ALENA NOVÁKOVÁ Role: MS&T technical specialist, project manager Area: Pharmaceuticals Employer: Novartis, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Pharmaxeon Consulting SRO What can I help my mentee with? developing communication skills project management get an insight into pharmaceutical manufacturing work-life balance time-management

Alena graduated from Drug Synthesis and Production at UCT Prague and already during her studies she was collaborating with the company Teva Pharmaceuticals where she also started a full-time job after graduation. In her first year she went through several positions in the production department, gained insight, and finally settled as a transfer technologist. After three years of intense work dealing with more and more complicated projects, she started struggling with burnout. As part of a necessary lifestyle change, she decided to move to the riverside of Otava where she opened her own bar and built a returnable cup system along the entire river. She set the workflow, communicated with the sanitary authorities, the tax office and other institutions, worked as an operator, hired employees, etc. “I think that sometimes you need to take a break to see what you're actually missing, and after a while I realised I was missing pharmacy." However, her new experience made her realise that she enjoyed project management, so she applied for a job as a project manager at a consultancy company that deals with drug registrations. Currently, Alena works at Novartis where she is responsible for supporting manufacturing in implementing process changes so that new procedures can be validated. 

On top of this, Alena began her MBA studies in Management Soft Skills with the start of the pandemic. "I live in a constant state of change, and that brings an important ability to adapt. There are a lot of things we can't control. Sometimes it happens that you work on something for three months; then suddenly someone above you wants something completely different. That's the way it is, but you have to take it with a pinch of salt." Alena sees mentoring as an opportunity to support each other through contact with other people who are similarly set up. Students, she says, should be aware that they want to go the extra mile and be open.