Anne Razavi
Anne Razavi, Director of Halcyon™ System Business Owner, is a woman in STEM at Varian. She was born and raised in East Germany, behind the Berlin Wall. While completing her Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering, she worked weekends at Volkswagen putting in air conditioners to support herself through college. “At the young age of 25, I packed up two suitcases and came to the United States.”
That Ah-Ha Moment
Cancer care was not always Anne’s plan. “When I went to college, I went for biomedical engineering, and I never wanted to be in radiation therapy… I wanted to do prosthetics. And then when it came time to write my thesis, nobody had a spot available for me. So I ended up in radiation therapy, and I walked in there, and I was like, ‘Wow, I really can change lives.’ Now it's my whole career.”
Anne spent six years working as a Clinical Medical Physicist in clinics. When she first came over to the states, her first position was at a clinic in Rochester, New York.
Anne was then hired out of the clinic by Siemens to operate as a medical physicist advisor for the Artiste project. “They had a product management team and engineering team, but they had nobody with clinical experience. So they hired me out of the clinic to be their clinical advisor, saying, ‘Hey, this feature is a must and this is what you can do in the clinic.’” Anne was a crucial go-between for helping developers understand the consequences of changes within cancer treatment at the clinics and how changes in the software or hardware could translate as a benefit to the patients.
Anne’s six years of working in clinics shaped her to fight for a world without fear of cancer. “Working in the clinic, I think it forms you, right? You see a lot of things. I mean, I have treated patients from three months old to over 80. It shapes you. It brings out your compassion on a daily basis.”
Facing a Challenge
Anne has brought her insight of the patient perspective and the caretaker perspective to her work over her 11 years at Varian. Originally hired on for marketing for the Eclipse™ Treatment Planning System, she then became very familiar with Eclipse™ as she proudly led that portfolio for nearly six years. “So all of the rapid plans, the multi-criteria optimizations, all of the improvements we have done on the algorithms, they were, thanks to my team and our combined brainpower, that the product went out.”
“Being on hardware, it's a little bit different than being on software,” Anne mentioned as she discussed her recent transition into the Director of Halcyon™ Business Owner position. “I felt out of my comfort zone at first. I had to make calls where I wasn’t sure if I made the right call. And I felt uncomfortable, but it strengthens you, right? It makes you well-rounded, and what I can bring to the team now is the perspective of the software.”
The Value of Teamwork
Looking back on her career at Varian, Anne attributes her success to investing in her teams and learning how to ask for help. “I grew up in East Germany, behind the wall, playing professional handball, and there was always this team effort. We had simple rules. You had to be at practice every day and your grades needed to be at least a B. If you were not there, or your grades were not high enough, then you were not allowed to play on the field, and in competition and that lets your teammates down.”
The consequences for the team were real. “It’s not like the team could just substitute another player. If someone couldn’t play, then we would be short players on the field. Your competition comes full force at you no matter what. That forms the team, and that makes you stick together.” Anne explains that these rules also encouraged her teammates to reach out to each other if they needed help on a particular school subject in order for them to keep their grades up. Each teammate was simply too valuable for them to not work together as a unit.
The same can be said for fighting cancer. “Cancer just keeps coming at us, so we need to have all of our players on the field at all times. We need to work together.... My success at Varian and leading Eclipse product management was that team. I formed the team, and it didn’t matter what needed to get done. The team just stood together.”
Anne’s experience with her handball team in Germany also helped her see the strength and grace in asking for help. “It's a difficult conversation to have sometimes, and saying ‘I don't know this and I need help’’ doesn't mean you don’t know what you’re doing. You just need some support. We all do.”
Empowering Women in STEM and in the Workplace
This has become even more clear for Anne since having her daughter, Emma. Anne strives to be a role model for her daughter. “I have a four-year-old daughter, and the movie Moana took female empowerment to the next level in our house,” Anne laughed. “I told Emma, ‘You see? Moana doesn't need Maui. She’s doing it all by herself.’ Now Emma always says ‘My mommy says I can do it all myself. I do all myself!’”
While empowering women to pave their own way, Anne advocates balancing this with supporting each other and putting forth a strong team effort. “Only as a team can you be successful. Before I had my daughter, I always heard ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ I thought, ‘This is stupid. I don't understand that. You Americans came up with this,’” Anne laughed. “And then I had my daughter, and actually does take a village to raise a child. Our products are similar. If you're responsible for a product, You need to ask for help and be open to different opinions.”
Anne’s position as a mother and role model for her daughter has also made her think about where women are today in companies, especially in the tech and healthcare industries. “I think we need more women,” Anne believes. “When I went to college, even in biomedical engineering, out of 50 people, we had only two women in our class.
When looking at women in leadership positions in the tech field, Anne sees how far we come but acknowledges how much further we still need to go. “It took me a long time to achieve my director title, and actually it took me going from software, which I really liked and felt very comfortable with, to a completely new thing. I used linear accelerators in the clinic to treat patients, but developing one, it's a different story.” Anne continues to advocate for a clearer path for the next generation of women to rise to leadership positions.
Words of Wisdom
When discussing the next generation of women in the workplace, Anne suggests exploring, finding, and pursuing your passions. “It may take some time to understand what your passion is before you can fight for it. I didn't know that radiation therapy was my passion until I stepped into it. Try new things to step out of your comfort zone. Don't stay in the mold people want you to be in. Challenge yourself. There are new things you will learn, and new things you will see. And we all will make our mistakes, we all will fall down, and we just need to get up and move on. That’s what it is.
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