With a career spent in MedTech and around 14 years helping build Meditec Source, Edith Streng combines commercial understanding, industry knowledge and the kind of practical judgement that keeps a specialist business moving.
Ask Edith Streng to describe her role at Meditec Source and you quickly realise that a conventional job title only tells part of the story.
As Head of Finance & HR, she looks after areas including personnel, finance, bookkeeping and FDA-related administration, alongside many of the everyday responsibilities that come with running a small specialist business.
As Edith puts it: “I’m handling the personnel, the FDA issues, bookkeeping, finance and all the kind of stuff, wherever I can help.”
It is an understated description of a role that has developed alongside Meditec Source itself.
Edith joined the business around a year after Martin Streng founded it. At the time, she was working in the export department of another surgical-instrument manufacturer, dealing with the documentation required to send products around the world. As Meditec Source grew, Martin needed someone who already understood the industry.
“Martin needed someone who was in the business, and he asked me if I wanted to join the company or if he had to employ somebody else. So I joined the company, and we grew together.”
A career shaped by MedTech
Edith is an industrial clerk by training, but her working life has been spent within medical technology.
That experience gives her a perspective that extends far beyond administration. Earlier in her career, she dealt with instruments and equipment returning from clinical use, giving her the opportunity to see what had broken, what was difficult to clean and where technical issues had arisen.
She also observed a range of procedures in theatre, including knee and hip surgery and minimally invasive procedures. That gave her a practical understanding of how different medical devices, from cameras and light sources to surgical instruments, work together during an operation.
“It was very interesting for me to see how it works and to have the things really in my hands, not only sitting at my desk with a part number and a description.”
That understanding still influences the way she approaches her work today.
“I know how they work together and what is needed. Even if somebody is producing a surgical instrument, I have a picture in my mind of what it is and what the goal should be at the end.”
For Edith, there is also a human reason for having stayed within MedTech throughout her career.
“After the surgery, the people are better than before. That was very interesting for me, to see how the instruments and cameras work and that it helps people.”
Doing what the business needs
As Meditec Source has grown, Edith’s responsibilities have broadened with it.
Some are substantial, such as finance, HR and FDA listings. Others are smaller but no less necessary to the smooth running of the company. Her own description is refreshingly practical: “I do everything that keeps the company running.”
That willingness to move between different responsibilities is part of what makes her contribution difficult to reduce to a single function. It has also meant learning areas she had not encountered earlier in her career.
“For me, I learned a lot of things I didn’t do before for the own company. It is another kind of story.”
And that learning continues as Meditec Source enters its next stage as part of Kaleidex Group.
The person Martin trusts to challenge him
There is another important dynamic at the heart of the business. Martin and Edith are husband and wife as well as colleagues, and Martin is clear that one of Edith’s greatest strengths is her willingness to give him a different perspective.
When asked what life at Meditec Source would be like without her, his first response is simple: “Honestly, I have no clue.” More seriously, he explains that Edith is often the person he turns to when he has an idea or needs to make a decision.
“It’s always good to have Edith on my side to say, ‘Okay, that’s my plan. What do you think about it?’ Often I change my mind and I change my direction because she tells me something from a totally different view.”
Then comes perhaps the most revealing line of all: “Nobody else will tell you the truth.” That honesty matters. Their skills are different, their perspectives are different, and the ability to challenge one another has become part of how the business works.
Looking outward
Edith’s role is continuing to evolve as Meditec Source becomes more closely integrated into Kaleidex Group and expands its international reach.
She has been involved in areas including the company’s new digital presence and is now supporting new distribution activity covering Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong, including the practical regulatory, shipping and administrative requirements that come with it.
It is a development she welcomes. “That’s very interesting for me, to grow also to other countries.” For someone who began her career dealing with the international movement of surgical instruments, there is a pleasing circularity to that.
Fourteen years after joining Meditec Source, Edith remains one of the people who helps connect the many different parts of the business: its people, its finances, its administration, its international activity and the everyday decisions that keep everything moving.
She understands the detail, but she also understands the wider purpose behind it. And, perhaps just as importantly, she is still prepared to tell Martin when she thinks there is a better way.