My evolution from Consultant to Solution Manager ...
Hello, I’m Gert-Jan, Solution Manager focused on Pharmaceutical Quality for the Life Science division at Altran Belgium.
Six and a half years ago, straight out of my university studies, I started at Altran Belgium as a junior consultant in Life Sciences. Learning the ropes of working in the pharmaceutical industry through a variety of projects at different clients and taking on several additional roles within Altran, allowed me to grow from a Junior to an Advanced Consultant.
In April of this year, I was promoted to Solution Manager for the Life Sciences division. Good things come to those who wait, as I had already been preparing for this position for two years before the right opportunity presented itself. In my current role, I’m responsible to create the new service proposals, while managing the ongoing services.
During meetings with clients, I listen carefully to what they want in order to understand the client’s needs completely, before translating it into a concrete action plan. This way, we always try to ensure that the demand is fully answered through the proposed solution and that it allows for a seamless implementation. Because of the different topics we help our clients with, I have many opportunities to keep learning about the diversity of the pharmaceutical industry. I get to do what I like: problem solving, both by analyzing problems and proposing potential solutions and in return continuously learning.
Having worked as a consultant for six years, I got insights into the internal way of working of several key clients and I accumulated the necessary technical expertise to understand the client’s needs in depth. This is also my added value to our team where many have less technical backgrounds.
Within the Life Sciences management team, everyone helps everyone else by collaborating and supporting each other, which creates a lot of trust in the team. We function as a self-governing team: we know what the business needs and we work together to achieve those goals, building the business as one team. This is great to see and experience!
Having reached my personal goal of becoming solution manager, I want to give myself some time to fully understand my new role and to prove my abilities, showing the management that they made the right choice to put me in this position. Afterwards, I can move on to new objectives and keep aiming higher. I feel that I get the chance to evolve within Altran and this is true for everyone, so I would love to welcome you to our team!”