Cardinal Health’s Jennifer Stewart blends sales mastery with heart-led leadership.
By Pete Mercer
In addition to managing nearly 250 customer accounts, Jennifer Stewart, a South Florida-based account manager for extended care within Cardinal Health’s Global Medical Products and Distribution business, also serves as a Field Sales Trainer and mentor for incoming sales reps. A few times a month, she conducts trainings Monday-Thursday for new employees.
Even though she’s got multiple plates spinning simultaneously, she loves having the opportunity to invest her time and share her experiences with new team members.
“There’s nothing more beautiful than having a blank slate on a Monday and seeing this person bloom by Thursday with all this new knowledge, ready to conquer the world,” Stewart said. “It’s a transformation that brings me so much joy. I think it’s in my DNA to want better – better for myself, better for everyone I encounter. They should always feel better in some way. And once the training is complete, I love to see their growth as they begin to flourish in their role.”
She approaches each training session by getting a better understanding of the rep’s learning style and base level industry knowledge. “My goal is for you to understand and have a good grasp of the information, but I also want you to be your own authentic self. Your communication will be a lot more believable and relatable.”
Due to the nature of her role, Stewart travels almost every day. This gives her the opportunity to take her trainees on the road, providing them firsthand experiences in medical sales. She believes a big part of training is real-life demonstration, not just teaching.
For her trainings, Stewart provides new employees with a weekly agenda, so they have an idea of what customers they plan to visit and the goals for each meeting. “I don’t change my appointments because I have a trainee. The value of bringing them with me is that they get to see me in action with my customers.”
Working at Cardinal Health
Stewart joined Cardinal Health in 2018, where she uses her background in clinical and therapeutic nutrition for providing medical products and solutions to her customers. With a focus on extended care, she spends much of her time with providers outside of an acute care hospital – e.g., long-term care facilities, nursing homes and infusion centers.
Before working at Cardinal Health, Stewart spent nearly 10 years in sales within the global science and nutrition sector, where she developed core selling skills, experience and a specialized background. Now in her role at Cardinal Health, she can explore the more holistic care of the whole person – she’s using her experience in healthcare nutrition to best understand the interrelationship of patient nutrition and total body health with all the available medical products Cardinal Health offers for patient care.
“What really excites me about Cardinal Health is that the products we manufacture and distribute are the best in the business,” she said. “Cardinal Health truly is essential to care. We provide our customers with the medical products they need when and where they need them to help deliver quality care to their patients.”
For Stewart, each day as an account manager looks different because of the variety of call points. Because of this variety, her ability to be flexible and pivot to the new and dynamic needs of each day (and each customer) is critical to maintaining a steady flow of productivity. “I have worked really hard to develop the skills to pivot whenever necessary,” she said.
Accomplishments and methodologies
In 2024, Stewart received three major awards for her performance at Cardinal Health – the Sales Excellence Award given to reps who exceed their sales goals, the Rep of the Year Award for top overall performance within the extended care business and the Presidents’ Club Award for exceeding all sales metrics within the extended care business.
“It was a year that all my stars aligned. My experience in clinical therapeutic nutrition proved tremendously valuable as Cardinal Health launched the Kangaroo OMNI™ Enteral Feeding Pump, she said. “I jumped out of the gate fast and lined up my accounts to support the introduction of this new enteral feeding solution to the market.”
Stewart successfully launched thousands of pumps into her territory and supported other teams as they onboarded additional customers to the new product.
Stewart operates by the Lean Six Sigma methodology, a process improvement methodology that combines Lean, which focuses on eliminating waste and improving efficiency, with Six Sigma, which focuses on reducing variation and improving quality. For Stewart, this is an efficient way of identifying problems and finding solutions.
“It’s like a train track – it takes me down the track and keeps me focused on finding out what the problem is and how to quickly find the solution. With this methodology, my problem resolution timeframe is very short compared to a scenario without the use of Lean Six Sigma.”
According to Stewart, her background and early experience in sales, combined with her ability to efficiently problem solve, has helped her find success at Cardinal Health.
Harnessing personal experiences
Along with her professional experience in science and nutritional delivery, Stewart says her Jamaican heritage and upbringing have helped her develop a special connection to patient care. Experiencing different cultures growing up has allowed her to build unique bonds with her customers and support them in the ways they deliver patient care.
“My level of communication with my customers is very relevant to them, and they know that I understand their challenges from a diverse perspective,” she says.
Stewart says she often strives to present Cardinal Health products as solutions because clinicians are often looking for ways to solve the unique challenges they face every day. She connects the dots between these issues and the features that make Cardinal Health’s products different and valuable to a clinician – such as features designed to make clinicians’ work easier, or their experience more comfortable, so they can focus on what’s most important: caring for their patients. This understanding allows Stewart to connect with her customers on a deeper level, giving further meaning to what she does every day.