What led to you working in the dental industry?
I found my way into the dental industry during the early stages of my career in sales. My motivation was to seek mentorship from a VP within our company, and I seized the opportunity to start in an entry-level position. My passion for sales and the prospect of learning under a successful female executive, who was an industry titan, drew me in. She quickly helped me grasp the unique needs of the dental profession.
Describe your journey to where you are today and the key steps that got you there.
After a couple years, I had the opportunity to take on a role as an enterprise software trainer. During this time, I was really able to develop some strong skills working with many different stakeholders and gained a deep understanding of the dental industry. I was in this role for about 8 years and it allowed me to grow and become an expert in optimizing workflows, simplifying complex solutions, and driving change management. In 2012, my company was acquired by Henry Schein and I was given the opportunity to work with other executives across a significantly large-scale organization. I continued to expand my role across Henry Schein and took the big jump into a VP role within the corporate headquarters. In 2018, I took on GM responsible for our Academic business unit and expanded it in 2021 to all of the Canadian Commercial business for software with Henry Schein One.
How do you keep a work/life balance?
I feel incredibly honored to be able to work for a company where I feel passionate about my work. To be candid. this means that at times I have a horrible work/life balance. Despite that, I do value flexibility more than anything else and appreciate that I am mostly responsible for outcomes of the businesses in my portfolio and can manage my time as appropriate. I have two children at home, and I value the time I have to drive them to school and their weekend activities. Balance to me means focusing on my role while not compromising being a spouse or parent.
Can you share some information about your company’s initiatives to help support and encourage women entering or working within the dental industry?
At Henry Schein One, we embrace and celebrate the diversity of our Team Schein Members, our customers, the patients they serve, our shareholders, our supplier partners, and the communities in which we operate. We believe that an integrated approach to help support and encourage women ensures success by cultivating our culture, recruiting and retaining diverse talent, supporting the dental industry, and continuing our commitment to society. We do this in a number of ways, one being our Women’s Leadership Network employee resource group. We also recognize that women make up the majority of dental students coming into the industry, and they will hopefully become our future customers. For us to be able to meet the needs of our customers we need to have representation across all significant roles. In particular, areas of leadership, product, and technology. These are areas that are uniquely important to me as a female leader in the technology space.
Rachel serves as Vice President and General Manager of Henry Schein One Canada and Academic Solutions. She joined Henry Schein in August 2012 when her company, Exan Software, was acquired. She is responsible for strategy and operations across the Henry Schein One portfolio in Canada and the Global Academic Market.
Prior to the Henry Schein acquisition, she spent most of her career building out the Academic Solutions segment with their primary software being axiUm. A key player in the leadership team at Exan, Rachel helped the company achieve over 75% market share in North America. Her previous roles have been in sales, services, marketing and strategic leadership. In late 2022, Rachel took on the expanded role of building the Canadian solutions segment. She is excited to see new product expansion, increased customer loyalty and revenue growth in this market.
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