Omar Ishrak of Medtronic recognised with Outstanding Contribution to Medtech Award 2020
The Irish Medtech Association, the Ibec group which represents the medtech sector, recognised Omar Ishrak, Executive Chairman and Chairman of the Board of Medtronic, and former CEO of Medtronic, as the winner of the Outstanding Contribution to Medtech Award 2020, at ‘Medtech Rising: The Business Leaders’ Conference and Awards’ which is taking place 2-3 December virtually. This accolade is given to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the development, growth and success of the medtech sector in Ireland. The recipient selected by the Irish Medtech Association Board, with the support of Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland.
Ishrak led Medtronic as CEO from June 2011 to April 2020. He retired as CEO earlier this year and will retire as Chairman of the Board on December 11, 2020, as part of a planned leadership transition.
Irish Medtech Association Director Sinead Keogh said: “Medtronic has deep roots in Ireland going back to the early 1980s. As Ireland established itself as a location of choice for global medtech, Medtronic continued to invest here, with notable milestones including the establishment of a state centre of excellence for the development of key cardiovascular and cardiac rhythm disease medical technologies in Galway in 1999. This site’s success saw Medtronic recognise it as a strategic hub for customer engagement for the company’s cardiac and vascular business with the Customer Innovation Centre, opened there in 2013. Medtronic now employs more than 4,000 people across sites in Ireland and has its global headquarters in Dublin. Its Galway site was at the heart of the global response to ventilator demand during the COVID-19 pandemic, rapidly increasing ventilator production five-fold from 200 a week pre-pandemic to over 1,000 a week by June 2020.”
“We are proud to announce today that Omar Ishrak is the winner of the Outstanding Contribution to Medtech Award 2020,” Keogh said. “Omar has made an incredible impact, and during his 9-year tenure as CEO the company saw impressive growth, increasing the number of lives improved by Medtronic technologies from 7 million annually in 2011 to more than 75 million annually today. Omar’s strategic vision with a focus on advancing innovative technologies, promoting value-based healthcare to deliver outcomes that matter to patients, as well as driving numerous programmes to foster diversity and inclusion has made Medtronic the world’s leading medical technology company, with $29 billion in annual revenue, 90,000 employees and a presence in more than 150 countries.”
“I’m humbled to receive the Outstanding Contribution to Medtech Award and want to thank the Irish Medtech Association for this honour,” Ishrak said. “The Medtronic Mission provides an enduring sense of purpose — to use technology to alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life. During my tenure at Medtronic, it has been a privilege to work with the Irish medtech community. Ireland has been a long-standing strategic partner and location of choice where Medtronic has continued to invest in developing and manufacturing innovative technologies that improve the lives of millions of patients around the world.”
The Medtech Rising Conference Committee would like to thank our event sponsors, Platinum sponsor: EIT Health; Gold sponsors: Irish Medtech Skillnet, KPMG, Kuehne +Nagel, Science Foundation Ireland, SteriPack, and Teleflex Medical, and; Silver Sponsors: Advant Medical, Aerogen, Creganna Medical Company/ TE Connectivity, Dolmen Design, First Polymer Skillnet Training, Ibec Manufacturing Engineering Apprenticeships, Ibec Polymer Technology Apprenticeship, Connected Health Skillnet, Nelipak Healthcare Packaging, PharmaLex, Smart Factory, and XMS Capital Partners.
