Name: Tanja Winther-Hinge Grand

Education: Export engineer, Engineering College of Copenhagen, Denmark, 2001

Joined NNIT: 2003

Career at NNIT: Delivery manager, project manager, team leader

Current position: Service Delivery Manager in NNIT Life Sciences Division

Job rotation keeps me sharp

Tanja recently began in her fifth job at NNIT when she rotated to her present position as service delivery manager in NNIT Life Sciences with responsibility for critical IT systems in the pharmaceutical industry. She says: "I really enjoy the possibility to take up new challenges. With every job rotation I have gained new experience of course, but my past experience has also been put into a new perspective – and that develops me as an individual, as a manager and as an employee to the benefit of both NNIT and myself."

Originally, Tanja worked for Ericsson and encountered NNIT for the first time at an Ericsson vs. NNIT volleyball game. She talked with a couple of NNIT employees and their description of their workplace convinced Tanja to send an unsolicited application. Soon after she switched teams when she was offered a position as delivery manager.

In her first job at NNIT Tanja negotiated contracts with Novo Nordisk – contracts centred on the monitoring and maintenance of networks. But it didn't take long before a new job came her way – as project manager for WebTalk, a project focused on mediating web conferences. Tanja developed the concept and presented it to potential customers herself.

This led to a pitch directly to the senior management of Novo Nordisk. And Tanja sold the product. “It was only afterwards that I realised that I could have used NNIT's sales staff who are used to appearing on the senior management floors. But it was really exciting – and a personal success,” she says.

Being a manager taught me to let go
In 2005 Tanja was headhunted internally by Customer Services for a project manger position on NNIT's 24/7 Service Desk. Later on, Tanja took on more general management duties as team leader, which was a new challenge.

The ability to balance personal touch with target-oriented attitude was essential as a people manager. And she employed, developed and challenged her team through employee assessments and career planning and kept track on the team's well-being from both a professional and a personal perspective.

Tanja states: “I suppose I’m a bit of a control freak. But becoming a manager taught me to let go – and to give more of myself”.

New point of view
In September 2008 Tanja returned to working as project manager – this time in NNIT Life Sciences – but nothing was the same as when she last had that title. In her new, more customer oriented role Tanja found use for the skills she developed in her earlier jobs at NNIT.

Among other things, her experience as team leader were a strong asset when she was motivating her project team of twelve.
In order to develop her managerial skills Tanja has finished a ”Life & Business” coaching course, which was equally useful in her former role as team leader and later on in the project team and as internal coach in NNIT.

“I was happy as team leader but also very aware that I wanted to move on to a position where I could work with project management on a larger scale and also build my managerial skills," Tanja says.

Today, Tanja has realised her ambitions as service delivery manager in NNIT Life Sciences.