It takes tenacity to prove yourself to the world. Seven years ago, Audry decided to leave her comfort zone to pursue greater challenges. Her path eventually led her to Surge-on Medical, an encounter which turned out to be a match made in heaven.
Originally from an award-winning coffee-growing area in Costa Rica, Audry was raised for excellence. Coming from a family of professors, Audry was taught the importance of discipline and hard work to achieve the best results in life. At a very young age, she proved herself to have unshakable discipline and thirst for knowledge, which led her to look for more challenging environments.
She entered the exclusive Scientist High School to follow her passion for science. She then got admitted into the University of Costa Rica, pursuing a career in chemistry. As a restless student, Audry always felt that she was capable of doing more than what she was asked to do. With this in mind, in parallel with her studies she became a research assistant in her first year of university and kept that position throughout her studies in well-known research centers affiliated with the university.
After graduating with a degree in chemistry, Audry felt she wanted more. As a scientist, she knew that her role was to help in finding solutions to daily problems to improve the quality of life, and she felt that she could do more than just writing scientific papers. Audry was ready to take action, thus she sought a challenge that would match her expectations: pursuing a master’s degree in Engineering in the Netherlands
Audry joined the Sustainable Energy Technology program at one of the most prestigious engineering universities in the Netherlands, the Eindhoven University of Technology. There, Audry shared experiences with brilliant students of different nationalities and established important connections with the Dutch industry.
As part of her studies, she moved to Finland in her second year to specialize in biomaterials at Aalto University. However, her connection to the Netherlands was too strong, which made her return when a position at Royal Dutch Shell was made available to her. There, Audry took the lead in a multidisciplinary research project, which resulted in her master’s thesis. After the outstanding results of her research, she was offered a position at Shell to continue with her promising line of research. It was during that time that she discovered her true passion: commercially applied research.
“It was then when I realized what I really love to do: To start from a concrete need and to help develop a solution that can be brought to the market. It’s not enough to have a brilliant idea if you cannot put it into service for the people, and I want to put my efforts into transforming technological solutions into concrete products that can help others,” says Audry.
Hence, after her experience at Shell, she started shaping her professional career in that direction. Her studies in technology entrepreneurship and management proved useful, and she was also able to develop successful industrial research projects at the National Centre for High Technology back in Costa Rica.
In 2017, Audry joined Surge-on Medical as a project manager on a temporary basis and proved herself to be of unexpectedly great value to the company quite soon. Her passion, creative ways and strategic thinking paved her way into the management team. No case seems too complicated for Audry, who is equally capable of delivering great value in a grant proposal, at business pitching events and during business partner dealings.
Following the strategy of the company, Audry makes sure that all operations take place as they should, from the technical to the business side. She oversees the quality control of the instruments and their manufacturing activities, manages the portfolio of research projects and personally handles distribution partnerships all over the world.
Thanks to her multi-cultural roots, Audry is fluent in Spanish, English and German, which enables her to interact with stakeholders from around the world.
Benno Groosman, CEO of Surge-on Medical describes Audry as a person who “is very eager to keep developing herself, both by joining complicated projects on a hands-on basis, as well as by educating herself in and outside the work environment. For example, she is now in her post-master education accredited by PMI, and in Barcelona she’s currently taking extra management training with the EIT Health network.”
Audry says she is passionate about helping Surge-on Medical to be the leader in innovations that help empower surgeons by giving them better tools, thereby improving the healthcare system as a whole. “My work at Surge-on Medical gives me the chance to make a true difference in the world of healthcare. This is very rewarding both personally and professionally!” Audry concludes.
Do you want to get in touch with Audry? Feel free to do so via LinkedIn or Twitter.
Examples of our topics: