Department of Management Outstanding Alumni Award

Sarah Husain, B.B.A.’06
Director, Business Development, Mergers and Acquisitions, Stryker

Sarah Husain has made her way from Kalamazoo to California and back again, becoming a trusted team leader along the way. After graduation from Western Michigan University, Husain found success for the first time at Stryker in Kalamazoo, working her way from a buyer intern position in the Medical division to a sourcing commodity manager for the Instruments division in only seven years. Husain’s achievements during this time include over $4 million in cost reduction efforts, developing a talented operations team, managing more than 100 suppliers and supporting several new product launches.

After completing an MBA at Michigan State University, she went on to become a worldwide supply and demand manager for the iPhone and iPod Touch units at Apple in Cupertino, California. Husain eventually found her way back to Stryker in 2014 in a senior manager position leading a group of program managers and creating the Sourcing Mergers and Acquisitions Playbook, a tool Stryker has implemented on every acquisition deal since 2015. After relocating back to Kalamazoo in 2020, Husain is now director, mergers and acquisitions, for Stryker, where she has supported new company acquisitions totaling nearly $4 billion.

Husain serves on the Executive Steering Committee for the Stryker Women’s Network and regularly volunteers with Communities in Schools of Kalamazoo. She held a six-year term on the Western Michigan University Alumni Association Board of Directors serving as the board president during the 2020-21 academic year. She has completed multiple certifications and trainings including an APICS Certified Production and Inventory Management Certification (CPIM), Stat-A-Matrix Lead Auditor Certification for ISO-13485/9001 and FDA Medical Device Compliance Audits, and an Institute for Lean Systems Operational Excellence Certification.