Scaling a medical device company: A CIO’s digital transformation journey

When I started at Novanta about five years ago, my first mission was to bring scalability to our Enterprise solutions, as well as developing a digital roadmap to modernize the technology footprint, reduce technical debt, and explore strategies to ensure that we’re growing at scale.  

Novanta is a leading global supplier of core technology solutions that give medical and advanced industrial original equipment manufacturers a competitive advantage. We are scaling through organic growth as well as through acquisitions. One of many important missions is to ensure that when you acquire and integrate a company, then you transition them to good foundational systems 

I started as a CIO but with cyber events happening at an increasingly alarming rate, I developed the cyber program. We are a long way from that now – we’re going to be getting our ISO 27001 certification soon. 

We started with a ‘crawl-walk-run’ approach, and even though we’re now walking fast, there’s always room to run. I give credit to all the team members within my group, from help desk to infrastructure to the application and software engineers to all of Novanta team members, because you can’t do cybersecurity alone, it’s a team event. These transformational programs, from reporting to BI to having cohesive sales and marketing teams to ERP, include everyone, not just IT. 

Careers: paths and pivots, change and chances 

I started as a computer science major for my bachelor’s degree, and I continued majoring in computer science for my masters. 

Something happened during my master’s studies: I was introduced to an FBI agent who was a guest speaker at my school. He introduced me to forensic analysis and ended up teaching a class on it. What I learned is how science and engineering can come together, to be more applicable and less theoretical. 

That’s when I switched to computer engineering, in the middle of my master’s program. So, I ended up getting my master’s in computer engineering and specializing in data assurance and forensics. That’s where my love of security also began: Learning how data is important, how data belongs to the owner and how it should be protected…especially with the other mission of digitalization. So, it’s a little bit of yin and yang in my in my life, but I believe in data assurance. 

Then I started working. I’ve had many great positions throughout my career, in many different industries, from biotech to pharma to tech software companies, and currently at a medical device company. 

But one thing I’ve learned is that it’s never too late to continue learning, so I ended up getting my doctorate in computer and system engineering. That was another pivotal moment for me. 

To all the women who are reading this, and who don’t like or are just getting into computer engineering, I want to say that it’s never too late to learn and pivot. It’s not as difficult that everybody is trying to make it out to be. And if you study hard, you can definitely achieve it. 

We need more women in technology. My mission is to make sure that I get out there and really encourage and tell all the women who are working in different positions or have daughters or cousins or nieces who are growing up that having exposure to STEM is important. 

If someone chooses not to go that route, that’s not an issue. But the possibility is there for people to be eager to learn and be successful on their own merits. I grew through technology, and I had many different positions, so never be afraid to change. 

Change is scary, but it’s normal and can lead to growth and new opportunities. It’s never an easy thing to completely shift your career plans, but I’ve done many different jobs. I’ve been inside of IT departments. I’ve been outside of IT. I’ve been in engineering. I’ve been in sales organizations. Different experiences give you an outlook of how others perceive technology.  

How do you make sure that you’re influential? How do you bring other people along? Because in the position as a CIO or CISO, you don’t manage people directly. It’s a matrix situation: You need to bring people along by communicating the “why” and the “what” you’re doing. Make sure you can exert influence, which is a key tool to navigate dynamics, garner support for initiatives, overcome obstacles and achieve desired outcomes in the workplace. 

Holding all these different positions definitely helped me to speak their language. For R&D, they appreciated someone who could think about engineering topics. For Sales, the same thing 

So don’t be afraid to change and move around in an organization to learn new things and expand your horizon of possibilities. 

Developing, implementing and managing the ERP process across the business 

ERP touches everyone in an organization, from the manufacturing floor to middle management to upper management to executives. And it’s always great to have the sponsorship of your manager and the CEO. On my journey, I have the CEO and CFO right along with me, shouldering this responsibility and empowering me to ensure we’re doing the right things. They’re there to advise and help, which is huge. 

Now, how do you get there? 

Sometimes, like in my particular case, you get lucky. At the time I was being hired, there was a desire to make sure that we were advancing as one company and coming up to scale with higher revenue and different business models. The appetite has been there. 

With your executive leadership, how do you make sure when you’re going down that path, you bring them along? Our setup is based on business units. We have a general manager for each business unit, and I also had to convince them that something is the right thing to do.  

Statistics show that 75% of ERP programs fail, and only 25% are successful. So, what are the ingredients of the 25% that succeed? You need to set up the building blocks for that, share it and bring everyone along to make sure that we’re part of the 25%, not the 75%. 

We workshopped it. We brought together 42 people from across the globe, from different positions, to detail the business capabilities, our pain points and what ERP would mean to Novanta. We highlighted all of those through many sessions, and then we started bringing different vendors in to see which software would work for us, moving forward to the integrator and so on. And as life happened between 2020 and now, here we are in 2024, kicking it off. It’s been a long journey, but what that says is don’t ever give up, because business is based on the economy and is based on business decisions. 

That doesn’t mean that ERP or whatever other initiative you’re undertaking is not important. It’s just business. You have to be able to be flexible to move and pivot with the business. 

How to improve the relationship between the CIO, the CEO and the board of directors 

This might come as a surprise for some readers: Be honest. Tell the whole story. Because if you try to change the storyline, the next time you meet, the reaction might be ‘but that’s not what you told us last time.’ So, always be honest. 

I report to the board for oversight of the cybersecurity roadmap. We also have an audit committee and an ESG committee. You have to build trust, just like you build trust with your teams. And the way you build trust is to have an open, honest relationship. Then, when things are tough, and you go back to the board or the CEO, they know you’re trying to do something about it. They will have your back because they know you will tell them the whole picture, not half a picture or a quarter each day. 

Security and AI 

The Novanta CEO is sponsoring AI for me, so that’s always helpful. We are focusing on productivity. But you need to balance the innovation with the risk that comes along with it.  

For example, we’ve seen that it’s possible to emulate an image or video. Is it really Sarah sitting here speaking to you? I can assure your audience this is actually me, but how do you mitigate against the risk that it’s not? 

It’s moving very rapidly. From the innovation lens, I’m excited about AI. From the security lens, I’m less excited about it. A key question is: How do you come up with a way of defending against the different vectors that are coming through?  

I was at a conference recently with other cyber professionals and we were all trying to come up with ways to mitigate the risks, red-teaming the AI concept to see how companies can defend themselves.  

There are different approaches to authenticity and where the data is coming from and is it being used for outsiders? There’s a lot of risk from the data, from copyrighted information and so on. It’s definitely top of mind. 

Do I have a fabulous solution for it? No. And no one else does. But there are ways to minimize it. 

Just like if you ask any CISO, ‘are you ever going to be hacked?’ and they say ‘No,’ that, to me, is not reasonable. It’s a question of when it’s going to happen and how you’re going to deal with it. 

With AI, we’re all working on how we’re going to deal with it. 

Sarah Betadam has served as the CIO and CISO of Novanta since January 2021. She is responsible for strategic direction, cybersecurity, leadership and implementation of enterprise-wide digital transformation and IT. Sarah has 18 years of experience in global transformation initiatives, strategic business planning, merger and acquisition, and change management. Prior to Novanta, Sarah held the position of Director and Head of IT, portfolio and program management at Splunk, Inc. She also held IT management positions within a variety of industries and multi-billion-dollar organizations.