Celebrating Success
FROM THE PRESIDENT – David Fortanbary
The Excellence Awards celebrate success in helping others advance.
A little professional recognition is never a bad thing. In the entertainment industry, awards help sell audiences on movies and TV shows. In sports, we follow the careers of Heisman winners and Most Valuable Players. In our businesses, we help celebrate successful reps in President’s Circles and other recognitions. While these honors may or may not be life-altering, they’re at least fair praise for work well done and are intended to inspire others.
While the LTEN Excellence Awards share those dual goals, they’re also unique among award programs. While most awards honor individual efforts, the Excellence Awards celebrate success in helping others advance. They’re the only professional honor designed specifically for life sciences trainers and with each year we see a greater number of entrants putting forth their work.
At this year’s 48th LTEN Annual Conference, we celebrated the 5th Annual Excellence Awards winners and nominees with a main-stage ceremony that gave people a sense of what great feels like. We recognized diverse learning initiatives, celebrated all manners of innovation and cheered for emerging leaders and hardworking teams.
In the pages that follow, you’ll read about the winners and finalists in this year’s LTEN Excellence Awards competition. We’ll tell you about programs as different as they were creative and as successful as they were original. For instance:
- LEO Pharma built an escape room training plan, which brought fun and teamwork together.
- Astellas took patient-centricity to a new level with a focus on the patient journey.
- Philips partnered with marketing to raise the bar on training.
- Supplier partners like IC Axon (A Division of GP Strategies), AdMed and BI WORLDWIDE worked with client companies to make training most effective, using creative tools like virtual reality and scavenger hunts.
Innovation was everywhere this year, and as you learn more about the winners and finalists, you’ll hopefully find inspiration in the groundwork they laid. Your next great idea might be somewhere in these pages, waiting for you to make the mental connection to your needs, your team’s abilities and your company’s objectives.
I’ve said this before, but it’s still true: Extraordinary work deserves more than ordinary notice. The work we do, the time we spend, the difference we make is all deserving of an honor. Of course, the work itself is the greatest reward – no statuette can equal the feeling when our work helps save lives.
In the pages that follow, as we tell you more about these amazing trainers, supportive partners and noteworthy projects, keep in mind that we are an amazing industry. For every back patted and hard work rewarded, there are people living better lives and sometimes people living, period. That’s what we’re really honoring and celebrating when we come together each June.
LTEN leaders and staff are already hard at work on the 6th Annual LTEN Excellence Awards, to be given out at the 49th LTEN Annual Conference, June 8-11, 2020, in Kissimmee, FL. As you read about this year’s winners and finalists, think about your own work, your team and your colleagues. Nominations will open this winter; I hope you plan to take part.
Congratulations to all the nominees, finalists and winners. LTEN members are a constant source of inspiration and it’s our honor to recognize the people and programs that power life sciences.
David Fortanbary is president of the LTEN Board of Directors and head of U.S. learning & development for UCB. Email David at David.Fortanbary@ucb.com.
