Program Manager Katya Cook loves working in the Center for Leadership and Professional Development (CLPD) at Fresenius Medical Care. Originally from Belarus, Cook came to the United States as a student and has lived here ever since. “I consider myself an American with a little bit of an accent,” she jokes. And while the United States has been her home for the last 22 years, she now feels like she’s found her professional home with Fresenius Medical Care.

Dedicated to Future Leaders

The CLPD works to help foster professional growth for employees in corporate and clinical settings. “Our vision is to create a growth mindset where all employees are inspired to achieve their full potential and contribute to reaching overall business objectives,” Cook explains.

With that goal in mind, members of the CLPD team, like Cook, organize and facilitate a variety of programs such as Leading with Values. This intensive training course helps foster serving leadership, where leaders offer more guidance, encouragement, and compassion to foster employee growth, engagement, and empowerment.

In addition to professional development training, Cook and others on her team work within Fresenius Medical Care to help with organizational development, succession planning, performance, and change management. The goal is to motivate, develop, and retain talent at the company.

Cook herself is an example of hard work resulting in positive outcomes, something her team teaches. “I got promoted in one year,” she recalls. Now she’s been with the company for more than three years and is excited about her future.

Welcoming Change

As a Program Manager/Producer, Cook’s main responsibilities include overseeing the logistics for different training programs. She ensures that trainings run smoothly, which can be challenging in a remote environment and may require some troubleshooting and quick thinking.

In addition to supporting trainings, Cook works on special projects to help her group tackle challenges. She was recently tasked with developing ways to deliver CLPD programs, including understanding international compliance, to global audiences. Additionally, Cook works closely with vendors to buy software licenses to deliver high-quality training. In the coming months, she is excited to help devise procedures to bring employees back to the office for in-person programs.

Finding Her Corporate Calling

Prior to working at Fresenius Medical Care, Cook spent five years in the food industry working as a manager. She often arranged catering services at Fresenius Medical Care’s headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts, and got to know a little about the company’s mission of supporting dialysis patients. “It looked like a great place to work because of the mission,” she recalls. “Having multiple sclerosis myself, I could understand what dialysis patients were going through, especially psychologically.”

Cook was convinced Fresenius Medical Care was a great place to work after interacting with then–Chief Medical Officer Dr. Frank Maddux (Dr. Maddux is now global chief medical officer). While Cook was still working in the food service industry, she was chatting with a Fresenius Medical Care employee when Dr. Maddux invited her to have a conversation about her career goals. “He spent 20 minutes out of this busy schedule talking to me about my background, my past, and my future aspirations. I remember thinking, ‘He's a senior leader on such a high level and I don’t even work for his company.’ It was an amazing experience for me,” she says.

Later, Cook heard about an opening in the CLPD, applied, and was hired. After she began working for the CLPD, she ran into Dr. Maddux again, who expressed his excitement about her being a part of the Fresenius Medical Care family.

Room for Growth

Cook has enjoyed working with the CLPD for the last three years and enjoys the camaraderie she feels in her department. “On a personal level, everybody is awesome to know and work with,” she says. “They are so supportive, empathetic, funny — and everyone has so much potential. I proudly call them my CLPD family.”


If you are interested in joining Katya at Fresenius Medical Care, see all our available job openings at jobs.fmcna.com