Rosie Connolly is passionate about Occupational Health, and similarly passionate about her job at Circular1 Health. Appointed to the newly-created role of Managing Account Director, Rosie gets to play to her career strengths and her ongoing quest for knowledge:
Q: What do you do at Circular1 Health?
A: I get to use both my scientific background and my education to help explain the science to our customers in ways that are easier to understand. It is essential that they have a better understanding of what’s behind COVID and how testing, screening and sequencing can help not only get through this latest challenge, but also support their health and wellbeing programmes going forward.
Q: What drove you to work for the business?
A: You could say I took a circuitous route getting here! I was travelling in Australia when COVID hit and so had to come home. I started working with a company that manufactures testing kits until a friend of mine told me about Circular1 Health and its ambition and I couldn’t wait to get started.
Q: Were you always destined to work in healthcare?
A: Yes and no. I studied at Newcastle University and graduated in 2014 with a BSc in Pharmacology. My early career was spent at MSD, the global biopharma business, as a Product Testing Analyst, but then I opted for a complete career change, training at Liverpool Hope University to become a Chemistry teacher! I soon realised, however, that whereas I loved teaching and everything inside the classroom, I didn’t much care for anything outside it.
Q: So you went off travelling?
A: Yes I headed off for the sunshine Down Under before returning in the spring of 2020 with a desire to do something to help the country get to grips with the pandemic. After a brief spell as a Quality Assurance Supervisor for a start up, I was tempted away to join another and haven’t looked back since!
Q: What do you love about the job?
A: Being involved with a business like Circular1 Health at such a time is especially exciting. I was initially employed as a Laboratory Supervisor and soon after became a Laboratory Services Manager. I loved being back in the Labs and the people side of business and latterly took on a significant operational role helping to support some of our most complex and challenging clients working across critical industries including energy and defence.
Q: I gather you have a nickname?
A: Yes, I am known as something of a ‘fixer’ so if something needs doing, I will organise the people and find the places and the tools to do it
Q: What’s your longer-term ambition?
A: My ambition is to build upon my own personal skills and commercial knowledge, managing and developing logistics, data, customer relations, and procurement strategies for the business. I am also using my skills to liaise directly with the various Public Health Authorities and GPs across the country, building upon the interest that the NHS and wider healthcare profession is showing in sequencing and diagnostic testing.
Q: How do you see the business developing?
A: There is a huge role we can play beyond COVID in helping people feel safe and supported at work, and in addressing both their physical and mental health needs. The ability for organisations in the future to be able to detect trends and patterns in the health and wellbeing of their workforce and react to those trends will transform how we view Occupational Health.
