Inside the program helping our employees grow at work – and in life

Five years ago, Sandra Ajugba was responsible for training new employees to build the WATCHMAN™ Left Atrial Appendage Closure Device, which helps reduce stroke risk for people who have a condition called atrial fibrillation. 

“I was very proud to be part of the WATCHMAN team,” says Ajugba, who is based at Boston Scientific’s Maple Grove, Minnesota site. “But I always wanted to be a quality technician. Quality is my passion.” 

Then she learned about a new career development program at the company called GROW. “That changed my life trajectory,” she says.  

Read on to find out how GROW, which recently received the 2025 Gartner Supply Chain Award for People Breakthrough for its best workplace practices, has helped Ajugba and more than 1,500 other employees worldwide to develop their careers, and their personal potential, at Boston Scientific. 

Learning skills that can take careers to the next level 

In 2016, a Boston Scientific manufacturing team in Cork, Ireland, began to realize that product builders there were lacking in career advancement opportunities. Employees would apply for internal job openings, only to be told that they didn’t have the necessary experience. 

Bryan Delgado Díaz hopes to become a production supervisor with the help of the GROW program.

That’s when a program to Give Real Opportunities for valuable Work experience, a.k.a. GROW, was born. 

In its first year, GROW selected 28 Boston Scientific product builders to gain hands-on experience working on a production line while receiving mentoring and building relationships with team leaders and hiring managers.  

Four years later, the program expanded to the United States. Today, GROW is available to product builders and technicians in 13 company manufacturing and distribution locations around the globe, including the U.S., Brazil, Costa Rica, Ireland and Malaysia.  

What has remained the same is the mix of classroom learning, on-the-job experiential challenges and support from company leaders that helps prepare employees for the next steps in their careers, whether that’s moving into a supervisory, planner or other role or simply feeling more confident in their current positions.   

“We give them a menu of opportunities,” says Cory Otto, senior manager of GROW. “If they want to be a quality technician, they need to know how to do certain things that they would see in a job description or be asked about in an interview. We create a real-life challenge on the production floor for them for them to resolve. Then they can share with a hiring manager how they’ve done it.” 

Participants also learn to improve their “soft skills,” such as conflict resolution, problem solving, public speaking and teamwork.  

Bryan Delgado Díaz has been a builder of products such as catheters and stents at Boston Scientific’s Coyol, Costa Rica, facility for seven years. This year, he became GROW’s 1500th graduate. “I developed techniques for having better empathy and handling personal emotions,” Delgado says. “One of my dreams is to be a production supervisor and now I’m pretty sure that I can do it.” 

Creating new opportunities for employees and their managers, too 

Today, more than a third of GROW graduates have progressed in their careers at Boston Scientific. In fact, they stay at Boston Scientific at a 17% higher rate than their peers, saving managers 64 hours for each GROW grad they hire. 

As for Ajugba, she graduated from GROW in 2021; her manager attended the ceremony. Shortly afterwards, he initiated a conversation about her career goals, and a month after that, he told her about an open quality technician role. Ajugba had applied for other positions at the company before but had never gotten them. This time was different: She went out for, and got, the job. 

While Ajugba attributes her success in part to the skills she learned from GROW, most of all, she says, “it was the visibility I got. It was the power of networking, the power of people that can recommend you even when you’re not in the room. Without GROW, I wouldn’t be at the table.” 

Learn more about working at Boston Scientific and search for jobs at our sites worldwide.