An Industry Career in the Food (Formula) Industry
Joel Lim is a pediatric gastroenterologist who transitioned to the Vice President, Medical, Scientific and Regulatory Unit of Nestle Nutrition North America (Gerber) after a twenty-year academic career.
Joel was a Professor and having an expertise in short-gut syndrome and nutrition, he had started two intestinal rehabilitation programs at two different university hospitals during his academic career. After reaching Professor, he started to ask himself:
“What’s next? Should I continue in academics for the remainder of my career or should I pursue another route or adventure?”
He was approached by another physician at Nestle who was moving to a different role. This physician had heard Joel speak and was in his network; thus, he reached out to propose the role to Joel. Joel reflects not really hesitating and he quickly decided to say “Yes”.
Joel sees working in industry as a way to help many patients in a short period of time as compared to practice where you are helping several patients at time. Moving to industry does not mean that you are doing an “about face” on your career; you are channeling your learning into a different way of helping patients.
In his current role he has responsibility for Medical Affairs, Clinical Research and Regulatory. Regulatory was “new and exciting” and something he reports learning on the job from other colleagues within the company as it is not something physicians typically learn in medical school or residency training. He took the approach of considering himself “an intern again” and saying to himself “this is all new to me; have an open mindset; you are learning; this is an adventure!”
Related to this topic of learning new things, Joel shared his mindset “I’m here because they need my medical knowledge”. In fact, he even asked when he was interviewing about not having an MBA. The answer he got confirmed that his medical knowledge and clinical training were the skills the company was looking to acquire by hiring him.
His words of wisdom to share with physicians interested in transitioning to the industry include:
- Build your network: talk to people (even those from industry!), go to meetings and conferences.
“The more people you meet the more pathways you create”
- Keep an open mind
- You can enter the industry at any point in your medical career; many companies do like you to have some clinical practice experience
- Ask yourself where you see yourself: Research? Laboratory? Interfacing with Key Opinions Leaders? This will help you decide on the appropriate function to pursue.
And advice for those that have made the transition to an industry role:
- treat everyone with kindness
- have an open mind; learn from
- ask questions, colleagues want to help
- participate in training sessions even if they are described as for those at lower levels
- be humble