Global Vice President at Establishment Labs

Leonardo Peynado Perez

Being the Global Vice President of Human Resources at Establishment Labs, my role has been significant in guiding our HR strategy to support the company’s growth plans. We operate in a specialized and dynamic industry keeping the focus on developing first-rate medical devices for our patients through Motiva Standard promise that involves end to end process from the manufacturing process to the post-market surveillance.

I handle HR setup where each region has its own business partner, supported by the center of expertise located in our Headquarters. Right now, we are focus on the U.S, Costa Rica, EMEA, APAC and LATAM regions, with Costa Rica being vital because it’s where our manufacturing and research and development facilities are located, and it is the place where our company was founded.

The HR Strategy for a High-Tech Medical Device Company

At Establishment Labs, we are on a constant transformative path. Our company is expanding globally and we are coming across many opportunities and challenges. My primary contribution is in aligning HR strategy with the business objectives by making sure that we have the right organization to grow, people with right capabilities, strong living of our culture and a dynamic workplace where people can maximize their potential and careers growth. It is very important for us to navigate under complex environments where our products need the correct understanding about their benefits supported in our extensive medical and clinical research.

For instance, as we introduce Motiva implants into a specific geography, there is a need to develop a precise capability and skills mapping for our team in that geography. This involves a deeper understanding of local market forces and stakeholders, defining the right profiles needed and establishing compensation schemes to attract and retain the top talent. Creating a strong employee value proposition is crucial in this context, as potential hires could be skeptical about joining a new company entering a new market. 

The Role of a VP of Human Resources

Navigating the progression of HR requires a very strategic approach to major aspects of workforce planning and management.  This approach requires ensuring the following aspects:

“We need to create a talent management umbrella that covers different aspects such as talent acquisition, development and succession, diversity and inclusion and performance management.”

1. Capabilities for Growth: It means a strategic workforce planning exercise together with the business where we need to plan about the number of people, profiles, specific capabilities to develop or to buy in the market, etc; to be ready to grow.  It is a key planning exercise to prepare the organization for the future by developing a capability plan that supports our expansion and growth. This involves mapping out the skills and expertise required to succeed in new markets or products and ensuring that our teams are equipped to meet these demands. 

2. Organizational Effectiveness: Ensuring the right and efficient organizational structure with precise roles and responsibilities is essential for operational success and execution. We adopt a matrix model to facilitate effective communication and collaboration across different regions and functions. 

3. Talent Management: This includes talent acquisition, development, and succession planning. Attracting and retaining best talent is one of our key factors as we focus on creating a compelling employee value proposition.  We prioritize the progress of individual development plans promoting high performance and recognizing through monetary and non-monetary rewards. We strongly believe that employee development should be based on the job,  experiences and exposure instead of a high number of formal training courses.

4. Culture: Company needs to define what type of behaviors wants to see in their leaders and employees.  Fostering a strong workplace environment is a very challenging aspect of the HR role. As our business is very dynamic, we need to stay tuned with the different changes and supporting innovation and patient-centricity in a daily basis exemplifying it through their roles and contributions to the company.

Strategic HR Insights

From my perspective, a proper HR strategy involves more than just managing personnel; it is about creating a framework that supports business goals and people growth. For example, specific business initiatives require the creation of a tailored strategy for attracting, managing and developing talent according with the products, markets, geography, culture, etc. Launching of new products mandates specific capabilities, such as support and training to effectively engage with healthcare professionals.

The second point is People centricity.  This concept refers to create an environment where the employee is one of the business pillars to be success.  There are many approaches about this concept, but I would like to share that an Employee Value proposition is the way to potentialize the employees giving a purposeful experience having them in the center. 

The third insight is about new ways of working.  Companies need to offer a flexibility labor framework that allows the employee to manage their time in a more agile way.   This concept goes beyond a simple work from home policy.       The other part that complements new ways of working is flex benefits, we are moving from a rigid scheme of benefits (all fits for all) to a more personalized scheme where the employees decide where they want to invest their money.   (Health, sports club, food allowances, car plan or cash car allowance, etc). 

The last one is to be attractive in the market.   We leverage on that attracting people based on our company purpose to be a women health contributors and the Employee Value Proposition I´m talking about.