Economist Jenni Marttinen does meaningful work in Orion’s procurement organisation: “Our team ensures that pharmacies do not run out of medicines”

Twelve years with the same employer is a long time. Jenni Marttinen, who has spent this long at Orion – and most of this time in the Procurement Department – has experience of this. Marttinen has no intention of changing her employer.  
  
“My work is related to meaningful things. I value the fact that the purpose of our work is to help patients. For example, a prostate cancer drug developed by Orion has provided real benefits to many patients.”  
  
Marttinen is also motivated by securing the availability of medicines.   
  
“Ensuring well-being in general is important to me.” 

Career in procurement started almost by accident 

Marttinen graduated from Lappeenranta University of Technology in 2007 with an M.Sc.(Econ.) in International Marketing. Although her studies did not focus on procurement, she has spent a large part of her career with it.  
  
“During my studies, I had a summer job at Rautaruukki working as a product assistant. This job was actually in procurement, which was a bit of a surprise,” says Marttinen.   
  
She has remained on the same path ever since. In 2012, Marttinen started working in procurement at Orion as a Sourcing Manager for Orion’s subsidiary Fermion. The work mainly involved supplier and risk management.  
  
“I developed supplier relationships and negotiated contracts. I found out where to get hold of raw materials for APIs, which were of the highest quality, and offered the best price and delivery time,” Marttinen says.  
  
In 2014, Marttinen had her first child. A couple of years later, when Marttinen was expecting her second child and was about to start maternity leave, her supervisor transferred to a new position. Marttinen applied for her supervisor’s position – and got it. She became the head of Fermion’s sourcing team.   
  
This time, Marttinen was responsible for the sourcing strategy and for leading a cross-functional team. A substitute for her maternity leave was hired, and she started her new job after the leave. 
 
Marttinen enjoyed working at Fermion. She describes Fermion as a small company inside Orion. There is a low hierarchy, and everyone knows each other.  
  
“We would sometimes sit at the same table as Fermion’s President and all the stakeholders during our coffee break,” Marttinen says.  

Procurement professionals come from diverse backgrounds 

Orion’s procurement organisations are extensive and there is a wide range of jobs. Raw materials and excipients for medicines, as well as packaging materials, such as glass bottles and plastic jars, have to be purchased for the pharmaceutical company. In addition to direct purchases such as these, a large number of indirect purchases are also made for Orion.  
  
“We need a wide range of services, energy, and purchases related to IT and analytics, among other things,” Marttinen says.  
  
Orion’s operational purchases are centralised at the Mumbai office in India, and there is close cooperation with the office.  
  
Marttinen says that many other economists, in addition to herself, work in procurement at Orion.   
Marttinen’s colleagues also include graduate engineers, pharmacists with a bachelor’s or a master’s degree, business administration graduates and engineers.  
  
According to Marttinen, one of the most important factors, however, is that employees are broadly interested in subjects and want to learn new things.   
  
“Alongside the work you can deepen your understanding of many sub-areas of the pharmaceutical company’s operations. Your professional skills grow all the time.”  
  
Marttinen points out that it is not always necessary to think about career development in terms of an upward trajectory – it is also possible to progress and develop by broadening skills in different areas. This is what she has done.   

Aim is to secure availability of medicines 

Marttinen’s next career move took her away from procurement for a while. Less than four years ago, she started work as Business Development Manager at Fermion. The job description included sales, development and project management. Marttinen was responsible for sales of generic APIs to other pharmaceutical companies in India and Eastern Europe. A generic product is a cheaper alternative to a proprietary product whose patent protection has expired.   
  
Marttinen says that her time as Business Development Manager was educational in terms of career development.  
  
“I had the opportunity to think about what new generic APIs Orion’s subsidiary should be developing. There is fierce competition in the sector, and many of the generic medicines of the future are still patent protected.”  
  
While leading development projects for generic API processes, Marttinen also came into close contact with the field of chemistry. She says she did surprisingly well in the world of chemists with her business background.  
  
“The projects included synthesis chemists, process engineers and representatives from sales, quality and registration, among others,” Marttinen says.  
  
She enjoyed this job, but a year ago she discovered that another interesting position was open at Orion. Marttinen applied and was selected for the position. Her current title is Head of SC ESO Gx. It’s a complicated title, but so is Marttinen’s job sometimes – in a good way.  
  
“My team of seven is responsible for the supply chain management of generic APIs. The work is very varied, and no two days are the same,” Marttinen says.   
  
Her team’s main task is to make sure that pharmacies do not run out of medicines that are critical for patients.   

Personnel well-being is most important 

The working culture is another reason why Marttinen has enjoyed working at Orion for so long.   
  
“Here, personnel well-being is a top priority. We are a people-oriented organisation where employees are listened to, and the atmosphere is safe. It’s OK to talk about both good things and bad things out loud,” she says.  
  
Marttinen also praises the good team spirit in the procurement departments. You get to work with experts from many different fields. Important stakeholders are, for example, in sales, business development, quality assurance and product life cycle management. 
  
People working in sustainability matters also play an increasingly important role in sourcing.  
  
“There are more and more sustainability requirements all the time, and you naturally have to be precise when dealing with them,” says Marttinen.  
  
She feels it is important that the accumulation of skills is also valued at Orion. This is reflected, for example, in the training offered and the possibility to participate in job rotation.   
  
“I encourage everyone to improve their professional skills, as this will support both your own professional development and deepen the competence of teams and introduce new perspectives to the organisation’s operations.”