To kick off the session, Karen Feltmate guided the audience through her personal journey from graduation (BSc in Biology, McMaster University) through the position she current holds as Vice-President Regulatory Affairs, Quality Assurance and Business Services at AstraZeneca. Karen's humbleness, authenticity, positive mindset, willingness to fill interim roles, and eagerness to learn and advance her skill set across multiple departments were instrumental to her success. Karen shared the following ingredients as stepping stones to her advancement:
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Being fortunate with luck and timing
- Finding a mentor/coach/”parent” figure (this included men bosses who were “father” figures showing genuine interest in advancing her career)
- Having someone to “watch your back” (executive assistant or colleague who understands and supports you by providing ongoing feedback and access to information such as employee “chit chat” to which you would otherwise not have access)
- Building a strong team where your “weak points” are covered
- Having a Plan B (identify risk and have a back up plan ready if/when things don't go as planned)
What did Karen learn throughout her journey?:
- Interviews are a 2-way street insofar as they are as much a learning opportunity for the interviewer as they are for the interviewee. Don't be afraid to admit that “this job is not for me.”
- Deal with issues head-on
- Revel in the success of your staff's developments
- Recognize when your staff either want to “play in your space” or need to move on to continue growing
What is the future for women in pharma?:
- More women will be moving into senior positions (ensure family flexibility or support mechanisms in place)
- Family time will be a scarce commodity (hence quality vs. quantity time is key)
- Subject matter expert positions will be rare
- New roles will be defined. Opportunity abounds among women who have as broad a background as possible to align skills with expanded roles
Karen's advice to aspiring “travelers”:
- It is possible to have a family and a career but sacrifices need to be made (women decide how big or small to make the sacrifice)
- Breadth of experience is required for most senior roles (think laterally when planning a senior level career)
- Think seriously about your career mobility and understand the consequences of your decision (local versus global talent pool)
- Never underestimate what others see and take from your actions. Be aware of perceptions that you are projecting even as basic as how you dress and how you look
Sandy Fallon, Vice President, Human Resources at GlaxoSmithKline Canada, began her talk with Henry Ford's provocative quote: “Whether you think you can, or think you can't, you're right” to illustrate that women can be our own worst enemy. She emphasized that a positive attitude, desire to learn, and willingness to try new challenges are central to a women's career growth. Sandy's impressive HR career path originated at Nortel Networks in international HR and progressed to Becton Dickinson (Canada) where she was Director of HR for 15 years. She has never been afraid to seek out new opportunities and assume new responsibilities at local and global levels as well as across industries, enabling her to learn and grow professionally. Sandy's career success has been guided by:
- E4P: energy for performance, enabling her to be fully engaged in life (physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually)
- Challenges and ability to multi-task
- Integrity, honesty and transparency
- Passion about transformation, change and continuous improvement
- Proponent for talent
What is Sandy's advice for women and pharmaceutical leadership?:
- Be self-aware (reflect on who you are and how you come across to others, ask others for feedback, focus on continuous self-improvement)
- Always think about the customers needs first and use simple (not fancy) tools and programs that bring value to the company
- Be courageous and challenge what you believe is right
- Understand what support mechanisms you need to enable you to work effectively and ensure work-family balance
- Be honest with yourself about your mobility (i.e., if you are not mobile, don't offer to move; if you are mobile and are seeking re-location opportunities, say it)
- Embrace peer coaching and mentorship
- Continue to develop and challenge your capabilities, skills and talents to compete in the ongoing war for talent (with Gen X, Gen Y and baby boomer exodus and concomitant knowledge/skills drain)
Wendy Adams,General Manager, Galderma Canada, entertained the audience with her wit and knack for storytelling and concluded the panel with a menu of ingredients for women leaders to develop their own personal brand:
Long term vision
Excellence
Advance planning
Discipline, drive and determination
Enthusiasm
Responsibility
Sacrifice
Humour and humility
Influence
Perserverence
She shared some statistics that support the evolution of roles for women in pharma:
- According to Rx&D, 58% of industry employees are women and only 22% of senior executives are women
- In Canadian dermatology there are 5 women General Managers
- Galderma Canada: 80% of sales force are women and 70% of all employees are women
- Galderma world wide: only 3 women head affiliates out of a possible 36 (8.3%)
Wendy's 20 year career spans large and small pharma, providing ample opportunities to expand her learnings. What has Wendy learned about women and pharma?:
- Women need more feedback (positive or negative) than men and will seek out this feedback to fulfill their need for closure on issues
- Women are process oriented and worry first about the means then the end
- Networking (outside of work hours) can be a challenge particularly among women with children
- There is no “collateral damage” (be honest and transparent about giving and receiving feedback, make your point and move on)
- It's all about people (both men and women) – develop talent, reward success and surround yourself with great people
Successful people whom Wendy admires are the professional women in her family: her grandmother (a registered dietician), mother (special education teacher) and sister (past president of Howard Johnson's Canada). She credits her father, a mechanical engineer, who promoted a women engineer not because she was a woman but because she was the best person for the job.
Wendy's career advice:
- Do not be limited by what other tell you that you CANNOT do
- Embrace challenges and choose what you can and cannot do
- Ensure that the right people (male or female) are in place at your company
- Be yourself, be self-aware and be comfortable “in your own skin”
- Engage in women's support (join Women's Executive Network, meet one of Canada's top 100 female entrepreneurs, attend a women's leadership summit)
- Manage your EQ (Emotion Quotient) by maintaining focus during meetings, use the “24 hour rule” to cool down emotions, and recognize that women are complicated, multi-faceted beings
About the Author:
Kim Bercovitz, Ph.D. kim@theresearchdoctor.com is president of The Research Doctor Inc. (www.theresearchdoctor.com), a boutique company specializing in patient-centred market research, social media monitoring and moderation.
