Celebrating International Women’s Day – Kate O’Reilly

To mark International Women’s Day on March 8, RAD Magazine asked just a few of the women who are having an impact in the medical imaging industry to give an insight into their working lives and what led them to a career in the imaging sector.

I am managing director of Vertec Scientific Limited, and it has been a wonderfully varied and non-linear career journey to get here.

Many (many) years ago, I did maths, physics and chemistry A-levels, and then a BSc pharmacology degree. As someone who loves science and technology, but also someone who very much thrives on human interactions, it is perhaps not surprising that I took my initial career step with a pharmaceutical company as a medical information executive (which translates as a sales rep). I initially worked in primary care, and then got promoted to regional medical projects coordinator (which also translates as sales rep) in secondary care.

I loved working in a field where I felt I had a very strong knowledge base, but was also very keen to broaden my horizons and fancied selling a tangible ‘thing’, so I moved into orthopaedic sales (replacement hips, knees, plus power tools and biologics), and then subsequently into spinal implant sales. I enjoyed being a valued part of the operating theatre team and the completer-finisher in me loved the feeling of actually being part of the whole sales cycle, from initial technical conversations with surgeons right through to patient implantation.

Aged 27, I was promoted to national sales and marketing manager, responsible for the UK spine team at Zimmer. This was my first leadership role, and one of my absolute favourite roles ever. The mix of hands-on sales and operating theatre support, combined with a strong strategic planning and people/team element, created an environment where I thrived and excelled.

However, with the arrival of my daughter a few years later, I needed to accept it was unlikely I could successfully juggle a role that required me to be away from home two or three nights a week with being the kind of parent I wanted to be, so I did not return to this role after my maternity leave and took a bit of a sharp career left turn to become faculty manager at the University of Chichester.

I initially took the role mainly because it met my requirements at the time (closer to home, more predictable hours etc), but over the 10 years I was there it grew into a bigger and bigger role, and one that I loved. It gave me the opportunity to lead a much bigger team, be responsible for much bigger budgets and get involved in much bigger projects than I had done before, and hence it meant I learned a lot – which is always a good thing. It also gave me the ability to be home for my daughter, and subsequently also my son, every night, something which was very important to me, particularly when they were both very young.

I took voluntary severance after 10 years at the university, and took another sharp career turn, this time to spend the next 12 months working as a consultant launching a software company. Another great learning experience; not only did my tech knowledge improve significantly, but I also had my first experience of a new company launch, of building website and social media content from scratch, of designing email marketing campaigns, and of wearing all the hats you inevitably need to wear in a very small start-up.

However, after a year of that, and with my children now a bit older, I decided to return to what feels like my ‘career home’ of MedTech, and joined Quanta Dialysis Technologies. Quanta was a few months away from the commercial launch of a groundbreaking home haemodialysis machine and I was brought on, initially as a consultant a few days a week, to assist with the launch. However, COVID-19 had other ideas, and I quickly found myself full-time, hands-on in the COVID-19 ICUs, a time that I will never forget, a time that I am incredibly proud of and a time that I have no desire to repeat any time soon.

As COVID-19 subsided, I took on the role of UK country manager and was responsible for the customer facing and commercial activities in the UK. This was an amazing and rewarding opportunity to build a brilliant team and to be part of delivering a technology and a service that was truly transforming patients’ lives.

Sadly, a number of conflicting financial factors forced an end to Quanta’s UK business, and I then found myself responsible for leading the commercial exit from the UK, prior to taking redundancy in March 2024.

After a conscious decision to have a few months off, I joined Vertec Scientific in August 2024 and I am thoroughly enjoying everything about my new role. There were big shoes to fill, with the previous managing director Bill Hipgrave having been with Vertec for 37 years, and in that time he had built a successful, stable business, run by a wonderful and experienced team. I am now six months into the role, and I am excited about the new suppliers I am in discussions with, the new projects we are working on as a company, and my learning curve on all things medical imaging continues (I love learning, as you might have gathered by now).

So, that’s me. It’s not the kind of career path you could consciously design, but it has worked well for me. The juggle of being a managing director and a mum to two teenagers is very real, but I wouldn’t change a single thing.

Kate O’Reilly, managing director, Vertec Scientific Limited.

Read this report on page 13 of the February 2025 issue of RAD Magazine.

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