Meet Nicki. He's a Product Director.
I help make life easier for my colleagues working with clinical data: Data scientists, statisticians, programmers and so on. I do so by setting the direction for the digital products we build to support people in these jobs. Our team helps with setting up storage and compute solutions that ensure that the individual programmers do not have to do it themselves, and, when possible, we help with automating tasks for working with clinical data. As a Product Director in Data Science, I am responsible for defining what we build in a unit (an agile release train) consisting of six teams with capabilities mainly within software development and programming.
These aren't the droids you're looking for
Joining
There were three main things that led me to join Novo Nordisk. The first is that the company is investing massively in ensuring that we have a solid and scalable data foundation for the future. As I’ve been working with how to get value from data throughout my career, it is a major benefit to be at a company that is investing in and actively transforming the data area. This also leads to my second point: Novo Nordisk has an impressive product management setup. We work in larger units (agile release trains) to develop digital solutions, and I get the chance to focus more on the functional part of leadership, where I can spend most of my time figuring out what the right things to build are.
Finally, there is the people culture here. Before joining, I got a really good impression of the company’s approach to talent development and how they handle mental well-being. I haven’t been disappointed. On one of my first days here, I read a project description where part of the project's principles was described as something along the lines of 'prioritising people's mental well-being above meeting project deadlines.' I had never seen anything like that before. Novo Nordisk goes the extra mile in implementing our values in this area.
Work
My team and I are currently working on modernising the way our statisticians work with clinical data analysis. We’re doing this by setting up a platform that facilitates the automation of workflows and the collaboration between different programming languages to a much larger extent than we do today. The way our statisticians work with data is not easily automated, so it is really interesting to work closely with data experts to figure out how their daily work can be done more easily. During the coming years, we expect more clinical studies than ever, meaning that we need to do things smarter to adapt.
Life
I think family life helps you put things into different perspectives. I’ve been with my wife since 2013, and we got married in 2019. We have two daughters, one born in 2021 and a second, very recently, in 2023. My wife works as a psychologist, and our very different jobs and approaches to problem-solving have been a great advantage for us to stay curious on how to solve challenges at work and at home. Being a father only adds to this. Having two children has taught me to be even better at letting go and accepting that not being in as much control as I would like is OK. When a presentation did not go as well as it could, or I am waiting for late information from someone, I am more understanding of myself and others – at least, nobody’s lives were in danger.
I think my leadership positions have helped me to be a good dad – and the other way around. Obviously, parenting and leadership are very different disciplines, given the maturity of people you are working with, but the tools in leadership and parenting are similar. It is all about getting the other person to be able to solve problems independently – and being ready to help when there are challenges.
Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try
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