Anastasia Mironova | Founder & CEO, UpLevelMedTech | Leadership Evolution, Medtech Innovation, & Artistic Influence

Anastasia Mironova is the founder of UpLevelMedTech, a leadership development and executive coaching practice focused on shaping the next generation of medtech executives. Anastasia shares her path from joining Medtronic as an MBA intern to building a career across marketing, strategy, sales, and M&A, and the pivotal moment that cemented her purpose. She breaks down the core themes she sees in leaders at every level—team effectiveness, operating with GM-level ownership, and influence without authority—and explains how “leadership by subtraction” and time inventory create the capacity for strategic impact. She also explores how music shaped her leadership through listening, pausing, and performing under pressure. 

 

Guest links: www.uplevelmedtech.com

Charity supported: Save the Children

Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at theleadingdifference@velentium.com. 

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Host & Editor: Lindsey Dinneen
Producer: Velentium Medical

 

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Episode 085 - Anastasia Mironova

[00:00:00] Lindsey Dinneen: Hi, I'm Lindsey and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world.

[00:00:09] Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them.

[00:00:15] Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives.

[00:00:28] Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives.

[00:00:38] Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives.

[00:00:42] Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Leading Difference podcast. I'm your host, Lindsey, and today I'm delighted to welcome as my guest, Anastasia Mironova. Anastasia is the founder of UpLevelMedTech, a leadership development and strategic advisory firm dedicated to shaping the next generation of executives in medtech. Through a blend of executive coaching, strategic advisory, and custom leadership programs, she helps senior leaders and teams elevate their influence, decision-making, and organizational impact. She is a passionate advocate for advancing women in leadership and brings two decades of lived experience navigating corporate growth, career transitions, and motherhood with authenticity and humor.

Known for her relatable approach and her ability to make leadership growth feel both practical and empowering, Anastasia helps leaders show up with clarity and confidence in complex environments. When she's not coaching or facilitating programs, she loves spending time with her husband and daughter, often recharging at a beach somewhere and supporting mentoring initiatives that help women lead boldly and thrive in their careers and lives.

All right. Well, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here today. I'm, I'm really excited to speak with you.

[00:01:55] Anastasia Mironova: Thank you for having me. I'm excited also.

[00:01:58] Lindsey Dinneen: Awesome. Well, if you wouldn't mind starting off by just sharing a little bit about you, who you are, your background, and what led you to medtech?

[00:02:08] Anastasia Mironova: Oh my gosh. My name is Anastasia Mironova, and I'm the CEO and founder of UpLevelMedTech. We are the leadership development and executive coaching practice focused specifically on medtech, but I have not grown up around medtech at all. You probably hear that from other guests, I'm assuming, quite a bit. But I was born and raised in Kazakhstan in Central Asia, and I kind of grew up more around music and entrepreneurship and totally did not know anything about medtech. I came to US in early 2000s to do my MBA program, and one of my classmates was, at the time, working for Medtronic.

And when I was finishing my MBA program, she said, "You know, we're hiring for a variety of marketing roles, including an intern, and I was thinking maybe you should apply because you have some of those skills." And I said, "Sure, I, I'm interested." And so the rest is history. I joined as an intern working for Medtronic and eventually worked my way up into product management roles and then global marketing, marketing and strategy, marketing strategy and sales, and then added M&A components to it. So loved it, and I very shortly thereafter, there was a situation that made me completely fall in love with the industry.

And I would say that what I really appreciate about it the most is just how much purpose there is behind it, and that's what really connected me to it, and also just how much innovation is being brought forward because I come from a place that didn't necessarily have a lot of innovation readily available, you know, at the speed that we're producing it here. And so I, I really appreciated that, and that's how I-- that, that was my journey in medtech up until I then became a, an entrepreneur and opened up my own business.

[00:03:51] Lindsey Dinneen: Awesome. Okay, well thank you for sharing. There's so much I wanna dive into, but you said you did grow up around maybe not medtech, but entrepreneurship and leadership and things like that. Do you mind sharing a little bit about that and what maybe intrigued you? Because obviously you've become not only an incredible leader yourself, but you are coaching other leaders too.

[00:04:11] Anastasia Mironova: Yeah, sure. It's, it's a really good question. I grew up around my parents' little, I call it mom-and-pop loving business. That business didn't start until after the wall fell and, and, and all of that, but because the business was so tiny, everybody was involved, and I was very much spending a lot of my time around that. And my mother was my early impact on how I was shaped as a leader later on. Unbeknownst to me, I would say she was what you and I would describe a servant leader today, probably long before that term was coined somewhere in a book or in a business school.

But what it really taught me was one thing, which is you're not bound to any specific functional area. You are in the business of something, whatever your business is. And so it taught me to think more broadly and to think like a business person, and I would say, again, I was very unconscious to that at the time. I was just doing a lot of things, helping out, having fun, sometimes thinking about how I absolutely don't know what I'm doing, you know? But then later on, I became more and more self-aware about the fact that how much that business thinking actually helped me to succeed later on as a leader and, and help other leaders grow.

[00:05:29] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, and I'm curious about that aspect. So you, you said it was lovingly a mom-and-pop place, which is wonderful, and, you know, you said sort of everybody was involved, and I feel, feel like that is a very common theme. And so one of the things that I'd be curious to have your take on is something that I discovered owning my own dance studio is there were, there were a lot of moments that were really fun, right?

And you, you got to kinda show up in the community, and you, you had a business, and that's, that's a fun thing to do. But, you know, on any given day, I was everything from the CEO to the janitor, and everything in between. And I think that's a wonderful thing to experience as a leader, but I'm curious as to how that experience probably shaped your own style of leadership beyond being able to observe really good leadership up close and personally. But I'm just kinda curious how that, how, how sort of having a take in all the different aspects of the business may have really helped shape you.

[00:06:27] Anastasia Mironova: Yeah. It, it, it's really kind of fundamental when I think about it, 'cause my mom said exactly the same phrase that you just mentioned. She told me always, "You have to be able to get along with everyone equally and treat everyone equally with respect, whether it's a janitor or your CEO, and your ability to get along with every level of the organization is what's going to shape the success." And, and she was very much modeling that behavior.

But where I feel it shaped me was that when you work in, in medtech in particular, it's very cross-functional, right? So when you work in a particular area, say I was in marketing in early, in early days, I didn't think of myself as a marketeer. And, and what that meant for me is certainly I would focus on what I needed to do and my goals and our functional area imperatives and all of that, but I always was curious about how does the rest of the business work.

And so I didn't think of myself as "I'm a marketing leader." I thought of myself as "I'm a business leader." And when you remain curious in how other aspects of the business work, how it all comes together, what are the macro trends? You know, what do the customers want? How are people compensated? How does the innovation pipeline get shaped? All of those things working together helps early on to make better decisions in your own swim lane.

And it kind of like, it shaped me as a leader because I felt that it helped me to make better decisions in larger context in mind. But also it helped me to relate, to relate to a lot of people in a lot of different functional areas, and not assume what their life was like and what their day-to-day was like, but be curious about it. So I would say that definitely both of those things shape how I saw business as well as people in it, if you will.

[00:08:18] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, I love that. I love the idea of curiosity and being willing to have conversations, meet other people, learn different aspects of the business, 'cause you're absolutely right. The only thing it can do is help you better understand your lane in relation to other people's lanes. And I'm wondering if part of that was also learning how to kind of to, to speak the language of other people's areas of expertise a little bit, in the sense of you're probably going to have a little bit of a different explanation for, say an upcoming project you wanna launch, say, like a, a marketing campaign to the CFO than you would maybe an engineer. So I'm curious how you, how that ha- unraveled for you.

[00:08:59] Anastasia Mironova: Oh it was quite a journey. So earlier when, when I first started in medtech, and I was probably on my second role, I had a, a tremendous boss that was very visionary and, and she believed in talent development very much. And she said to me, "You need to go and probably get even more training in influencing and influencing skills." And I was like, "Wow, I would love to do that. I love everything that has to do with human psychology, behavioral, you know, psychology." And so she actually sponsored that, and I was able to do that. And what I quickly found was that the way you position your message and the way you deliver your message and how you influence different people varies drastically.

And that really helped me later on as a leader to advocate for my team. I felt like at minimum, the influencing skills and the ability to relate to different people from different walks of life, it helps you to advocate for yourself and for your own initiatives and for whatever you might be focused on. But for leadership, it definitely helped me to be heard as a leader and advocate for my own team later on.

And I also felt like other leaders were telling me, "You really understand what it's like to be in our shoes," and therefore were more willing to listen to what I had to say. So it's, it's such a counterintuitive thing at times, but I do believe in this concept of it is our job to inform ourselves of our conversation partner and not the other way around. And it, it works. It's very effective.

[00:10:38] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, that's, that is, that is incredible and such a great skill set to have and to pass along, and I really love your point about advocating for others as well, in addition to advocating for yourself. And so I know one of the things that you do brilliantly now is to help people who are potentially interested in taking that next step in their own leadership journey, whether they're interested in, you know, going from, let's say, director to VP, VP to C-suite, and things like that.

So I was just wondering if you could share a little bit about how you made this successful for yourself, because you mentioned on, on your LinkedIn profile that you didn't work-- It's not like you were working crazy hours, or you were doing all the right things. And so I'd love to hear about your journey and then how you help others too, through their journeys as well.

[00:11:27] Anastasia Mironova: Yeah, certainly. I'm thinking about back when most of my career happened, probably while I was very much navigating the demands of everything all at once, the demands of young family or having young family at the time, you know, parents and, and everything that we normally have on our plate. And I firmly believe that as a leader, you have to be very, very clean and clear on what your one or two things are that are super strategic in your world that only you can really do and drive, and this is your primary role.

And so one of the ways I did that is I, I definitely was very, very intentional about how I spent my time, and I did a process once a month that had to do with my inventory, time inventory, believe it or not. And I would do it on the plane or, you know, on, on the ride to, to, you know, a, a seminar or something or a meeting, and it really helped me to hone in on these are the things that only I can really ensure to drive, and the rest belongs to my team so that they can shine and they can also, you know, we can be effective together.

One of the things that I find the hardest is that people graduate from execution to that strategic impact, and it's hard to do that. Most of the time when I help my clients, the, the challenge is not the capability. It's not the skill set. I work with tremendously talented people. It's the capacity. It's the creation of that leadership capacity, and that takes what I call leadership by subtraction. You have to subtract something to create that space for your strategic impact, and that's what we work on often together, but that's what really truly helped me to be successful, is leadership by subtraction and inventorying it.

[00:13:20] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Okay, great. Well, yeah, th- that's great because I'd love to learn more about your company now how you work with people, and kind of where you find perhaps some of the, the hardest things as, as you're growing in your career and your leadership responsibilities increase. So what are, what are some of the common things that you see that don't work well as you're trying to continue to grow in your, in that way?

[00:13:46] Anastasia Mironova: For me or for my clients?

[00:13:48] Lindsey Dinneen: Let's talk about for your clients.

[00:13:51] Anastasia Mironova: Okay. So for my clients, I would say there are definitely very common themes as I see it. It's interesting to me because when I first opened up my business, I had this theory that the kind of challenges that people maybe at an individual level will face might be drastically different from those that are faced at the executive level. And I quickly learned that the challenges are all the same. The way they show up in your day-to-day life may be different, but the challenges are all the same, and they have to do oftentimes with three things. Do you really get laser-focused on how effectively you manage your team so that you and your team can elevate?

The second area that's probably by far the most common is, are you operating at that GM level? Even if you're individual contributor, are you thinking from an ownership perspective like an owner would in a business versus a particular title or a particular role in, in honing in on that business, business acumen and the one that crosses all lanes, all company sizes, I would say all teams, all functions is, is influencing skills and presence. How do you show up in a way that honors other people but helps you to move both business and people forward and you have absolutely no authority over them, right? So it's that influence without authority.

These are very, very for like front of mind for a majority of the teams that I work with. And I'd say one of the ways to probably, you know, deal with that or address that is, is definitely to be very intentional about development. So it's not just here and there or, you know, as time permits, but as, as the companies become more intentional about the development, the more capacity they create. I definitely believe that our future is not, not in necessarily having high potential development, but high capacity development.

[00:15:55] Lindsey Dinneen: Hmm. Yeah.

[00:15:56] Anastasia Mironova: If that makes sense.

[00:15:57] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. So how, how can we encourage companies to prioritize this? 'Cause I, I agree with you that the development all along the path is really important, and I know a lot of people take very personal ownership of that, and they do a lot of their own you know, training and things like that, and coaching. But, but what about from the perspective of a company? How can we encourage companies to be more involved and to understand the importance of the ROI associated with it, just to be frank?

[00:16:27] Anastasia Mironova: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And that's the conversation where I would say the CHROs, the people leaders, are now taking a significantly more active role in companies to allow for that conversation to take place and to have a much deeper partnership with the business leaders to be more intentional about development. And I would say what I see is that's the best practice where they partner together and say, "My needs are like this," right? "These are some of my needs on my team, and here's our solutions. And how do we bring these solutions more systematically to all levels so that we can uplevel everybody?" And companies that do do that and have these conversations, then they, they're more disciplined as well as more prioritized around that topic. And where it doesn't become that partnership conversation on the table, it's harder, certainly harder. And I'm being completely frank and candid on that.

[00:17:28] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah. Okay, so one of the things I noticed on LinkedIn is --you have w- several wonderful things. One of them that I really enjoyed was kind of seeing your different book recommendations, so it seems like you are a very avid reader, and also you grew up in a very musical environment, yeah? That's part of your background. So I'd love if you share a little bit about those, and maybe how you think that has helped you as a leader in your career. Just h-how do those things interplay?

[00:18:02] Anastasia Mironova: Oh, you, you, you run a risk of getting me into my soapbox a little bit, but mus- yeah, yeah. Music is big. So I, I went to music school for 10 years and learned to, to play piano. But I probably could write a book about the parallels between music and leadership just for fun of it at someday when I retire and have time, because learning music really taught me a lot about leadership in, in a number of ways.

If you think about medtech and you think about, again, how much of it is very cross-functional, a lot of different groups have to come together, words like alignment come to mind, right, all the time. In music, it's interesting because you have to listen to yourself as you play to make sure that you self-correct. And so that listening, that ability to listen to "How am I coming off right now?" is, is really important, I think, in leadership, particularly today when everything is more about being more inclusive, right, being more diverse in how you build your team. So I would say that listening ability is huge and shaped me as a leader.

And the other one is the power of pause. If you, if you don't pause when you play when you're supposed to, it's just not gonna sound the same. It's not gonna land the same. And so, like that power of pausing to allow for a better response is another huge parallel, particularly in executive levels and like how you show up.

And I would say probably the other one is ability to prep. There is a lot of preparation in leadership. You can attest to that. There's a lot of prep that goes into it. But then there comes the time when you have to go and in high stakes be composed and, and read the room and, and, and get there.

So lots of parallels. I could think of many more, but these are just like the top three that I would say definitely prepared me, again, when it matters, you know? 'Cause I, I think a lot of times in leadership we talk about, you know, culture and engagement, right? And trust, and those are fundamentally unbelievably important. But I oftentimes think that leadership falls apart in those high-pressure moments, right? And music prepared me to deal with that quite a bit, so.

[00:20:23] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Oh, I love that. So I t- I talk about this quite a bit too with s- my background is also in the arts, but on the dance side. I'm a professional ballerina, and, and one of the things that I often talk about is how, yeah, it prepares you for really high-stakes environments where you're gonna go in, and honestly, it doesn't really matter what kind of day you've had, what you, what's going on in your life. You're there to perform, so you have to learn to show up poised and in command and with confidence that may or may not actually exist.

[00:20:56] Anastasia Mironova: Yes, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah, you have to compartmentalize it all. And even if you make a mistake, which is inevitably that does happen on stage when people are watching and all eyes are on you, and there, lo and behold, you tripped on a note or it didn't land quite there, and you just have to keep going. And I think that that skill is tremendous in leadership.

[00:21:25] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, could not agree more. Okay, so you mentioned when you were first telling us a little bit about your story that there was a moment that kind of really made you fall in love with the industry or, or helped you feel fairly passionate about it, and I was just wondering, I always love learning what, what is a moment or a couple of moments that stand out to you as just affirming, "Wow, I am in the right place at the right time"?

[00:21:50] Anastasia Mironova: Yeah, it's, it's a little bit of an emotional story, but I started my career in medtech in a external defibrillation category, which in simple terms, at the time, it wasn't something that was mandatory in schools, stadiums, airports, planes, you know, all these things were now are equipped with a little portable defibrillator wasn't the case. The laws haven't yet been passed, and so we were pretty early days, and we had to fight oftentimes very hard to get one of these into, say, schools.

And so one of our team mem- members on the sales side did that, and later on, I met a six-year-old boy with his mom who survived sudden cardiac arrest in the school that we were able to fight and place the AED in because he collapsed with sudden cardiac arrest. And so we, we brought him to, to our company, and this little human was on stage, you know, alive because so many people carried that part, right? And I just get emotional just talking about it. That was my moment. It was really early on, and I literally just committed to it and never looked back. And I'm so happy that he was there , and then we met many more, you know, throughout the years, but that was my pivotal moment for sure.

[00:23:10] Lindsey Dinneen: Oh, that's such a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing that. I, yeah, that, yeah. I can see why that would get you every time because what an amazing, what an amazing thing to get to... 'Cause, you know, you, you know you're in a good industry doing good things, but when you get to see the impact on a patient, and a little human and to top it all off, oh my gosh, that's, that's beautiful. Yeah.

[00:23:34] Anastasia Mironova: Thank you. Kids, right? And, and, and I've met a few patients since then that have been positively impacted, adults, various ages. And again, it just-- it's such a reminder every time. Even when I now work with my clients and I, you know, would talk to them about whatever their challenges are and work through that, most all of them share that and tell me, " Yesterday I was reminded, you know, because I met-- I went to the hospital, and I met, you know, some, some patients." It's unbelievable. Purpose.

[00:24:05] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, okay, pivoting the conversation a little bit just for fun, and based on a previous answer, now I'm, I'm wondering if this will be similar, but imagine that you were to be offered a million dollars to teach a master class on anything you want. Could be within your industry, it doesn't have to be. What would you choose to teach?

[00:24:28] Anastasia Mironova: I would choose, I would choose to teach two things. One would be how to not fall apart under pressure, for sure. I would teach that in a heartbeat because I feel like there's just so much to it, and it's fun. It's actually fun. It's very, very learnable, and contrary to people's belief, anybody can learn that. So I would totally teach that. And I would teach it, believe it or not, how to tailor your message. The marketeer in me is still very much alive. I would teach about you can take this one thing that you really need to deliver and deliver it 16 different ways, and this is the one or two ways that it's going to get it landed, whether it's your investor pitch, your initiatives, your budget, your people, whatever you need. There's so much power in that, in tailoring it to the audience, and I have fun doing that, so I would probably teach those two things.

[00:25:27] Lindsey Dinneen: I love that. That's awesome. Okay, and then how do you wish to be remembered after you leave this world?

[00:25:33] Anastasia Mironova: That's a weighty question. Probably in two ways. For me, my most important values are my family, if you haven't guessed that already. So I would want to be remembered that I've spent a lot of really good special moments with my daughter and with my family because I feel like that's, that's what matters at the end of the day. And I would like for all the people whose lives I touch today and throughout my career leave with feeling more clarity, lighter, and just more uplifted after talking to me, and so that I leave them better off than when we started because that's, that's the legacy I want to create. I do believe both leadership as well as our personal life are comprised of those hundreds of very small moments, and that's how I would like to be remembered probably.

[00:26:26] Lindsey Dinneen: Yes, I, I love that. I-- that's a beautiful legacy, yeah. All right, and then final question: What is one thing that makes you smile every time you see or think about it?

[00:26:40] Anastasia Mironova: My daughter's paintings, hands down. So I have a, an artist in the house, which I, I'm not artistically inclined from, from, from a painting perspective. Music, right, not painting. And she paints a lot, and so every time I see something being created, whether it's silly or serious, whatever she- her, her mood is at, it just makes me smile. So it's my, it's my instant instant smile of the day.

[00:27:04] Lindsey Dinneen: Oh, I love that. Yes, I, I love art in general, and very much share the same, you know, idea that there's so much that you can take from what you learn from the discipline of, of being in the arts to where you go in the future. But anyway, that's so much fun to hear, so thank you for sharing. And just in general, thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate it.

We are so honored to be making a donation on your behalf as a thank you for your time today to Save the Children, which works to end the cycle of poverty by ensuring communities have the resources to provide children with a healthy, educational, and safe environment. So thank you so much for choosing that charity to support.

I, I loved hearing your stories and your advice, and I appreciate how you're helping the next generation of leaders to succeed. This is such an important industry, and we want people to be successful, so thank you for the work you're doing to change lives for a better world.

[00:28:05] Anastasia Mironova: Oh, thank you, Linds. Thank you for having me. I am really honored. You bring such wonderful guests always, that I look forward to your next episodes as well. Thank you very much for having me. I had so much fun talking to you.

[00:28:16] Lindsey Dinneen: Awesome. Good. Well, thank you, and until next time.

[00:28:20] Dan Purvis: The Leading Difference is brought to you by Velentium Medical. Velentium Medical is a full service CDMO, serving medtech clients worldwide to securely design, manufacture, and test class two and class three medical devices. Velentium Medical's four units include research and development-- pairing electronic and mechanical design, embedded firmware, mobile app development, and cloud systems with the human factor studies and systems engineering necessary to streamline medical device regulatory approval; contract manufacturing-- building medical products at the prototype, clinical, and commercial levels in the US, as well as in low cost regions in 1345 certified and FDA registered Class VII clean rooms; cybersecurity-- generating the 12 cybersecurity design artifacts required for FDA submission; and automated test systems, assuring that every device produced is exactly the same as the device that was approved. Visit VelentiumMedical.com to explore how we can work together to change lives for a better world.