomplish tremendous amounts of work.  She has been credited as one of the key forces in helping the Rehab organization to achieve 103% of quota in North America.

She also played a key role in the launch of the L360 Pilot where she established herself as the subject matter expert and provided valuable insights to all involved.  She also played a critical role with the Regulatory Team in defining the MDR requirements for International.

Thanks to Joyden De La Vega’s Leadership and the winner of the Emerging Leader Award for ’21 we had great success in our Rehab business and an excellent example of our culture.

 

Innovator Award

Vanessa Williams

We all know the world has transformed around us and continually does through technology.  Bioventus has never utilized digital marketing successfully in the past and this person is changing the way we present the Bioventus brand to our customers and patients to increase awareness to millions on an annual basis.

Early in their tenure at Bioventus, they quickly conducted a Gap Assessment of our current Digital Strategy and identified areas of opportunity, created a dashboard with stretch goals to measure & optimized our digital performance.  Through this analysis, the AHT Portfolio had a goal to reach 3.5M customers.  While optimizing our Paid Search Strategy, Website performance, Programmatic & Endemic advertisement, paid social media & website performance we were able to exceed the goal of reaching reached 5.03M customers!

Behind this unprecedented performance was a total rebuild of the EXOGEN website and incorporating lead generation for the NEW inside sales team.  The Full Potential Plan project highlighted the need for an Omni-Channel Approach and she was ahead of this initiative from a marketing perspective.

During unprecedented times for Bioventus, they were able to lead the integration of all digital marketing for Bioness & Misonix.  This included developing a plan to convert LinkedIn followers from Bioness to Bioventus in a way that minimized loss of followership, identifying the social media channels to sunset for Bioness/Misonix and the plan to integrate those channels which are purposeful and saved up over $50,000

 

Major Impact Award

Rachel Wardle

In 2021 this employee delivered excellence in their field and beyond.  During a year of dynamic change both internal to BVS and external to the org (increased competition for talent and changing environment), they excelled in attracting top talent in the market for specific roles (the “hook” for BVS) but also served as a strong ambassador to the company in living the culture of results, caring, and learning.  In 2021 they proved they had the ability to personally shift their skills and lead a team as well.

Through the acquisitions, they quickly learned new aspects of our company and began training leaders on new processes for Talent Acquisition and finding great talent for the team.

Bioventus hired 224 employees and she personal recruited 113 of those individuals.

For the second time in her Bioventus career, Rachel Wardle is the winner of the Major Impact award.

 

Patient Advocate Award

Tyler Wagner

As a PNS Field Clinical Manager, this individual has covered more than 220 implants.  Their presence in procedures brings product expertise and professionalism to the physician experience, making them more likely to continue implanting StimRouter.

They are the physician’s “right hand” when it matters most. He identifies the needs of the patient and physician prior to the procedure and always arrives with the necessary equipment and uses his extensive knowledge of StimRouter and the implant procedure to support the physician and patient as needed.  He ensures the highest level of quality and service in every physician and patient interaction

He follows up with patients after implant, anticipating in advance that they may have questions after being under anesthesia or after they begin using the device. Several patients have complimented him for checking in post implant. Patients appreciate how much he knows and how well he treats them.

 

Philanthropy Bioventus Life Award

Madelyn Archibald 

This employee is a role model in giving to others and demonstrating Caring inside and outside the “walls” of Bioventus.

She taught weekly sewing classes for over 10 women – with more women attending each week.  She used her own money to buy 3 sewing machines and colorful fabric for the classes.  Every Saturday, she created a new project for the class and taught them how to make useful everyday items e.g. laundry tags, tote bags, fanny packs, masks, cosmetic bags, jewelry bags and flip flops.  These classes taught the important life skill of sewing, but also helped increase confidence and morale for women who were at a low point.

She advocates for the Healing Transitions center by sharing uplifting stories about the sewing classes with co-workers at Bioventus and by sharing the projects on Instagram.  She inspired co-workers to donate materials to the cause.

She also participated in the Arthritis Foundation Jingle Bell Run and encouraged others to do the same.   She represented Bioventus at our sponsor table and even walked both race routes.

 

Driving Change Award

Diversity Council

Faith Anumba                 Harvey Bhandal           Adrianne Brown             Callie Doucet            Jessica Gidney              Paige Haslett

Field AHT Sales                 Sales – UK             Cust. Srvc. – Memphis         Field AHT Sales           Finance – Durham     Sales – Canada

                   

 

Tim Kane                       Theo McCormick            Sharon Sweeney            David Varner                 Kimberly Cox

Field AHT Sales          Marketing – Durham       Finance – Durham            Field AHT Sales      Procurement – Durham

               

 

Each of these team members has demonstrated the following behaviors to advance Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Bioventus:

  • Operationalizing the Council and the ways they would work with employees and leaders.
  • Facilitating the selection of a DE&I Leader
  • Encouraging and fostering a culture where diversity is valued
  • Creating forums for inclusion by launching 2 ERGs in 2021
  • Implementing internship programs with HBCUs and hiring our first intern from a local HBCU. That intern became a Bioventus employee this year.
  • Each has demonstrated a desire to drive positive change by tackling sometimes tough topics for the organization
  • Each member committed 3 weeks to learn and develop their own knowledge by completing the Yale Certification on Fostering Inclusion & Diversity, which helped enable better planning and execution of our initiatives by providing a shared foundation from which they would all start.

This group of employees has demonstrated the tenants of our culture, Caring, Learning and Results, as well as any group across our business.  These employees are an excellent example of what a group of committee employees can make happen at Bioventus with support from all employees and leaders.

And the leader of the council: Kimberly Cox, DE& I Council Chair/Procurement-Durham