What is it like to work at the Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence (AI CoE) at Fresenius? Edward Aston has been with Fresenius for several years and is now part of the AI CoE team founded at the beginning of 2024. In this interview, he talks about why he enjoys working there so much.
My job title is “AI CoE Consultant” and my role is to manage our stakeholders’ demands across the business segments and to deliver end-to-end AI-based solutions. I have been with Fresenius for several years and am pretty well-connected within the entire Fresenius organization as a result. As such, my main responsibilities are business analysis and project management.
Artificial intelligence is the topic that connects us and that we are all working on. But, from a team perspective, when you look beyond the basic skillset, we are quite diverse. Every single one of the colleagues here has their own specific strength, and this in turn contributes to the strength of the AI CoE team as a whole. The mixture of skillsets really comes to the fore in discussions with our colleagues on the commercial side of the business. This is because we don’t just have a grasp of the technical side of things, but we can also view challenges from the perspective of processes and commercial. This leads to solutions that create true added value for the segments and go beyond the technical aspects.
My educational background is in Business Informatics, which essentially combines Information Systems with Business Administration. I hold both a diploma and a masters’ degree in this discipline. Following my degree, I joined a mid-sized consulting company implementing industry solutions based on SAP and Microsoft technologies. After a period of traveling, I switched to the financial services industry, where I worked for several years in different IT-related roles. Over time, I realized I wanted to change my professional environment, and I started to look for a company with more purpose. Then something really strange happened: a headhunter called me and approached me for the exact job I had just applied for… at Fresenius! Then everything moved pretty quickly. I have now been with Fresenius, working across several different roles, for more than eight years. It has been a really exciting journey, especially during the past four years. I’ve seen the company evolve a lot.
I would simply say: If you want to make things happen, if you want to achieve something, if you want to gain experience, and if you want to grow – then this is the place to be. You can really feel the transformation, the change in the organization, and the technical environment. Needless to say, you have to be open to change! But, if you are the kind of person who enjoys this environment, and if you have ideas, then you just go to your manager, you talk to the relevant business division, and you set to work. And then you get to see your ideas turn into something real. This is the amazing opportunity that you have when you work at Fresenius.
I am, of course, proud to be part of this team, but I’m also proud of the trust that we enjoy. Not only from our leadership, but also from our team lead Naresh. He puts a lot of faith in us – both as individuals and as a team working within our different areas of specialization. I am also proud of the impact that we have. When we first address topics and issues, we often start with a lot of questions, but then we set to work and come up with a solution that can truly improve the segment’s situation. This whole process is extremely satisfying and fills me with pride every time.