Making people smile – our privilege, our responsibility

Like many people, I took some time at the start of the year to reflect on 2020; a year which none of us could have anticipated. Over the course of the last 12 months, we have all experienced massive disruptions to the way we live, work and interact with each other. However, we have also recognised the importance of coming together and taking care of each other. During a time that tested us all, we have taken great comfort in the moments that made us smile. 

It is this notion of making people smile that I find truly powerful, and an ambition that our company has built its foundations on. While some may find it an unusual and rather emotional ambition for a pharmaceutical company to talk about making people smile, it is a much deeper concept than it might appear and goes beyond our daily work of developing medicines.

Stop for a moment and consider a smile. When did you last smile? When did someone or something make you smile? And how did it feel? A smile is universal, and it can mean so many things. Joy, contentment, comfort, a sense of peace, an answer to a long-ago-asked question.

I am proud to work for a company that is committed to such an important and life-affirming purpose: to make people smile. From how we work with communities to understand disease better, provide support and find new avenues to improve lives, to how we act with purpose as a company, and what drives us to relentlessly strive for better. But our ambition to make people smile only becomes real when we make our colleagues smile too. By taking care of each other and encouraging our people to develop and flourish, we provide them with the greatest ability to make others smile and to live our purpose.

The last few years have been some of the most challenging, but also the most exciting. We have grown significantly across the EMEA region, broadened our medicines portfolio and therapeutic areas that we work in, and most importantly, continued to deliver an impact for the people and communities we work with.

However, there is still so much to be done. This was the focus of discussion at KKI’s recent internal One Team, Leaping Forward 2021 virtual conference, featuring over 700 KKI colleagues from across the EMEA region. 

Together, we discussed our ambitions as a company and how through big, bold moves, we can continue to grow and innovate as a company while doing better for patients, our partners, one another, and for society at large. Our vision is to become a truly global specialty pharmaceutical company with a purpose centred on making people smile.

So, what does this look like? Our focus will be on:

• Meeting the needs of the patients and communities who count on us, applying our heritage in scientific discovery in our aim to bring life-changing medicines to those who need them and connecting with these groups to continually improve how we do this.
• Continuing to grow while remaining agile, by identifying opportunities and digital technologies that help us to move quickly to adapt to the rapidly evolving environment and needs of our stakeholders.
• Pursing an environment that allows innovation to flourish, both within the walls of KKI but also externally in the wider world. To do this, we will nurture our talent and foster our unique culture, and we will partner with others outside of the organisation who share our vision and passion.
• Taking a sustainable and responsible approach to business, to do the best we can for our stakeholders, working together to create shared value in the work that we do.

Our goals are ambitious, but they are not unachievable. We recognise that working closely with our partners – patient communities, healthcare professionals and our colleagues – is crucial for us to achieve our aims. The Japanese expression ‘Dan-Ketsu Soshite Hi-Yaku’ which was core to our virtual conference, summarises this perfectly: a united, connected team that will soar far beyond our current aspiration.

I’m excited for our future, which is firmly grounded in our desire to bring a smile to people each and every day. And making people smile is more than our mission, it is our privilege and our responsibility.