International Women’s Day 2022: an interview with Eva van Pelt

In celebration of International Women’s Day, we talk to Eva van Pelt, Co-CEO and Chief Commercial Officer of Eppendorf (Hamburg, Germany). Eva is an inspiring leader, being a member of the Eppendorf AG Management Board since 2017 and becoming Co-CEO in December 2019. She has a lengthy and impressive profile of experience, including management positions for Leica Microsystems (Germany), Hitachi Data Systems (CA, USA), Accenture (Ireland) and various positions at Siemens (Munich, Germany).

In this interview, Eva walks us through a day in her life, touching on how she manages to find balance in her busy lifestyle, and the highlights and challenges of her work. 

What time does your alarm go off?

My alarm goes off at 06:00 am. Enjoying a cup of espresso whilst checking my emails from the Asian and American teams helps me wake up. Eyes wide open, I exercise, ideally with a run around the Alster Lakes in Hamburg (Germany), where the Eppendorf Group is headquartered. If I am in my home office in Munich, I enjoy nature with a run through the woods.

Office time with meetings, mail and – more recently a lot of video communication – typically starts no later than 8:00 am.

What is your typical day?

My typical day is characterized by lots of interaction with many people both in and outside of our organization. This includes calls with our commercial leaders around the globe, discussing the business and making many decisions on how to further increase customer satisfaction, as well as ramping up capacities in our Technology Centers. Understanding the market dynamics through interactions with thought leaders and key opinion leaders helps drive innovation and technology leadership at Eppendorf.

I particularly enjoy working with our younger colleagues who often have different views and values. Getting to understand them helps me drive our employee engagement and employer attractiveness.

If I am not travelling, I have lunch in our canteen and meet many of our team members there. They are from all functions; for example, production, logistics, product management or marketing. I enjoy this because great ideas on how to improve are articulated or colleagues share their concerns with me. For example, during the first phase of Covid we offered childcare for employees that were having to take care of their children as kindergartens were shut. In this situation, it was a pleasure to meet some of our team members’ children during virtual meetings – something that usually would not have occurred in the times before Covid.

What is the best part of your job?

The best part of my job is the people I am working with to deliver our purpose to improve human living conditions. The enormous creativity from a totally committed global team makes me very happy and helps me constantly drive transformation and innovation, making us fit for the future. These interactions create such a great energy throughout our organization.

What is the worst part of your job?

The worst part of my job is the feeling that I never have enough time to enjoy all the amazing opportunities that life offers such as traveling, getting to read more books – I am a fanatic reader – and learning to play the piano better.

How do you unwind after work?

After work there is often too little time left of the day. Despite this, I do love a balanced lifestyle. One evening I am enjoying Asian cuisine with colleagues, bouncing ideas around. The next evening, I stay in and continue to read an intriguing book on history, politics or science. Some evenings, my husband and I visit the Philharmonic orchestra or an exhibition.

How did you get into this industry?

Life sciences always had a strong appeal for me – I have a clear purpose and impact, thereby I feel I can truly shape my surroundings. This is why I originally gravitated towards a medical career before realizing that this career isn’t my path. Being on the industrial side, I can better follow my drive to shape and lift organizational potential.

Ever since then, I had the goal to manage a company in the life sciences industry someday. This intrinsic goal helped me channel all my decisions and fostered self-development focused on according management and people skills. Being a Co-CEO today didn’t happen by chance, but is the result of a clear set goal and consequently following it through.

In my experience, if you want to reach the top, you will only succeed if you are your authentic self. Being open and willing to collaborate, to accept and give feedback as well as support, but also building a strong network within a company and beyond are crucial.

Along my journey I’ve generally been less concerned with my career, but rather with what I wanted to do. This led to different opportunities crossing my path – I took these on, paving the way for continuous development and expanding my comfort zone. This mindset lets me live my passion of being a leader, creating teams and shaping the business.

Is there a female scientist who inspired you?

There are so many – and still too few – female scientists who have been recognized for their outstanding scientific work.

Many people, including myself, are very impressed with the work of Marie Skłodowska Curie, whose work led to the development of x-rays. I admire her for her great vision and huge drive which was rewarded by being the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and to do so in two categories: physics in 1903 and chemistry in 1911.

Her incredible passion and perseverance, combined with her love for science, are impressive. The fact that she never shied away from the obstacles or difficulties she faced – especially during those times – is one of a kind.

I also want to mention a woman that deeply and greatly impressed me, even since high school: Jane Goodall. She is famous for her studies of primates and is considered the leading expert on chimpanzees. Jane Goodall won many awards for her work and her 45-year study on the social lives of chimpanzees in Tanzania, Africa.

Her ability to leave the “beaten path” and to totally challenge paradigms, for example scientific standards such as numbering animals, has always deeply impressed me. Combining her love for nature with exposing herself to risks leading to great scientific findings is really a constant source of inspiration for me.