LEAP HR lifesciences conference, Europe 29-30 January 2019

On the 29th to 30th January I was invited to speak at the first LEAP HR lifesciences conference in Europe. This is a forum where Senior HR professionals help Bio Pharma leaders solve their biggest people, culture and organisation challenges. The meeting was chaired by Aaron Falcione, Vice President of Human Resources at Merck in the U.S. He opened the conference explaining his personal experience at Merck and a review of transformation in both the evolution of the business and the role of HR.

My presentation focused on three key aspects:

1. Understanding the impact of culture and values of an organisation in the context of rapid growth and integrating new talents and new experience.
2. Balancing the need to hire innovators who think differently and change the world with the need to recognising that we have to maintain our core values.
3. Integrating people and nourishing our culture, but also understanding the value new hires can bring, and helping them get off to a flying start.

During the meeting, I also participated in the ‘Learning Experience’ with other Senior HR professionals from Life Sciences companies.  These sessions were a mix of presentations, challenging question and answer sessions, along with output focussed sessions designed to encourage individual and organisational learning and actions.

It was also fascinating to hear the contrasting stories of other HR leaders, specifically Joy Xu (Sandoz) and Heather Hayes (Horizon Discovery). These presentations provided some best practice approaches that would be applicable to Vertex. In turn it was a pleasure to share some of my own valuable learnings over the past few years especially how we have successfully navigated the company’s growth, with other companies present facing very similar challenges.

I was particularly engaged when Andy Porter, Chief People Officer at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard spoke about data analytics and information and how this is supporting the transformation and repositioning of the People function in many respects.

There were approximately 100 of us in London for this inaugural event and based on the feedback, I anticipate there will be many more attending next year. Thanks to LEAP HR and the sponsors for organising the event and inviting us to talk and we look forward to contributing again in the future.