Job Title : VP IT International

Organization : Medtronic

Caroline Serfass returns to the silicon.com CIO50 after a top 50 placement last year. She’s recently changed jobs after nearly two decades at the same company – becoming VP IT international at medical technology company Medtronic in May 2010.

Serfass has spent the majority of her career at Eli Lilly and Company, joining the pharmaceutical company in 1990 and working her way up the ladder via a variety of job functions – including internal audit manager, supply chain director and various IT roles.

She became UK IT director of the company in 2001, before being appointed CIO of European operations in 2004. She was also a member of Eli Lilly’s European senior management team – helping to drive business transformation and usher IT into the boardroom as a true business partner, not a mere service provider.

At Eli Lilly, she also led a major change programme aimed at establishing common processes for a regional/global structure and outsourcing essential services.

Serfass studied engineering at Ecole Centrale in France and has an MA in Robotics from Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada. She began her career as the first IT manager of a small mining company in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.