With 25 years of experience in healthcare working for global brands like Johnson & Johnson and Abbott Laboratories, Jeff Castillo was thrilled with the opportunity to join Medela, a family-owned global organization focused on the science of care. Combining his professional background with the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic and his own experience as a parent, he was drawn to join Medela in 2021. Today Jeff leads as executive vice president for the Americas, from the Medela office in McHenry, Illinois, where he plays a crucial role in expanding healthcare solutions and access worldwide.
“Medela has helped millions of families around the world and across different stages of life, — including mine,” says Castillo. “The opportunity to join Medela was exciting for both me and my family, because of the support Medela provided us through the early days of our own personal parenting journey. The corporate vision of Medela is reflected in the passionate employee culture, and I’m proud to be surrounded by such a committed team.”
Medela supports millions of parents, babies, patients, and healthcare professionals in more than 100 countries around the world. The company provides the leading research-based breast milk feeding and baby products, as well as an array of healthcare solutions for hospitals, and clinical education to help address a range of conditions from the earliest critical needs in the neonatal intensive care unit to post-recovery for wound therapy to post-surgical thoracic drainage to help patients recover faster and improve health.
How culture leads to change
Since 1961, Medela has been improving health outcomes based on evidence-based information, paired with a deep understanding of its customers and their individual journeys. One of the biggest differentiators from other companies in its industry is Medela’s employees and their passion for the company’s purpose, products, and customers. This is reflected in the lifespan of a Medela employee; earlier this year, the Americas team celebrated 75 employee anniversaries, with 49% recognized for 5 years and 41% celebrating more than 10 years of service. The mission-driven focus has helped transform Medela into the most trusted breast pump brand in North America and the first-choice brand of moms and doctors.2 For Castillo, who is committed to leading with a people-first mentality, he finds inspiration in knowing that working for Medela is a calling, which motivates him to lead through challenges and find new ways to engage with employees.
“The past few years have impacted all of us in different ways, and I’m focused on strengthening our dynamic culture with onsite and remote collaboration opportunities for our colleagues to engage and grow as a team,” Castillo said.
Medela is transitioning to a hybrid working model, shifting smoothly between on-site and remote presence. In recent years, the company invested in new technology tools to keep teams connected, improve collaboration, and focus on communication, employee support, and development opportunities.
This effort to adapt to the world post-pandemic builds on the overall vision of Medela. In addition to strengthening the dialogue with employees and customers, Medela is keeping a close eye on the people they serve. Earlier this spring, the company announced a new name for its customizable, single-source parental and lactation benefit program designed to enable healthy returns for parents in the workplace. The new program name, Kin – Healthy Returns for New Parents, better reflects the inclusive benefits program available to employers to support their new parent employees.
“As our clients continue to share their committed efforts to improving diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) within their own organizations, we want our program to reflect the people we serve, and we know that support looks different for every new parent,” shares Castillo. “Kin better reflects all of the important people who provide new parents support in their community and makes it easy for employers to play their part.”
The magic of communication
With many initiatives in progress for the year, building an even stronger and inclusive Medela employee culture is critical. By actively engaging with employees, removing communication barriers, and instilling a sense of belonging and involvement, Castillo notes that there are many ways to succeed. For him, being present is important, and he demonstrates his commitment by visiting with employees around the office and traveling to field teams and customers. He has also seen that his Spanish language fluency can help improve inclusivity with employees – he closed his first company-wide meeting with a message in Spanish and received a standing ovation from employees. Castillo is the first Latino head of Medela Americas.
In the same vein, Castillo believes that it is important to establish a regular communication cadence with employees that is engaging and transparent and doesn’t overwhelm them. He believes many companies schedule meeting after meeting, which often becomes unproductive and time consuming. To avoid this feeling, Castillo introduced an innovative way to share information across the organization:
“Our internal podcast offers employees the freedom to tune in when it works best for them. This format allows us to deliver business-critical information in an engaging, informal way. The feedback has been positive, and it’s been a great way to highlight different people and initiatives across our business.”
Through the internal podcast, Medela has hosted customers who share their ideas about Medela products, technologies, and approach. As part of this work to engage with employees and customers, Castillo is furthering the role social media can play, explaining:
“Our employees are our best ambassadors, so we’re strengthening our efforts to grow our employee presence on LinkedIn – and this applies to me as well as my leadership team. Our messages start with us, and we want people to see how we live up to our Core Behaviors, how we innovate for the sake of our customers, and how we are thankful for the customers that have backed us up.”
Creating a culture that drives success
As an essential business, the most crucial facet of attracting and retaining employees is creating a culture of purpose. Employees can relate and believe in the vision, recognizing the pivotal role they are playing in helping others and making a difference. Castillo adds that Medela builds on this people-first culture every day. Maintaining open communication with customers, staying closely engaged with employees, and keeping all connected contributes to an integrated culture that encourages adaptive change in adverse circumstances.
“Medela employees passionately and committedly innovate and advocate for their customers, be it parents, babies, adult patients, or professionals. From product innovation that receives industry recognition, to our award-winning teams in Sales, Product, and Design, it’s great to see the passion for excellence across the business.”
Medela has committed itself to strengthening and nurturing ties with customers, attracting new talent, and retaining existing employees through innovative processes and techniques, leading to opportunity and growth. Castillo’s leadership shows how this dedication can help create an organization with a higher calling and opportunities for customers and employees, and as he and the rest of the Medela team build upon that solid foundation, they will nurture health for generations to come.
1 Voted most trusted breast pump brand by United States and Canadian shoppers based on the 2021 BrandSpark® American and Canadian Trust Studies.
2 IQVIA ProVoice Survey; September 2020 – August 2021. Medela 2018 U.S. Breast Milk Feeding Report. Medela 2017 Managed Markets Pulse Study.