Eilynn Vallecillo joined Stryker in 2019 as an Associate Manager for the Record to Report team in Costa Rica. Three years and a few role changes later, Eilynn is a Manager of General Accounting headed to Redmond, Washington to support Stryker’s Emergency Care Division. We sat down with Eilynn to learn more about her career path and what her future at Stryker holds.
Why did you join Stryker?
When my former boss was hired as the leader of Stryker’s new Costa Rica
location he shared Stryker’s mission, culture, and vision with me. I was immediately amazed by the company, as well as Stryker’s vision for the finance center in Costa Rica. I have been a creative person and the opportunity to help pioneer a site opening energized me. I considered ways I could create value at Stryker and the opportunities that this could bring for my career growth. During my interview process, I realized the amount of thought Stryker puts towards attracting talent that matches its culture and values, this allowed me to feel confident about the great match between my career goals and what Stryker has to offer me.
What do you love about Stryker?
First, I love Stryker’s mission, I’m part of something greater than myself and am proud of being part of a company where collaboration is crucial to making healthcare better. Another thing I love about the company, is the focus on investing in our people’s strengths. Having tools such as the Clifton Strengths Finder, helped me to gain a deeper knowledge about my and my team’s strengths. I believe having a mindset that emphasizes our strengths allows us to get the right people in the right role.
What has been your career path at Stryker?
I started my journey in January 2019 as an Associate Manager for the Record to Report team, migrating the accounting activities from the Kalamazoo Finance Center to Costa Rica. Part of my responsibilities were hiring and training new employees, managing knowledge transfer, go-live and stabilization of the migrated activities.
This journey permitted me to visit Michigan on several occasions and learned first-hand about Stryker’s people and culture. After successful migrations, I was promoted to Manager of general accounting in 2020. Along with the promotion, I faced new challenges: I was given the opportunity to migrate additional accounting activities for commercial entities - these migrations happened during the pandemic and I needed to increase my team from 5 individuals up to 21, most of them I hired through video calls.
What does a day in your life look like?
In my role as Manager of General Accounting, I am responsible for accomplishing results through the management of a team to ensure completeness, accuracy, quality, and timely accounting for my assigned entities.
To start my day I meet with my team supervisors to review our daily activities, priorities, issues or risks and recognitions. On a monthly basis my main activities flow between months-end closing, process improvements, KPI reviews, account reconciliations and people management activities. In the finance center environment, it is crucial to ensure quality and timeliness in all the processes we do. To guarantee this, my team has KPIs to measure its performance and we are always looking for initiatives that improve our current processes.
What opportunities/projects have helped you grow in your career?
My leadership team is aware of my strengths, what I enjoy and what I’m naturally good at, and they have provided me with challenges, that have helped my career development. During the migration projects that I have worked on, I had the chance to learn more about Stryker’s businesses and network with people from different Stryker locations.
What do you enjoy most about working in Cosa Rica?
Costa Rica is a beautiful country; from the Stryker office, you can see the Central Valley which is surrounded by beautiful mountains. During the afternoon on the terrace, you can see breathtaking sunsets, I must say this is what I miss the most about going to the office.
Costa Rica is also a place where you live peacefully, with many different activities to do on weekends and holidays. You can travel from the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea in about 5 hours. You have your choice of the jungle, the beach, or the freshness of the mountains.
What are you looking forward to in the coming year?
I’m a dreamer, and as my favorite quote from Walt Disney says: “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them". I have seen this happening my whole life.
This year I am accomplishing a big dream. I have always been very vocal about my career aspirations: I wanted an opportunity to work abroad in local finance and to be closer to Stryker businesses. My leadership team knew about it, I worked on my IDP (Individual Development Plan) goals and looked for opportunities to make this a reality. The chance finally arrived, and I applied for a position as Manager, Finance Planning and Analysis at the Medical Emergency Care Commercial division in Redmond, WA, and I was selected to join the team.
I cannot stress enough how grateful and blessed I feel that I get this the opportunity to fulfil my dream, and I am so proud to belong to a company that provides the tools and opportunities to growth in our careers. As you may imagine, this year will be driven by changes, I will be moving from Costa Rica to Seattle, and all the processes involved: my current role transition, my work Visa, finding a new home and car, meeting new friends, and learning the Emergency Care Business.
Interested in growing your career with us?
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