Career Close-up is a new video interview series where we chat to senior employees in Ireland’s leading multinationals about their career journeys. This week, we talk to Cian Kelly, associate director in operational excellence at Zimmer Biomet.
Welcome to the second episode of our new Career Close-up series. In partnership with IDA Ireland, we sit down with senior figures from some of Ireland’s most innovative international companies, to get a sense of their exciting career trajectories.
In our second instalment Silicon Republic editor, Jenny Darmody, chats with Cian Kelly of Zimmer Biomet, who has risen quickly through the ranks in the last 10 years to his current role as associate director of operational excellence (OpEx).
Kelly describes “falling into” the medical devices sector. Having qualified as an engineer and unsure as to his next move, he ended up working in a medical device factory, Cara Precision, and fell in love with the buzz of advanced manufacturing and, above all, the kind of people he found himself working with. A year and a half later, he moved to Zimmer Biomet, where he has quickly risen though the ranks over the past decade.
His roles have been very varied across a range of departments, something he says he’s very proud of. “I started as a quality technician on the night shift in Shannon and quickly progressed into a continuous improvement engineer role when Galway was starting back up here in manufacturing.”
Kelly stayed in that space for the following six years, and was promoted up to work with the new product introduction (NPI) team, to bring 3D printing into that Galway site, something that has become a real growth area for the site, he says. There followed various senior operational roles, and then back to his roots in continuous improvement and his senior leadership role today as associate director of operational excellence.
“When you’re working in the continuous improvement space, you get to work with every department in the factory, so finance, supply chain, operations, quality. I think it has rounded me a lot as an individual, and that is probably a key strength for myself.”
Kelly loves that he can work in Co Galway – the plant is just 15 miles down the road from his childhood home, and he enjoys that the site is at the heart of the community.
“Local people drive by it, they know the name, we have started sponsoring local sports clubs, we visit schools. I love that element,” says Kelly. “I love being close to my family, my partner’s family, bringing my son up in the Irish culture, with Irish traditions like hurling and farming.”
He also loves to travel overseas, but also within Ireland. “You’re an hour away from Connemara here, which is one of the most beautiful spots in the world. Irish culture and the Irish traditions are something close to my heart, and they’re strong out here in the West.”
As for those starting out on their career journeys, Kelly advises them to find a sector that they can really connect with and to find the right people and culture. “I’m one of these people who enjoys coming to work. I like meeting my co-workers and having relationships with them. So that’s a key element for me.”
And finally, mentors have played a vital role in Kelly’s career journey, he says, and he advises finding people you look up to, even multiple people, and model yourself on them, while retaining your own personality of course. What’s more, Kelly is trying to pay it forward himself now and pass on any wisdom he can to new arrivals. In many ways, though still a young man, Kelly’s career has already come full circle.
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