In the company I work for we have a tradition. Every five years of service you get a cube, a heavy orange cube which depicts the service milestone. The cube also has etched on it some kind words from a manager or colleague. The 5 or 10 year cube represents a significant milestone in our time at Veeva. You feel proud of your contributions and impact and it signifies employee success.
Today marked my 10 years at Veeva. A decade ago I joined my second full time employer. Eli Lilly for 14 years and now Veeva for 10. I can only look on this experience with a smile and with a deep sense of pride. Leaving Eli Lilly in the first place was a huge achievement. I left an established career path with awards and recognition. I went from a 50k employee company to a start up with under 100 employees.
In those ten years I have worked in some high performing teams. I read once that a group is a bunch of people in an elevator. A team is a bunch of people in an elevator, but the elevator’s broken! I remember with great fondness being in many broken elevators at Veeva.
It was very much sink or swim, but my goodness was it exciting!! We would win a deal Monday, spend Tuesday – Thursday (many whiteboard and pizza nights) working out how to do what we said we could do. We then would arrive Friday to the customer site to present technology gold. After that all I had to do was build a team and deliver it to budget and schedule and we did it every time!
My first day at Veeva: 10 years ago today, I arrived in the original Barcelona office with no furniture. Inside was one whiteboard and three guys milling around on phones. Five minutes after arriving the three of them left to see a customer and I was in the office all alone. I called my wife and said ‘don’t sign the mortgage papers yet. This is either a start-up at the very beginning OR I am about to take part in a Catalonian bank heist!!
Thanks to all the wonderful people I have worked with. I have met many driven, smart people in Veeva. Will I be here for 10 more? who knows, but its been fun, exciting and rewarding in many ways. If you get an opportunity to join Veeva Systems, I highly recommend it.
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