Continuing our Career Trajectories series, we have Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova, Winclove Probiotics Senior Global Account and Business Development Manager, on New Matter, to share her story. She shares experiences from her academic pursuits, shedding light on the importance of adaptability and seizing opportunities.
Yulia highlights her multilingual abilities, acquired through deliberate efforts to bridge language gaps and discusses the impact of language skills on building professional relationships.
Throughout the conversation, Yulia emphasizes the significance of networking and personal connections in career development – debunking the notion that AI alone can replace human connections. The episode concludes with Yulia's personal definition of success, grounded in the fulfillment derived from contributing to the well-being of others in the life sciences industry.
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Continuing our Career Trajectories series, we have Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova, Winclove Probiotics Senior Global Account and Business Development Manager, on New Matter, to share her story. She shares experiences from her academic pursuits, shedding light on the importance of adaptability and seizing opportunities.
Yulia highlights her multilingual abilities, acquired through deliberate efforts to bridge language gaps and discusses the impact of language skills on building professional relationships.
Throughout the conversation, Yulia emphasizes the significance of networking and personal connections in career development – debunking the notion that AI alone can replace human connections. The episode concludes with Yulia's personal definition of success, grounded in the fulfillment derived from contributing to the well-being of others in the life sciences industry.
Full Transcript Available on Buzzsprout
Our Sponsor for this Episode
Benchling creates the software that powers the biotechnology industry. More than 200,000 scientists at over 1,200 companies globally — from cutting-edge start-ups to 20+ of the 50 largest global biopharma — rely on the Benchling R&D Cloud as their central source of truth for scientific data, analysis, and collaboration. Benchling is on a mission to accelerate scientific progress through advanced software that's purpose-built for biology.
To learn more, visit: Benchling.com
Take our Survey
We want to hear from YOU to ensure that we keep providing valuable content that reflects what our listeners and the SLAS community are interested in! Take our brief survey
Stay connected with SLAS
About SLAS
SLAS (Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening) is an international professional society of academic, industry and government life sciences researchers and the developers and providers of laboratory automation technology. The SLAS mission is to bring together researchers in academia, industry and government to advance life sciences discovery and technology via education, knowledge exchange and global community building.
Upcoming SLAS Events:
SLAS Europe 2024 Conference and Exhibition
SLAS 2024 Microscale Innovation in Life Sciences Symposium
SLAS 2024 Sample Management Symposium
SLAS 2024 Data Sciences and AI Symposium
Hannah Rosen:
Hello everyone and welcome to New Matter, the SLAS podcast where we interview life science luminaries. I'm your host, Hannah Rosen, and today we'll be continuing our series on career trajectories. Our guest is Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova, Senior Global Account and Business Development Manager at Winclove Probiotics. Thank you for joining us.
Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova:
Hi Hannah, and hi everyone. I'm really happy to be here and honored to take part in this podcast.
Hannah Rosen:
We're excited to have you here and hear a little bit more about your career journey. So to start us off, let's start at the very beginning. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova:
Well, actually, back to the childhood, I was born in Russia, actually still the Soviet Union. And I also grew up in a big city of Moscow, but from the very, very small years of childhood, I was fascinated by nature and animals. And actually, animals were like, my hobbies and I love them. It's starting to like, little kittens that I brought home and we nursed them, and sometimes they stay sometimes they had to go depending what my parents' mood was. But now I think they were, particularly horses, so I really couldn't wait, we had to wait till 12 before you can start learning riding. It's likely different than this nowadays, and that's why actually I want to do something with animals, not like I had a very clear view what. But especially when I started, horse riding and learning horses, I want to do something with the horses. That's actually, I think, the full answer to your question.
Hannah Rosen:
So how then, you know, as you started getting older and, you know, going to college, what kind of got you going on your career in quality assurance?
Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova:
Well, that's a bit long story. So, back to the animals. I luckily realized that when I was in the latest year of school, so in Russia, we didn't have like, primary school, high school, just one school, with you are 18 and you go to the college. I realized well, however it's beautiful and great to work with horses, but I live in a big city and probably to find a job, even though there are some stables and riding schools and stuff like this, would be a challenge. So, I choose for work for studying more like, general animal sciences. And I also didn't choose to be a vet, just very like, a personal reason where at the moment I enrolled my documents, our last cat we had, he was hurt badly and, you know, like, hard time in his last weeks and it was especially this emotional part of, you know, this job and this profession. Then I would, well, probably I would never be able to see it every day, the suffering of the animals is even worse, like, a child or a human.
So, back to college. That's why I started to study the general animal science and agriculture at university, or it was called the academy in Moscow. And actually, my whole, you know, like, first year was general AMLs, everything you have to do and a bit of vet science. And then my specialization was microbiology and food technology. So it is more like, applied science. You can also work if you live in a city and much broader field. And well, I really tried to cut it short, but the quality assurance career started in the Netherlands. So how it came to the Netherlands when I was in the third year, we really were really lucky, a few of us to go and have kind of internship in the Netherlands. We are at the farm and doing everything with the farmer does with the tractors, with the fields, with the crops, with the cows and stuff. And so, I got to know some people from this exchange organization and after this period, I went back to study and they came to Moscow. We had the national conference and they said, well, there's opportunity to study in it a lot.
So, I went to the Netherlands for studying two years later in 1999. It was more a theoretical study, also kind of internship. So, I went back to Russia and again with the same connections I had, like, really a job in the Netherlands was actually offered by this exchange company together with Campina Milk UNI, this is now called FrieslandCampina, the largest milk producer or milk product producer in Netherlands. My job was to coordinate study and practical training of a group of Russian specialists who were from the farms around Moscow and Campina build a huge yogurt plant. So, the idea was that these people would go to Netherlands and learn how to produce milk, especially the quality wise that Campina would be happy. Then I had a choice, either to go back together with this group after three months or stayed in Netherlands to the end of this year. It was 2000 and I thought, well, I was just graduating before and I had to choose whether maybe it's also good to continue into the science to do a PhD. Not at all university because it was also possible to have your PhD in agricultural science, but in our more International University, also where you could do the biological science. It's a big difference, in Russia especially. But I thought, well, I can also do PhD one year later and I just stay and see what I do.
Actually my first job after this Campina project was really far from what I started. I joined the company which dealt with oil and gas engineering and it was called at that time ABB Lummus Global, now it's called McDermont. There I worked for a project in Russia where they constructed the more or less like, refinery plant. Of course, it's only because of the language that I worked there and a bit of technical knowledge. But I was thinking, OK, is it, you know, like all I can do here and when I knew like, three quarters of a year later, I would stay in the Netherlands longer, I was looking for a job more, you know, like, in the direction of what I studied for. Actually, it went through this microbiology part of my diploma and my study and it was at a small company, it was called Aqua-System. And what we did is to improve the quality of, already good actually, tap water the Netherlands, to purify it, to put ozone in it and put in the big bottles, all the coolers. And I worked in the lab there like, a quality assurance or quality control, quality assurance assistant with like, two directions. Quality control, it was more really taking samples, making the analysis, microbiological, physical, chemical and stuff like this. And quality assurances was did to see if all the processes and their so-called critical control points and control points were mapped. And later on, this company was bought by a bigger company and finally by Nestle Waters. So, it's actually where I really had the very defined quality assurance/quality control role as a supervisor. Also, so our international part of my career started.
Hannah Rosen:
Wow, that's such an interesting journey to go from, you know, wanting to work with animals and then kind of making your transition to microbiology. I actually had a very similar journey myself, as I always thought I was gonna work with animals growing up and yeah, I got a degree in animal behavior and then, you know, you just slowly kind of drift away. And so, I'm kind of curious, for you, what was it about doing this microbiology work and the quality assurance work that kept you in that same field?
Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova:
Well, actually I like the job very much, and even now if I look like, well my son is 18, so it was like, 18 years ago, more or less, when I left there. It was actually maybe one of the funniest parts of my job, because I'm really fascinated by microbiology, by bacteria. It was also during our last year at the college, when we had to do this, we call it diploma experiment, and I saw, you know, petri dishes of, I should say salmonella, everyone knows is not a nice bacteria, but they are so beautiful when you look at them in the petri dish, very like, a shiny black hair colonies. This is one thing and I just realized that a lot of, you know, like, things which happen also in the human organisms, they are the result of the activities of the bacteria. And in quality assurance at Nestle, that was indeed really nice to see how my colleagues then, and the lab how they did the analysis, and I, never somebody was on holidays to just go myself in the lab and, you know, counting these colonies and making reports to Nestle.
And another nice part of that was that we conducted, so actually quality assurance, many people would think about audits. So, this was what we do. We did, on the one hand, it was external audits, we had to do, for example in Europe you have this quality system of ISO. So also, for Nestle, they had a short-term own requirement, so-called Nestle Water quality system. And we did this audit, not only for the production in the building, which was where we were working. But Nestle had also four other, they called it depot in Dutch. I think it's kind of, it's not really a warehouse, because they do more than that, and they were three, the Netherlands one, and one in Belgium. But it was really fun to go there with a certain frequency, together with my colleagues and doing that. And also, we really wanted to make the process better. I think one of the important things of quality assurance is not only like, assure everything's going well, but especially in Nestle’s case they had like, two levels. The first quality level, it was pretty easy to reach, but they were very ambitious. And they wanted all the plants in Europe to comply with advanced quality level as where we were actually working.
Hannah Rosen:
So, for any listeners out there who are maybe trying to make some career decisions and haven't really considered quality assurance or quality control as a career option, are there some things about that career path that you might recommend to certain people? And are there any, you know, drawbacks to that career path?
Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova:
Well, umm, to me it is very interesting field because you have very, like, on the job activities really like, I mean, all hands-on activities, sorry. For those who maybe like, now are scientists and they would like to go more to quality assurance, this will not change. They will still stay in the lab and do the tests and so on. What is nice about quality assurance, you, at least at Nestle and also at a few pharma companies I worked later, you have a certain status in the organization. It's like people, really, if it goes the right way, they listen to you. Because if no quality assurance, no food safety, right, or no drug safety. Also, you can be like, more, you call it more busy with your brain, thinking about a better way how to improve the process they are of here, because every time after the audit there are some things which can be improved. And it is not like, you only like, some people think that quality controls, they kind of police on the floor that they only think, OK, so do you do your job well? Did you put your protective clothes? Did, you know, like, wash your face, stuff like this. It is, of course, a small part of the job and certain areas, but I think there is much more to explore than this, you know, cliche things what I just mentioned.
Hannah Rosen:
That's great. So, you're no longer doing quality assurance and quality control work. So, what made you decide to kind of transition into a new field a little bit and what was that process like for you?
Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova:
Well, for me it now seems pretty logical, but I think if I tell it that it's also a bit of crooked way. Because actually as I said I was pretty happy at Nestle, and I had really good colleagues, not only in the Netherlands, but, you know, our so called Nestle waters Quality Team Europe, but sometimes it happens that the big company looks at Europe as a kind of, you know, a big picture and they say Netherlands, small side, no source water, we have better here, we have Germany, do we need that loss? No. So what they did actually, they said to close the site and only the warehouse stayed. And for me it was really much less challenge in our supply chain quality. Like, the lab was taken away, the whole production, and actually my whole team would have to go. And I was thinking, well, now I really have to look for something else, and actually through quality assurance I first ended up at the pharmaceutical consultancy company, and it was pretty funny job. I did it for two years and you learn of different organizations because as consultants you cover interim, sometimes for a project of two months, sometimes six months, my longest was one and a half year.
But, I missed the international aspect there, really what I had at Nestle and most of the customers of this pharmaceutical consultancy were in the Netherlands, and I already was lucky one time we Biogen, which you probably know yourself it's a US company, and had a packaging site which was moving to Denmark. So it kind of more international. Then I had a small break due to maternity leave, my second child, and I happened to see one vacancy, which was far from the lab or from the science, but it was international and life sciences, and in general, and it was a consultant or advisor or innovation projects for life sciences at the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs or actually the Agency of the Ministry. It was more like, I can’t one hundred percent say it was commercial role. So, I did not sell anything, but we like, sold grants and subsidies to the innovative companies who were in one or another way active in the life sciences field. It could be viruses, it could be medical devices, it could be new vaccines, stuff like this. And they should have worked with an international partner, either in Europe or in my case, also US. And all these international networks were managed by similar organizations like agencies or some places like Innovation Fund and stuff, but very international and a nice job.
And actually, the idea was indeed to recruit as many companies as possible to distribute the money. So that was actually a change, but I liked it because of international aspect and still staying in the same field. And finally, we helped quite some companies in the Netherlands. And that's how I ended up in the real commercial role. It was because one of the companies which was like, in my portfolio, I haven't seen them for some time. And then I also was with the maternity leave, I came back and it proved to be during my absence, finally they had a very difficult project which was not, you know, like all the first round companies to be funded from the our country, I thought it was Spain. But well, it happens, I came to congratulate them when I talked to them and asked me how things are going and they said they were looking for somebody to do the international sales. And I think umm, I know the guys, they're really good. They did two projects and they were at that time even in the same city where I live. But I was thinking well, I don't really have like, sales experience. Not really. There was one thing, another thing. They were a small molecules field and this is more chemistry. And as I said, microbiology, animals, it's a bit different, right. But I was OK. I still thought it's worth while to talk to them and also, the agency where I worked, there were many changes in politics and one of the changes was that one big program for, I thought it was like 10 European countries, stopped from the Dutch side. So, you don’t have funds anymore, and it was really very nice network to work in. So, like, a big part of my job would change as well. And so, I talked to this company, Specs, and it was taken over by eMolecules just a few months ago. And well, we came to a good, you know, like, agreement. And I started working there and I stayed there almost 10 years after all, even without chemistry. And without too much international, well, internationally well, but sales experience, yeah.
Hannah Rosen:
That's quite the journey. So, you know, do you have any advice for how to break into a new field that you haven't worked in before? I mean, you've done it several times of kind of shifting a little bit. You know, what advice do you have for somebody who maybe is looking to change things up a bit?
Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova:
Well, I think it's a bit of adventure every time, right? My own motto is like, if you don't try, you don't know. So my husband is German and they have very nice proverb, if you don't shoot, you will always miss the target. Like, of course it is difficult to like, 100% or 180°, but if there is a job or a field you really like and you have some affinity, in most cases, I don't know what exactly the ordinary background is, you don't only study biology or you don't only, what you mentioned study animal behavior, it's often much broader. Like in my case, chemistry, of course in Russia, we had maybe broader education in our countries, but we had actually five types of chemistry, that's what I realized later. Not that I remembered everything, but to have, you know, something left in your head to follow everything like, in big picture, yeah. And the main lines, in many cases it is enough. Of course, I still remember if you go to a conference which is more scientific, but really hope to find new customers and all the life science, petrol cycles and how the proteins are folding, it is also not like I can explain everything in details, but to see ohh well, this guy had interest presentation, maybe they would, you know, like need our service? To use the things which you think you know a bit more to start the conversation like, to compliment somebody on a nice talk. But really do it very honestly and without, you know like, well, I did not sit in with you, but it was still great talk. So, I really think that it is always worth to try and if you don't try, of course you can make mistake, but you also learn from mistakes, right?
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like, what I'm really getting from that is, have confidence in yourself and in the knowledge that you do have, and don't be afraid to take a risk and potentially make a mistake.
Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova:
Exactly. It was actually all for me the same with this pharmaceutical consultancy. I was thinking OK, well, I do have some quality assurance experience, but only maybe like, four years and different field, food and pharma, they are really two different fields, but it was really enough. So, you know, you have to start somewhere.
Hannah Rosen:
So you had mentioned a lot when you were kind of discussing your career journey that one of the things that was really important to you was international work and being able to travel internationally, and you're doing that now with your current job. So, could you kind of talk a little bit about, you know, what is it that you love so much about that international work and then maybe what are some of the downsides to doing so much international travel for work?
Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova:
Yeah, I think just starting with where it came from. Don't forget, I was actually born in a kind of closed country. So, at the time I was there, Soviet Union, everyone knows about the Iron Curtain, and it was really a very exceptional somebody was somewhere. And after the 1991, when we got a new country and the borders were opening, I still remember like, my father went to US, it was really the whole happening or something like this. And then that's why I was so happy we could go to the Netherlands. It didn't matter for me at that moment which country it was, you know, just to see how people live and work and really worked very hard so, sometimes they like, 12 hours per day, but it didn't matter. It was also a learning culture and learn what people are doing. And since then, I think it's just enriching you to see other cultures, other countries, to listen to different opinions because you learn so much from different, regions in this case, that is one thing. And of course, travelling is fun in like, from the one side it is, you know like, changing the place and discover the new horizons.
But it is not like you're going on vacation. Please don't forget it's traveling on business. At least in my case, starting with practical things, almost no business class, even like, I traveled to Asia, things like traveling to Jakarta or Singapore, just sit in economy. And well, in the job I had before, at least, sometimes you could have a comfort class to US, for example, West Coast. So, it was already something. Then, usually you really have your, either meetings or the conference. So, I think if I say in how many countries I was, most of the times it was the airport or train station, the way by bus, taxi, train, whatever, to the place, to the venue, and in some exceptional cases you have some time either evening or morning, to have a small look around. But it's hard work and long days, and sometimes no time to think about your jet lag. Just you come and you start your meeting like, and I will not forget like, with Specs we used to go to the SLAS conference, San Diego. It's already 13 hours flight, 9 hours time difference, but you still do have to go for a dinner with a customer when you just arrive. So these kind of things, realize this as well.
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah, absolutely. I don't travel nearly as much as you do, I'm sure, but it is one of those things that every time I do have to travel internationally for work, it sounds so glamorous when you tell other people and then it's like, oh, I wish you could see what I'm actually doing over there.
Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova:
Exactly. Maybe, very recent example, we are going next week to Poland and it's such a place, it doesn't sound far, especially if you're in US, it's not very far, but you have to fly to Berlin, to Germany, and you have to take a car, you have to drive like two and half hours. And we really have like, one day, and next morning, early again from Berlin, we go back. So it’s like, my colleague who will go, they also don't travel that often, they are from R&D, and they say ah, we have to get out before 6, 2 days, one after another? I was thinking well, join the club. See in real life what the full schedule meant.
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah, yeah, it could be a rude awakening for sure.
Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova:
Exactly, exactly.
Hannah Rosen:
So, as part of your international travel, you know, especially with Europe, they're being so many different languages being spoken in such close proximity. I think in the US we get very spoiled because it's English, like, everywhere you can go, you know, within driving distance for the most part, people are speaking English. But with you, you know, you have so many customers that are speaking different languages. So, I was wondering, you know, how many different languages do you speak and how does this ability to speak multiple different languages impact your working relationships?
Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova:
Yes, it's a good question Hannah, and I can elaborate on that. Basically, one other career I would probably take would be a career in the area of languages because my parents kept talking me, and also my English teacher said, well, why are you going to do things with the agricultural animals? Forget it, just do something, you know like, diplomat, this kind of thing. I say well, I don't know. It didn't like, appeal to me. But what they really told me, English is important even at that time. It was 1993, 1994, our country just opened and I was thinking, well, I think it's really important, so I did the English course and I worked first as a interpreter, as a translator, as a Russian-English, and it really helped me. That was my first actually milestone, I could go to Netherlands because there were really few students who spoke either English or German or French or whatever.
And indeed, for language in the Netherlands, English should be enough, especially in my first job all I should need was Russian and English. And everyone in the Netherlands actually, well, pretty much everyone speaks English. I was thinking even, I didn't know how long I would stay in this country, for me it was like, it is a respect to the country, to the people you live and also for yourself, you would like to understand what the life is about, right? However, it was hard time to learn Dutch because I worked forty hours, and it was 10 hours per week, it was Dutch, and it was at that time a kind of the law, everyone who comes has to follow these kind of, they call it citizenship model, whatever. Even if you are not maybe going to be citizen but you had to do that. But after that I was actually glad that I did it. I was done in pretty short time, so that was Dutch.
And with regards to German was my next language because I met my future husband. He was from eastern Germany. And he did speak English and Dutch, but maybe, you know, this is with known Germans, they tend to have very strong accent. And even for me it was not very easy at all to understand. So, and also for his family in Germany, it was really no way in our language. So, I started in German. At a Goethe Institute, and also did the two times the exams because I was saying, well, if you do study the language, you have to do it right. And especially, Germany is a country where really look at the papers still, you know like, if you don't have your certificate on the paper, well forget it.
And it helped me a lot in my job because, especially for pharmaceutical world, as you probably know, a lot of big pharma companies are in German speaking countries like Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and what really helped me also at is work at the Agency of Economic Affairs. We had international network and I noticed there was really, personal example, you reach much more if you talk the same language. So, it is not like the rules of the game change, for example we still had as much money and Germany still had as much money, but, you know, you build a personal relationship with your colleagues from other countries. The same was actually with German speaking customers from my time at Specs. They were really so unhappy when I say I'm going to leave and me too actually, they were more friends to me some of them and in this sense. Regarding other languages like French, I studied when I worked at Nestle because again it was good to speak English when we had the international meeting everyone speaking English or, sometimes I spoke German to Swiss German speaking people to, Nestle had also site in Hamburg in Germany.
But when I had informal meetings, most of them were French speaking because it was Nestle Waters, we had Waters Paris, there they was the French Swiss ,you call it, division and Belgium. And I was thinking, well, when I talk to each other, I would actually like to understand what I talked about. I would like to participate. And so I studied French first, really from the, still the tape, not even CD, the tape and the book. And then I followed a few courses and finally also decide I want to have my French diploma as well. So I needed the CL 1, because in France as well, it is important to have papers. And the last one language is Spanish. It was more actually started for hobby. We went on our first long trip to Costa Rica and we had two small kids at the time, was actually good to understand a bit. Imagine something happened, don't speak English.
So, I have a very good friend by now, she comes from Costa Rica and she is Spanish teacher, she works for British school in Netherlands now, and I studied with her. And when we came back I was thinking well, it's really a pity, it's a beautiful language and so many people in the world, including US, speak Spanish. And I was thinking well, maybe I should continue with that and that it was my last one. And for language now I think most of the languages I use, it is still German and French, Spanish a bit less because I'm not directly responsible for this region, but I have all of my colleague who works in that and of course, there was a conference in Barcelona, for example, like two times this year I switch to Spanish if people speak Spanish. But having said all this I think if you can and if you, of course, not everyone speaks so many languages, but at least, you know, if you if you are living in Europe, it helps really a lot. And in my case, maybe I'm a bit lucky because I'm like, Russian born, I speak Russian and as a modern language, and still regardless the political situation now, quite some people and Baltic countries in eastern Europe, even I should mention, our Ukrainian partners also speak Russian, because it's also one of the languages which even now helps me.
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah, that's, I'm just so impressed. I have the hardest time with languages and to just to hear you rattle those off is so impressive. But just I can hear how valuable and understand how valuable that is to be able to have that personal connection with your colleagues or your clients, your customers. Yeah. So, do you have any other advice for how to build those personal relationships and to maintain that network for your professional life?
Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova:
I think we shouldn’t underestimate, and I think SLAS plays also a role in this, is the networking. We did not really mention this word yet I think, however it is very important. So, it doesn't really matter much if you're more, you know like, in a commercial field or in scientific field, because it's all about people. Still, like, we have the knowledge and we have opportunities, but if you know the people, then you're right. It's very nice also Dutch proverb, sorry I love proverbs, it means don't send somebody to the organization, but send somebody to a person. So, means it is not like, you know, connections in the bad sense of the word, but it's a good sense of the word, because in my opinion people themselves are knowledge. And even like, for example, if you look for a job and you don't see the description 100% if you would like to have it on the website or somewhere in advertisement or in social media, but you happen to know of somebody who works there, go and talk to this person first and maybe you can come further, this is done in the sense of career. The same like, in my case, when I switch to Specs I even didn't know they were advertising, just by chance I heard that, I was like, oh, maybe it will be something for me. And regarding the networking in general, sometimes it's true you go to the conference or you go to an event you’re thinking wow, what I'm going to do here all these topics I have no idea but OK, maybe somebody will come. I think, and actually, the words of my ex-colleagues from Specs from the US, a really great guy also I miss him a lot as a person, he said networking is never a waste of time, and I completely agree with that.
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah, that's one of those things that I feel like that's a theme that comes up a lot in these conversations we've been having around careers is the importance of building up that personal network. And I think that probably now more than ever, you know, we've been hearing a lot that when you're looking for a job, so many companies are relying on AI to sift through those resumes and filter people out. And then, yeah, if you get and build a good personal network professional network, you can kind of jump over that AI process a little bit.
Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova:
And yes, that's good that you mentioned that. I also, strongly believe when we have all this discussion about AI. Of course, it's helpful. Of course, it, especially in science, it can take out a lot of reading. I personally believe that a human factor will never disappear.
Hannah Rosen:
I think that that's a very important take away, something that, yeah, we need to keep reminding ourselves that the humans are still very important.
Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova:
Exactly that's why everyone was so happy after all the lockdowns, quarantines and stuff like this. You're finally, you know, like, finished and we go to see each other in person and shake hands and have a drink. And that's where actually personal relationship starts, it doesn't matter which language.
Hannah Rosen:
Absolutely. So before we wrap up, I have one question that I want to ask you because I think it really does depend from person to person, and so I'm just curious for you personally, how do you define success in your work life?
Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova:
Well, for me, well, maybe it wouldn't be like very direct answer, Hannah. But what I would say, I started to work in life sciences and it was actually more or less, with a bit of turns, the main line in my career, because I always have in mind I want to be helpful for people. So, for me it is important that the work I'm doing, it would be for good of patients or maybe not very bad patients, like in this case it's more like for people who might have problems, probiotics help them, or in my job before it was really working for drug discovery and hoping that people will get medicines and stuff like this. So, in other words I would not go and, for example, sell cars or houses or something like this. It is really important for me that your work has this like, this, you know, how do you say like, fulfillment. In this case that you do it or something, not just for profit or not just, you know, for earning money. This type of career I think is also important not to only, you know like, concentrate on your own achievements and stuff like this, but also to help like, maybe people from your own company or not from your own company. So that's why I'm happy to do this now to show how people also can make their own achievements. I don't know if I express it right.
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah so, helping others is what it sounds like.
Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova:
Yes. And this is, for example, if somebody, for example, lost the job and looking for something and comes to me and I'm thinking, well, maybe I know somebody there or somebody there and introduce the person to person I know, this is also part of actually being still, it is related to a job, but it's not directly that I would earn from that, but it also, you know like, yeah satisfying.
Hannah Rosen:
Wonderful. Well, Julia, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been a really interesting conversation and we look forward to following where the next twist and turn in your career might take you.
Yulia Gerhardt Tazikova:
Thank you very much, Hannah. It was really great pleasure to talk to you today, and thanks everyone for listening.