Innovative Pharma GM in Central Eastern Europe – what’s critical? Fit-for-purpose or fit-for-future?

Having recruited for Regional and GM roles in Pharma in CEE over the past 18 years, I recently started a discussion with Ioana – an old friend doing the role - about what a good GM should be and do, today and tomorrow, in this part of the world. Especially if the new GM is an expatriate. The below is a loose write-up of our ideas; we wanted to share to see what resonates and what we missed.

She proposed a framework from her consulting days: Lead Self, Lead Others, Lead Business. But, for the life of us, we couldn’t come up with CEE-specific ways to Lead Self… We agreed on the latest thinking on servant leadership, on the importance of self-awareness, learning mindset, collaboration, empathy, and people-focus, as well as on taking a long-term view – but none of these are particular to CEE. Coming up empty on Lead Self, we re-doubled our efforts on the other two elements.

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Lead Others – what is unique in CEE?

As a first stake in the ground, perhaps not unique but essential: a good pharma GM in CEE should be able to transfer skills and win both hearts and minds. These elements are not specific to an expat GM, but this is how we started our discussion.

In some cases, depending on the maturity of the local team and irrespective of the strength of the corporate brand, the GM may need to roll their sleeves up to show a different way of doing things. The skills to transfer can vary widely, ranging from tailoring solutions for patients to the local regulatory framework to more sophisticated forecasting or issue analysis. It’s an area where foreigners in their first GM role can stumble at the beginning: trying to show they can step back and leave space for their people, some learn the hard way that a more practical – and sometimes more hands-on – approach is helpful.

While literature tells us that business transformation is all about winning hearts and minds, one can argue that so is day-to-day ‘business as usual’. Winning hearts takes a special hue here, as national pride sometimes clashes with the desire to leapfrog to catch up with developed markets. Any expat GM, in any industry, quickly learns to show respect and appreciation for local traditions, but CEE may challenge those who don’t take the time to understand differences, not only from one country to another but sometimes between provinces or counties in the same country. CEE is a mix of pragmatism and idealism, shaped by a turbulent history, decades under communism before the turn of the century, and market forces in the last 30 years, with an underlying core of folklore and legends that colour its beautiful landscapes.?Winning hearts can be easier in pharma than in other industries, given its positive impact on society and patients and given that everyone these days has a relative or a friend who is a patient. However, the diversity in CEE means that local colleagues will respond to everything from selfless patient focus to competitive spirit to personal interest in financial or self-development terms.

Winning minds, through rigorous strategic plans listing initiatives structured along key pillars, may also be tricky. Most people who lived through communism, even as kids, have a healthy disrespect and ingrained antibodies against ‘propaganda’. Trust is not that easily given, and the first hint of populism or corporate buzzwords will be costly. Speaking the local language is always an advantage, but not a must-have.

Winning hearts and minds also involve leaving enough space for empowerment, which some Central Eastern Europeans love and some hate – that’s the same everywhere :).

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Lead Business – what is unique in CEE?

Most CEE pharma markets have grown through a jump in the 90s’ then stabilized but kept the trajectory; they recovered post-Covid and now continue single- or even double-digit growth. A good pharma GM should be a credible and compelling representative of his or her team, while shaping the external environment and having an entrepreneurial approach. And do all this while effectively managing compliance.

There’s a lot to be said for a GM’s role in representing his or her country in front of Group (cluster, region, etc) – especially given most Group teams are Western European or American. In some cases, we noticed a certain tiredness of the HQs towards the fragmented CEE – many differences from country to country, frequent regulatory changes, and suboptimal processes when it comes to innovative pharma access. The GM needs to go the extra mile to find solutions given the specific constraints. Often this involves more time dedicated to understanding the environment and even more to explaining the constraints to their HQ. In case of local GMs, they don’t need the extra time for understanding, but they may need fine tuning to convey the context of their decision making to Group colleagues. With all respect to CEE education systems, synthesis and top-down communication may not come naturally to all local senior managers given they weren’t taught in the Anglo-Saxon style with qualitative analysis, organized debates and case studies. This is a key area where a good GM adds value in any market – but even more so in CEE.

Representing the team externally is a whole different ballgame, and – again – a much needed competence in the complex CEE environments. Shaping the environment in countries where reimbursement lists can be frozen for years for political or budgetary reasons, and where delays in access to innovation are well known, is no small feat. Here the GM should prioritize a strong Market Access and Public Affairs function, without which they will be much less effective.

Having an entrepreneurial approach and looking for atypical opportunities is also a hallmark of good general management, but CEE – where some of the large pharma groups chose to go indirect – is ripe for creativity. Portfolio management takes a new dimension: in addition to launching all the products one’s company has – in various SKUs or formulations, in line with International Reference Pricing – there may be non-competing products of other companies that can be better promoted by the GMs’ field teams. Or there may be markets where a distributor model can optimize profitability. In-licensing and partnerships are a challenge in many markets, and CEE is no exception, but sometimes the gains are worth the pain. No GM worth his or her salt would expect to be successful by simply running a steady ship, so agility and ability to take calculated risks are competencies included in most recruitment profiles.

Last but not least, and especially in CEE where corruption indices are not the lowest, managing compliance remains the bedrock of success. Without stereotyping or micro-managing, it is part of the GM’s mandate to ensure the right controls are in place and business is done with the highest ethical standards.

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Fit-for-purpose or fit-for-future?

How about both? We all have quotes we remember, words of wisdom we treasured over the years because they were memorable, served us well in tough situations or simply cemented something we believed in anyway. We searched our mental databases but couldn’t find any specific to CEE… Ioana’s favourite quote from one of her mentors is probably true and evergreen in all geographies: “The beauty of the GM role is that you may have to deal with everything in the space of the same day, from the critical strategic issues to the ‘burning shipwrecks’”.?

Although the majority of innovative pharma GMs are either local or from the region, there are also many foreigners that successfully led or are leading pharma organizations in CEE. They span from smaller organizations of tens or hundreds of people to those counting thousands of employees if we include clusters, shared service centres, clinical trial hubs or production facilities. As we develop and recruit the next generation of pharma GMs in CEE, we believe a lot of value will come from the diversity of the talent pool – both local and imported – and the ability of these GMs to upskill and inspire their teams while also shaping the environment and taking calculated risks. Some of the cutting-edge ways of doing business in more developed markets, like full omnichannel customer engagement, deep data analytics or AI may not yet make a difference given low adoption rates, but innovation beyond the R&D space remains an essential part of any GM’s role. Given the complexity of CEE markets – regardless of their size – our prediction is that these countries will remain a testing ground for ambitious GMs learning their craft.