Company: Starkey, Eden Prairie, MN
Nomination Submitted by: Media Minefield
Company Description: Starkey builds caring products that connect people through better hearing. As the largest American-owned hearing aid manufacturer, the company aims to lead the world in hearing health and wellness. Starkey’s newest hearing aid, Genesis AI, is a reflection of the company’s innovative culture and the latest example of Starkey’s continued ability to lead its industry with groundbreaking technology.
Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Woman of the Year - Manufacturing
 Nomination Title: Dr. Sara Burdak
- Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes, explaining the achievements since July 1, 2021 of the nominated woman, OR written answers to the questions? (Choose one):
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video. If you are submitting written answers to the questions for this category, provide them in the spaces below:
- Briefly describe the nominated individual: history and past performance (up to 200 words):
Total 196 words used.
Dr. Burdak discovered her passion for hearing health after spending a lot of time in ENT clinics to be treated for childhood ear infections. She turned that experience into an audiology and manufacturing career that has, so far, spanned nearly three decades. Her work at Starkey, a global hearing aid manufacturer, has given her the chance to lead a variety of departments, including research and development, customer service, education and training, as well as marketing.
Dr. Burdak is very passionate about education and supporting the professional growth of women — especially in the manufacturing field. While she believes anyone can become a great leader, regardless of their background, she is incredibly proud to oversee a team of leaders who are mostly female. She even highlighted the roles these women played in developing Starkey’s newest hearing aid in a recent blog (link below). She loves bringing awareness to opportunities in hearing aid manufacturing through her strong presence on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Also passionate about supporting audiology students, Dr. Burdak works to provide soon-to-be audiologists with the chance to hear from industry experts and learn outside of the classroom through a host of Starkey University student initiatives.
- Outline the nominee's achievements since July 1 2021 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):
Total 245 words used.
Dr. Burdak was an integral part of the research, development and launch strategy for the company’s latest and most innovative line of hearing aids to date: Genesis AI. With her leadership, Genesis AI became Starkey’s most studied and validated product family in company history, fitting over 500 people through rigorous clinical trials, which added up to more than 11,000 hours of in-field wearing time before launch! This testing helped her team create a hearing aid with game-changing sound clarity unlike anything on the market. Compared to previous technology, there was a 30% increase in speech understanding, 10% higher speech intelligibility and an 84% preference rating for Genesis AI in the toughest listening environments.
Dr. Burdak is passionate about education, which is why she is a great fit to lead our training team. Since Genesis AI's February 2023 launch, the team has trained more than 3,000 hearing professionals about this device’s capabilities. Whether in-person or online, Starkey does whatever it takes to ensure professionals can achieve the best possible outcomes with our hearing technology, which ultimately benefits patients.
Additionally, Dr. Burdak has received numerous awards that reflect her work as a leader, innovator and manufacturing industry thought leader:
-Women MAKE Awards Recipient (Manufacturing Institute - 2023)
-Top 10 Most Admired Women Leaders (CIO Views - 2023)
-Top 50 Women Leaders in Minnesota (Women We Admire - 2022)
-Notable Women in Manufacturing (Twin Cities Business - 2021)
-Women in Business Award (Globee Awards - 2021)
- Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 233 words used.
In this LinkedIn Pulse article, Dr. Burdak shared how female leaders on her team contributed to Genesis AI. Many audiology students graduate thinking their only career option is to work in a clinical setting; however, Dr. Burdak continues to bring awareness to the multitude of opportunities available for audiologists in hearing aid manufacturing.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/women-stem-meet-some-female-leaders-behind-genesis-ai-sara-burdak/
Dr. Burdak loves attending professional conferences to speak with soon-to-be audiologists. In this LinkedIn Pulse article, she offered some advice for students to help them make the most out of their conference experience. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/three-ways-audiology-students-can-make-most-out-events-sara-burdak/
Dr. Burdak has become a proficient speaker through numerous industry talks, interviews and product launches. She provides formal and informal help with public speaking to anybody preparing a presentation at Starkey, and she even wrote an article to offer her insight to anyone looking to improve this valuable business skill.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/presenting-101-six-tips-become-better-speaker-sara-burdak/
In this Hearing Health & Technology Matters article, Dr. Burdak details takeaways from a virtual tinnitus symposium Starkey hosted that brought together about 1,000 hearing professionals worldwide to collaborate on tinnitus care and to learn about technology used to treat this condition. https://hearinghealthmatters.org/innovationsinhearing/2021/hearing-industry-helping-tinnitus/
Tinnitus is the top service-related injury affecting our nation’s veteran population. In this Hearing Review article, Dr. Burdak shed light on the ways hearing technology can help veterans and loved ones manage this condition.
https://www.stripes.com/opinion/2021-05-25/With-help-veterans-with-tinnitus-hearing-loss-can-thrive-1582045.html
- Explain why the achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the nominee's past performance (up to 250 words):
Total 233 words used.
Game-changing hearing technology is just hardware if it doesn’t impact the lives of patients. That’s why Dr. Burdak believes the vast amount of testing done on Genesis AI is such an achievement for the team. This was Starkey’s most studied and validated product family in company history. The feedback from those in the clinical trials illustrate the connection between innovative technology and the effects on everyday people:
-“They just work, and they work flawlessly. The ability to feel like a regular man hearing again is outstanding.”
-“I can hear driving instructions coming into my hearing aids. The Google map tells me, ‘Okay, turn right on this street or turn left on this.’ And it's all right there. So it's just the most revolutionary thing in the world. I couldn't be happier.”
When Starkey launched Genesis AI, Dr. Burdak told a story on stage about a woman suffering from multiple medical conditions that left her with two options when it came to receiving hearing help: wear hearing aids that caused her pain or shave her head to help alleviate the pain. When Dr. Burdak met this patient, she came up and happily asked, “So, Sara, who can I hug?” After wearing Genesis AI for 15 hours, she hadn’t experienced any pain while still being able to keep her hair. Dr. Burdak gladly took the hug on behalf of the team.
| Attachments/Videos/Links: |
|---|
|
