About the  above Picture:

From left to right, the CEOs who shaped Medtronic’s legacy—four of the six leaders who defined the company’s direction, including its visionary co-founder:

• Geoff Martha (2020–Present): Driving Medtronic into a digital, AI-powered era, with a focus on connected care, innovation, and operational agility.

• Omar Ishrak (2011–2020): Scaled the company through the $42.9B Covidien acquisition and led its transition to value-based, globally integrated healthcare.

• William George (1991–2001): Advanced mission-driven leadership and global growth rooted in ethical innovation and corporate purpose.

• Earl Bakken (1949–1989): Co-founded Medtronic and developed the first battery-powered pacemaker, transforming it from a garage startup into a global medical technology leader.

Introduction: A 76-Year Journey Toward an Unshakable Legacy

Medtronic is more than the largest medical device company in the world—it is a strategic, cultural, and technological phenomenon. For 76 years, Medtronic has continuously transformed the global health landscape by building a culture that puts purpose, precision, and patients at the core. With nearly $34 billion in revenue, operations in more than 150 countries, and 95,000+ employees, the company not only shapes the future of healthcare but redefines what leadership, customer experience, and innovation mean in a high-stakes industry. This article explores the roots of Medtronic’s longevity, how it executes its 100-year vision, and why its culture and business cannot afford—and are engineered—not to fail.

1. Medtronic’s Global Leadership in Medical Devices

Medtronic leads across four strategic segments: Cardiovascular, Neuroscience, Medical-Surgical, and Diabetes. In FY2025, Cardiovascular alone generated $11.6 billion, Neuroscience $9 billion, and Medical-Surgical $8.4 billion. Diabetes, one of the most transformative segments, earned $2.76 billion with double-digit YoY growth. The company’s technologies impact over 74 million patients each year.

This leadership is not just operational but strategic. Medtronic invests heavily in R&D—consistently spending 7–8% of its revenue to drive innovation and sustain leadership. Its portfolio includes life-saving technologies like implantable cardioverter-defibrillators, smart insulin pumps, and robotic surgical systems. With 350+ global facilities and 78 manufacturing plants, its scale creates both market power and resilience. Medtronic doesn’t just participate in the global market—it shapes it.

2. What Differentiates Medtronic in the Market

What sets Medtronic apart is its unwavering commitment to its founding mission: “to alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life.” This isn’t a corporate slogan—it’s a daily operating principle. The “Medtronic Mindset,” embedded company-wide, promotes risk-taking, rapid execution, inclusion, and ethical behaviour. It’s a codified behaviour model rooted in impact.

The company’s decentralized structure also enables localized innovation. Each division is empowered to respond to clinical needs within its specialty, supported by Medtronic’s global regulatory, supply chain, and financial infrastructure. Strategic acquisitions such as Covidien, Klue, Nutrino, and Mazor Robotics have been culturally and operationally integrated without diluting its mission.

Medtronic’s scale is also unique: few competitors operate across this many therapeutic areas with such patient-centric customization. This empowers Medtronic to deliver integrated care ecosystems rather than standalone products.

3. Customer Commitment: A Company That Cannot Fail

Medtronic’s culture is fundamentally built around the belief that failure is not an option—because failure means patient harm. In its Diabetes unit, a software error or sensor glitch can lead to a medical crisis. This zero-failure tolerance is why Medtronic integrates continuous testing, closed-loop quality assurance, and full-scale clinician education.

During the COVID-19 crisis, Medtronic open-sourced its PB560 ventilator design to ensure supply chain resilience—a historic act that exemplified the company’s ethical DNA. In B2C areas like diabetes, Medtronic offers around-the-clock technical support and automated service alerts to address patient needs proactively. No device is released without real-world patient simulations and rigorous FDA compliance.

4. The 100-Year Vision: From Garage to Global Force

Medtronic was born in a garage in 1949 with a clear long-term vision. Co-founder Earl Bakken created the world’s first wearable pacemaker and drafted a 100-year plan focused on restoring the human body through engineering. Today, that legacy continues with the same horizon. The strategy is simple: serve every major organ system with minimally invasive, intelligent devices that continuously evolve.

This vision is why Medtronic doesn’t rush trends but builds legacies. The company invests in frontier technologies but grounds them in real clinical value. Its roadmap stretches decades—whether it’s robotic neurosurgery or AI-enhanced diabetes care.

The mission is personal. Every Medtronic employee receives a Mission Medallion—a physical token representing their commitment to healing. It is one of the most deeply embedded values systems in any modern organization.

5. The Diabetes Division: Strategy and Future Vision

Medtronic’s Diabetes unit serves both as a revenue engine and a platform for innovation. With over 6 consecutive quarters of double-digit growth, it reflects the power of integrated care: insulin pumps (MiniMed 780G), smart CGMs (Simplera Sync), and connected smart pens (InPen). The division’s $2.76 billion in revenue confirms the growing demand for its AI-driven tools.

Strategically, Medtronic is spinning off the Diabetes division into a standalone public company within 18 months. This will allow focused R&D, deeper patient engagement, and faster regulatory movement. The upcoming pipeline includes dual-hormone closed-loop systems and real-time nutrition sensors.

What makes this unit exceptional is its B2C-centricity—Medtronic interacts directly with patients every day. Its ecosystem integrates devices, data analytics, and telehealth support, creating a real-time feedback loop between patient and provider that few can match.

6. Medtronic’s Measurable Performance Across Divisions

Performance metrics underscore Medtronic’s reliability and customer-centric business model. These figures are not just financial milestones; they are evidence of the trust customers place in the company’s solutions, the lives impacted, and the stability that fuels long-term investment in customer experience and innovation:

• FY2025 Revenue: $33.5 billion
• Cardiovascular: $11.6 billion
• Neuroscience: $9 billion
• Medical-Surgical: $8.4 billion
• Diabetes: $2.76 billion (+10.7% YoY)
• Patient Impact: 74 million lives improved
• Global Employees: Over 95,000 in 150+ countries
• Dividend Yield: 3.27%, $0.71/share

Each of these metrics has been verified from Medtronic’s latest quarterly and annual disclosures (FY2025). These numbers reflect Medtronic’s diversified, customer-centered structure, which supports deep investment in patient education, clinical partnerships, and life-saving innovation across every region.

Unlike many peers in the healthcare sector, Medtronic uses these operational strengths to create an ecosystem that enables personal and clinical trust. The company’s performance is a direct result of designing devices and experiences around the realities of patient care, doctor workflows, and continuous feedback. This is what positions Medtronic not only as an industry leader—but as a global standard-bearer for reliability in customer experience and outcome-oriented healthcare. Medtronic’s disciplined portfolio management and capital allocation provide the strategic stability to keep innovating.

7. Pre-AI Innovation Track Record

Before the era of artificial intelligence, Medtronic was already redefining medtech. Its early contributions—battery-powered pacemakers, ICDs, deep brain stimulators—created new medical categories. In the 1980s and 1990s, Medtronic pioneered therapies in movement disorders and heart failure that now serve as global treatment standards.

Even without digital capabilities, Medtronic was an early mover in patient monitoring. In 2002, it launched one of the first remote monitoring platforms for cardiac devices—an achievement 15 years ahead of mass telehealth adoption.

The culture of innovation has always been coupled with humility and learning. Product recalls, while rare, led to stronger quality controls, not brand erosion. Medtronic doesn’t just fix issues—it builds institutional memory to ensure they don’t recur.

8. Practical AI Integration in Patient Care

Today’s Medtronic leverages AI to build smarter, adaptive systems. In diabetes care, machine learning enables real-time insulin adjustments based on glucose patterns, meal detection, and activity levels. The InPen smart injector delivers app-powered decision support for patients on multiple daily injections.

In surgical robotics, the Hugo RAS platform uses embedded AI to support precision and lower complication rates. These are not beta projects—they are FDA-cleared, commercially viable platforms making a difference in clinical settings.

AI is also central in diagnostics: predictive alerts for heart irregularities, pattern-based anomaly detection, and integration with third-party platforms like Samsung wearables are just a few applications that reflect Medtronic’s ability to turn data into proactive care.

9. Customer Experience at the Core

Whether engaging clinicians or directly supporting patients, Medtronic designs every touchpoint to be empathetic, responsive, and educational. In the Diabetes division, patients have access to coaching, real-time troubleshooting, and a digital support suite accessible 24/7.

Hospitals receive hands-on training, remote system diagnostics, and co-development in surgical procedure design. These actions ensure that CX is not a department—but a core operating principle.

The depth of Medtronic’s CX is also seen in its ability to translate feedback into product improvement. Voice-of-the-customer loops inform product design from day one. And instead of surveys, Medtronic’s Diabetes tools gather patient usage data continuously—ensuring improvement is never delayed.

10. Cultural Resilience Across Leadership Transitions

From founder Earl Bakken to current CEO Geoff Martha, every leader at Medtronic has preserved and evolved the culture. Bill George formalized mission-based leadership. Omar Ishrak led global expansion while ensuring COVIDIEN’s culture aligned with Medtronic’s values. Geoff Martha brought agility, diversity, and innovation to the forefront.

The Mission and Medallion Ceremony continues today, embedding cultural continuity into onboarding. The Medtronic Mindset was not introduced to replace old values—but to adapt them to today’s market demands. It remains rare in today’s corporate world to see such deep alignment between leadership vision and organizational behavior.

11. Structural and Strategic Agility

Medtronic’s operational scale is vast, but its ability to adapt strategically remains one of its greatest competitive advantages. Structurally, the company has maintained a decentralized business model, empowering each of its four divisions to act as semi-autonomous strategic business units. This agility ensures that each team—from Cardiovascular to Diabetes—can tailor innovations, compliance strategies, and market engagement independently, yet harmonized with the core mission.

One of the most compelling examples of this agility is the upcoming spin-off of the Diabetes division. Medtronic recognized the need to give the unit greater freedom to innovate and respond to the rapidly evolving B2C market. By creating a standalone public entity while retaining strategic collaboration, Medtronic demonstrates the ability to strategically reorganize without cultural compromise.

The company’s agility also shows in its ability to rapidly respond to regulatory changes and integrate large acquisitions like Covidien without derailing operations. Strategic moves are not driven by short-term gains but long-term alignment to the 100-year plan. This flexibility, combined with discipline and a deeply rooted mission, enables Medtronic to pivot while still delivering consistent value to patients and investors.

12. Medtronic’s Legacy and the Road to 100 Years

Now only 24 years from its 100-year milestone, Medtronic is actively fulfilling the vision laid out by its founders. Its journey has been defined not by quarterly performance alone, but by decades-long commitments to health, trust, and human outcomes. With ongoing investments in robotics, AI-powered diagnostics, regenerative medicine, and data integration platforms, Medtronic is preparing for a future in which intelligent, predictive, and personalized care becomes the norm.

Its global impact today—touching over 74 million lives annually including my live—is a result of adhering to principles rather than chasing trends. Its enduring legacy is built on continuous trust-building with patients, clinicians, and regulators. Unlike companies that define success by market share alone, Medtronic has always defined its purpose through impact.

What keeps Medtronic succeeding decade after decade is a triad: a purpose-driven mission, disciplined leadership, and cultural resilience. By staying true to its foundational ethics while embracing disruption and emerging technologies, Medtronic will not only reach its 100-year goal but redefine what longevity and leadership in healthcare truly mean.

Conclusion: How Medtronic Keeps Doing It—A Living Culture of Excellence

Medtronic is not merely maintaining momentum; it is compounding its legacy through strategic focus, innovation discipline, and cultural integrity. Its approach to leadership succession, transparent governance, and continuous education ensures that each generation of Medtronic employees and leaders is more capable and aligned than the last. Whether engaging with a top cardiac surgeon or a teenager managing type 1 diabetes, Medtronic ensures that every interaction is reliable, human-centered, and technologically supported.

Its strength lies in how it blends stability with reinvention. Medtronic doesn’t seek growth for the sake of growth—it builds integrated ecosystems of care. It doesn’t adopt new technology recklessly—it validates, tests, and aligns it with long-term health outcomes. It doesn’t chase short-term wins—it stays faithful to a long-view culture while embracing modern methods. This is the true Medtronic model: a company engineered to be empathetic, transformative, and enduring.

If you enjoyed this, connect or follow me on LinkedIn for more posts: Ricardo

• My recent articles on Eglobalis: https://www.eglobalis.com/blog/

• My recent articles on CMSWire: https://www.cmswire.com/author/ricardo-saltz-gulko/

• My articles on CustomerThink: https://customerthink.com/author/rgulko/

–> All of our visuals were created using AI technology, designed by Sora.

My previous Articles About Medtronic:

1. Why the Medical Devices Industry Holds a Higher Standard of Customer Experience and Why They Cannot Fail https://www.eglobalis.com/why-the-medical-devices-industry-holds-a-higher-standard-of-customer-experience-and-why-they-cannot-fail/
2. Don’t Talk about Great CX Culture if You Don’t Know MED https://www.eglobalis.com/dont-talk-about-great-customer-experience-culture-if-you-dont-know-med/
3. AI and Customer Experience: The Smarter, Faster, and More Personal Duo Redefining B2B Success https://www.eglobalis.com/ai-and-customer-experience-the-smarter-faster-and-more-personal-duo-redefining-b2b-success/
4. Deep Leadership: Act Boldly to Protect Customers, Employees and Partners https://www.eglobalis.com/customer-experience-act-boldly-to-protect-customers-and-employees/
5. Medtronic Puts Humans FIRST in Heroic COVID-19 Response https://www.eglobalis.com/medtronic-puts-humans-first-in-heroic-customer-experience-covid-19-response/

Data Sources:

1. Why the Medical Devices Industry Holds a Higher Standard of Customer Experience and Why They Cannot Fail – Eglobalis (Ricardo Saltz Gulko), 2024. https://www.eglobalis.com/why-the-medical-devices-industry-holds-a-higher-standard-of-customer-experience-and-why-they-cannot-fail/
2. Don’t Talk about Great Customer Experience Culture if You Don’t Know MED – Eglobalis (Ricardo Saltz Gulko), 2021. https://www.eglobalis.com/dont-talk-about-great-customer-experience-culture-if-you-dont-know-med/
3. Medtronic to spin off diabetes business within 18 months – MedTech Dive, May 21, 2025. https://www.medtechdive.com/news/medtronic-spin-off-diabetes-business/748688/
4. Company History – Medtronic (Official Site). https://www.medtronic.com/en-us/our-company/history.html
5. Culture – Medtronic (Official Site). https://europe.medtronic.com/xd-en/our-company/careers/culture.html
6. Medtronic acquires AI-enabled analytics software company – Becker’s Hospital Review. https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/medtronic-acquires-ai-enabled-analytics-software-company/
7. Why Earl Bakken’s legacy will enhance Minnesota for years to come – Star Tribune (Bill George), 2018. https://www.startribune.com/why-earl-bakken-s-legacy-will-enhance-minnesota-for-years-to-come/499439011/