Sarah Ptach, President and CEO of Canyon Labs, discusses her journey from professional sports and advertising to leading Canyon Labs, a company specializing in medical device and pharmaceutical testing. Inspired by her father's Parkinson's diagnosis, Sarah transitioned to healthcare to make a meaningful impact. She delves into her leadership philosophy, emphasizing the importance of trust, transparency, and collaboration in building a strong company culture. Sarah also highlights Canyon Labs' dedication to elevating industry standards and ensuring patient safety.
Guest links: https://canyonlabs.com/ | https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahptach/
Charity supported: The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research
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 067: Sarah Ptach
[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 to another episode of The Leading Difference podcast. I'm your host, Lindsey, and today I am super excited to introduce you to my guest, Sarah Ptach. Sarah is the President and CEO of Canyon Labs, a leading provider of medical device and pharmaceutical testing, consulting, and sterilization services. She joined the company during a critical ownership transition with a clear goal in mind: to raise the standard of service in the industry and build a true end-to-end solutions partner. Drawing on her background in packaging engineering and testing, Sarah focused on expanding beyond packaging alone to create a more integrated, accessible, and expert driven experience for clients.
Sarah began her career in professional sports and advertising, but a desire to create more meaningful impact led her to the healthcare space after her father was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. She went on to help grow and successfully exit a packaging firm before bringing her vision and leadership to Canyon Labs. In addition to her role at Canyon, she co-leads Kilmer Innovations and serves on the board of the Medical Device Packaging Technical Committee of the Institute of Packaging Professionals. She remains deeply committed to advancing healthcare through innovation, expertise, and strong partnerships.
All right. Well, thank you so much for being here, Sarah. I'm so excited to welcome you to the show.
[00:02:05] Sarah Ptach: Likewise. Thank you, Lindsey. I appreciate you having me.
[00:02:08] Lindsey Dinneen: Of course. Well, I'd love if you would start off by telling us just a little bit about yourself, your background, and what led you to MedTech.
[00:02:16] Sarah Ptach: Yeah. Thank you. So I'm Sarah Ptach. I'm the president of Canyon Labs. I have kind of an interesting story of getting into to medtech. I originally started my career actually in professional baseball. I was a contract negotiation person mainly for closing pitchers. And I ran track in college. I thought like, "oh, I wanna be in sports." And I like to say that's the most fun I never wanna have again. It was, it was a great start of a career. It teaches you a lot about negotiation, teaches you a lot about high stakes opportunities. But, you know, in the end it, it felt very kind of un unfulfilling in that perspective.
And so I had kind of then taken that into to marketing for a pretty big ad agency in Chicago and hit the same thing. I felt like I was-- you know, now I was just selling people stuff that they didn't need instead of promoting people that, you know, that make a ton of money in the sports industry. And at the time my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and I wanted to feel like I was makin
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