Leading the Service and Process Excellence (SEPX) team in Novartis Operations - a team of approx. 100 process expert professionals across our main locations of Hyderabad, Prague, Dublin, Mexico City, and Kuala Lumpur. Novartis Operations is a newly formed Business Unit, where Manufacturing and CTS (Customer Technology Solution) are combined. The CTS part is a well-established «global business service» organization of approx. 30’000 internal and external associates providing a full range of service from transactional activities to high-end-knowledge work through a network of five mature service centers, in-country teams and third-party suppliers. CTS optimized end-to-end services with strong end-user focus and digitally enabled smart services. A strong focus services and process foundation is essential to continuously optimize service and process, driven by the SPEX team including implementing key parts of the CTS operating model, implementing a consistent service design framework, converting our process into data rich digital assets with prices data mining through tools such as Celonis, implementing consistent service and process management standards, supporting continuous improvement as well as enterprise wide projects. Data and technology play an important role to leverage the full potential along with automation and robotics. I retain accountability over service quality and operational excellence in CONEXTS, which is a Domain of CTS with approx. 3500 associates in 2022.

CONEXTS provides commercial, scientific, and consulting services to all Business Units of Novartis (Innovative Medicine, Sandoz, Development and Research). Core services include field force operations, insights and analytics, market access, commercial consulting, medical communications, medical information, clinical trials, training design and delivery, consulting, legal and compliance.- One of the founders of the CONEXTS organization and member of the leadership team. CONEXTS has grown from ca. 50 associates in 2012 to ca. 3000 associates in 2021 deployed across all five Novartis Global Service Centers.- Leading all the Practice Operations Managers and operational excellence experts (20 people) across all locations.- Devising and managing a systematic service quality framework to continuously increase service quality and client satisfaction/experience.- Fostering a culture of innovation in CONEXTS through recognition program as well as a crowdsourcing platform.- Driving continuous improvement initiatives with a direct P&L impact of $3-4 millions per year.- Developing a Service Excellence training curriculum to drive service mindset in the organization.- Governing the service catalog.- Integrating support system (time tracking, service request management, cost management, SLA repository, process mapping, capacity and utilization management).- Since 2014, additional CTS-wide responsibilities such as operational responsibility for the worldwide customer satisfaction / client experience survey touching all 108’000 Novartis associates; member of the CTS Strategy and Operations leadership team