What makes a good job title? Should it sound exciting? Concise? Do eye-catching words like ‘enricher’, ‘facilitator’ or even ‘ninja’ truly explain a role? When it comes to staying ahead of the curve and remaining competitive in the biopharmaceutical landscape, we here at Veramed are doing more than hiring talent and handing out fancy job titles.
We search for not only the best talent but also the right fit for the team. While our latest hire, Stuart Malcolm, might have one of the longest job titles at Veramed as Head of Standards, Automation and Efficiency, he’s certainly not one to call himself a ninja. In fact, we sat down with Stuart to discuss his new role, his thoughts on the future of the industry and why he was drawn to Veramed.
Tell us a bit about yourself
I was born in Dundee, and grew up in the north-east of Scotland during the North-Sea oil boom of the seventies and eighties. I had an aunt that worked for Timex in Dundee making Sinclair ZX81 computers, and she got one for my 13th birthday in 1982 – and I have been playing with computers ever since!
I currently live in a small village called Kingussie in the Scottish highlands which is in the Cairngorm national park. The Kingussie shinty team, according to the Guinness Book of Records 2005, is world sport’s most successful sporting team of all time winning 20 consecutive leagues and going 4 years unbeaten at one stage in the early 1990s – not bad for a village with a population of 1500!
What will you be working on at Veramed?
In many respects, my job description does exactly what it says on the can – to deliver a software platform and supporting tools, techniques and training that enable Veramed to optimise the analysis of clinical trial projects. I’m keen to combine the core strength of Veramed’s people with a new and improved technology platform that will snowball innovation, and I’ll also work closely with the business development team to help give Veramed a leading edge in the market.
What drew you to working at Veramed?
I think it was the mixture of the company’s ambition and how it treats its people. I could see in my early discussions with the team that Veramed was a company that truly sees the value in having happy workers and that natural, empathetic focus goes a long way in this industry.
How do you see the industry changing in the next 5 years?
I firmly believe that the Clinical Trials industry is at the start of a technological revolution that will transform almost every part of the way we collect, analyse and report on trials. From data collected in real-time on watches and phones, to biomedical concepts linked through the semantic web, and everything in between is about to change.
It promises the opportunity to do more, work smarter, and to help get better treatments to patients more quickly. That’s worth getting out of bed in the morning for!
Change is never without challenges – however, one thing I have learned over the years is that there is no challenge that cannot be overcome by a team of bright people that want to do a good job.
Any tips for those visiting the northern parts of Scotland?
Bring a warm coat! – no, seriously.. It can snow in June! I have family that visit from Kent during August, and now have a cupboard full of down jackets to revive them when they start turning blue!
Stuart also runs a blog called ‘metadatadriven’, which provides more detail on his work related to innovation and standards in the Pharmaceutical and Biotech industry. If you would like to learn more about Veramed’s innovative work then please get in touch or to learn more about working at Veramed, simply click below.
