Welcome to The Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. Heidrick is the premier global provider of diversified solutions across senior-level executive search, leadership, assessment and development, team and organizational effectiveness, and culture shaping. Every day, we speak with leaders around the world about how they're meeting rising expectations and managing through volatile times, thinking about individual leaders, teams, organizations, and society. Thank you for joining the conversation.

Charles Moore: In today's podcast, I'm excited to speak with Richard Saynor, who is the CEO of Sandoz, a global leader in generic and bio-similar medicines. With a career spanning over three decades in the pharmaceutical industry, Richard has held leadership positions across branded and generic medicines globally. Since taking the helm at Sandoz in 2019, he led the company through its separation from Novartis, positioning it as the leading independent player in generics and bio-similars. A pharmacist by training, Richard is also known for his forthright views on industry challenges and his commitment to expanding access to affordable medicines for patients. 

Richard, it's great to have you with us. Thank you for joining. I'd like just to kick off with your early career, perhaps. So, you started in pharma as a sales rep. How did you experience that and what level of perspective did you gain in terms of the industry that's informed your leadership style going forward? 

Richard Saynor: Thanks, Charlie, it’s great to be here. Actually I'd started, before I was a sales rep, I worked for Roche as a production pharmacist. I really did an internship with them for a year, and they were really very kind to me, Welling Garden City, and I worked in manufacturing and development, sales, and marketing. I really had an amazing experience. So, I got a pretty much soup to nuts view of the industry. 

And out of that, when I left college as a pharmacist, I then thought, “Okay, I'm going to go into sales,” for all sorts of reasons. My first job was with a company called G.D. Searle, which I think is now part of Pfizer, if my memory serves. Didn't do that for long. My boss—and this was sort of a theme then through my career—left to go and set up a company called Norton, which is now part of Teva. And so, he took me with him from Searle to then setup Norton, which was a generics company, or the set fledgling of a generics company. So that was sort of my first experience. And then fairly quickly after that, and I was fairly young, I guess, mid-20s, I was given a sales team to lead. So, I'd only been a sales rep for probably two years in total. Seemed to have found my niche, but because of that, they then told me “Well, you can run a team.” Everybody was all north of 40 years old, and I was 25 years old, and that was an interesting experience, trying to build credibility as a leader with a team that were far more experienced than me. And that seemed to end up being a theme several times during my career, but certainly that was the first time. 

And it's interesting now, I always joke that it's almost gone full circle from being a sales rep at the beginning of my career to now effectively being a sales rep selling the idea and the notion of a company to different stakeholders, but it's still the same set of skills. It's about communicating, understanding, connecting, reading the room, and adapting your communication style to whether it's a board or an investor or your team or the broader organization. So, I think the skill set that I learned, in hindsight, has been incredibly valuable, but it was an interesting start to, I guess, a fairly diverse career over the last years. 

Charles Moore: So communication: As you talk about that, communication plays a very strong part and, you know, we see that from the way that you've appeared on other podcasts and videos, et cetera. But were there any particular turning points or perhaps decisions that you took that had a lasting impact and you feel sort of got you to where you are today? 

Richard Saynor: Interestingly, the role mentors played for me, and not formally, [but] informally, and still now, I have mentors who are CEOs or friends in other pharma companies or different industries, and even you and I talk about broader topics. But I talked about this transition from when I became a sales rep to a sales manager; I got thrown in the deep end by a boss who had enough confidence in me to let me make mistakes and grow my role. And the same thing then happened when I moved from Norton to company called Generics UK, which is now part of Viatris, but at the time was the largest generics company in the UK. And I was probably 28, 29 years old [when] I joined, and then everybody else left. I joined as marketing director, and my boss, Eddie Hart, turned around said, “Well, why don't we try running it?” So here I am, 29 years old, running a $100 million company in the UK. Haven't got a clue. But again, he had enough confidence in me that I knew the industry well enough and could build relationships. And so I'm deeply grateful that I was given the opportunity. And I think in hindsight, those are very rare, but I didn't look for it, [it] just sort of it happened. I ran with it. I certainly made a lot of mistakes, but in the end, I think it was a successful outcome. I ended up running most of Western Europe on the back of that and had a blast. But I'm very conscious, you know, I learned a lot by making an awful lot of mistakes along the way. 

Charles Moore: And the mentors as well, I like that. 

Richard Saynor: Yes, and very lucky. So again, you know, right from the start, at Norton, [I had a mentor] called Jonathan, and then Eddie when I was at G UK. And then also, through the theme, you know, I've had friends in the industry who have sort of advised me and coached me, and even to today I think I've been lucky. But it wasn't formal, it wasn't in a sense that the company allocated me a mentor, but somehow, I found people that connected, supported me through the journey that I've been on. 

Charles Moore: So fast forward to today—Sandoz, [an] independent company, spun off from Novartis. And that must have been really complex, and certainly, the transformation journey that you've been on as a team and you individually. [Can you share] some of the learnings from that and the leadership challenges you faced? 

Richard Saynor: It's interesting. I joined Sandoz on the day Novartis span [off] Alcon. So clearly, the intention six years ago was that we would spin [off] Sandoz. It wasn't a foregone conclusion. And certainly, coming into Novartis to run Sandoz was an interesting experience. It was a small division in a much bigger parent. And I think in many ways I was blessed, because Sandoz was so small that no one really cared about it. So I was given a lot of freedom to operate. We had our own development, our own supply, our own commercial, and so I didn't really have a lot of direct involvement. I think if I was running pharma or oncology at Novartis, there would have been a lot more day-to-day interaction with the group, whereas I was pretty much left alone, which was great. That allowed us to really think about the strategy, what we were, what we didn't want to be. I think we framed the company much more as a pure generics and bio-similars business. I think when I came, I found the business was confused. It was trying to originate a light, value-added medicines; I don't think there was a particularly clear strategy. So, we really focused the company on execution as a strategy. 

I think then there were a number of defining moments during the five years or the four years before we chose to spin. And Covid certainly helped frame, I guess, the importance but also the difference of a business like Sandoz in the context of a big pharma parent. And I think without Covid, it would have been a difficult transition, so I think it certainly helped. And then, once the decision was made, I wouldn't say it was a straight line, whether we were going to sell the company to private equity or whether we were going to split. And I think from for an emotional point of view, Novartis always wanted to split the company, and I think all credit to them, they wanted to set it up successfully. 

You know, the Sandoz name is 140 years’ old, it's still a big name in Switzerland. So, they wanted it to be credible. I wouldn't say it was easy. I was likened it sometimes it's a bit like a divorce; you know, you're negotiating who gets the house and who gets the kids and how often you get it. And certainly, there were times it felt a little bit like that. But in the end, I think it was a split. They don't own a stake in it, so we're completely independent. And I think they generally set us up for success. I mean, it's always a difficult thing, negotiating, in a sense, with yourself, because Novartis owned us. It was a split, but it was a fascinating journey. 

And also, from a personal journey, going from having to step in and [be] CEO of a division with, what, 23,000, 24,000 people—which is a decent size—[and] aligning and building a business that is then credible, and then getting yourself ready. And the role as a public CEO is very different [than] a divisional CEO. It was interesting, I was reading an FT article over the last couple of days that really described the role as an hourglass: that you think you become CEO, that you're at the top and everyone, [and] you end up running the business. The reality is you're suddenly exposed to a whole new set of stakeholders, whether it's the board or the media, the politicians, ESG groups, whatever. So, you have this whole bed of people looking at you or putting pressure on you, as well as an organization beneath you. You end up being a politician, a diplomat, also coach, a mentor, you're trying to support people, challenge people. So, it's fascinating that the role that you thought it was going to be is very different [from] the reality, and it goes back to some of the skill sets. It's about—most of my time—communication: how you communicate a strategy, how you [engage] all those different stakeholders around what you're trying to achieve, and at the same time align an organization. And again, then you need a team around you that you trust and [who] can run the business, because quite honestly, I don't have the bandwidth day to day to be operationally in every detail of the company. So then it's having a leadership team around you that is aligned to what you're trying to achieve as an organization, that can then execute. 

Charles Moore: So let's jump on that, because the skill set required to operate in generics is quite different to the skill set required in other sectors of the life sciences industry. I don't include pharma and med tech and devices in that. So when you're looking at capability, what are you looking for in that leadership team? 

Richard Saynor: Yes, I guess different things in different roles. You know, I think [one] of the most recent hires, my CIO [has] deep experience; she actually came out of pharma, but then left, did some consulting. But I think again, what I liked about her [was that she was] very execution-focus, [I] loved her personality, really strong cultural fit to the organization, energizing in terms of change. Then someone likes Remco, my CFO, he came out of Lufthansa; he was the Group CFO of Lufthansa. So again, wasn't really from our industry but, again, came from a regulated, thin-margin industry, which I guess is quite a strong parallel to generics. So again, if I look at that, whereas clearly, if [you’re] looking at development head, you’re looking at a very much more specific skill set aligned to what you're doing.

So I think for me, it's the luxury of having a blend of talent—not necessarily from the industry—to challenge some of the status quo, but also credible leaders who know either the industry or the skill set. If you think about, you know, Karen in North America, I mean she's done a phenomenal job. She was ex-Teva and knew the industry very well, but she'd never really ran a large commercial organization before I put her into the US. But again, she's grown to a phenomenal job, turning that and now is a real spokesperson for the US industry, not just for Sandoz. So giving people space, bringing different people in, different cultures. I've got an incredibly diverse team, 60% female, many different nationalities, different backgrounds.

Charles Moore: When you look at old Sandoz compared with public Sandoz, and when you talk about culture, I think the language you use is driving a generics mindset. What does that mean?

Richard Saynor: We chose it because I didn't want to make it personally about me or any individual, I wanted it very much about—so it came from the organization. And it was a way of challenging the status quo and thinking about what it takes to be a world-class generics company. Part of it was provocative. Sometimes coming out of Novartis, generics was seen as a dirty word, a challenging word maybe. I was always super proud of it, proud of being run and doing what we do. I think we have a very important role to play in society and in industry. It's also about speed. This is a much more fast-moving industry. It's about purpose, about driving access to patients. It's about accountability and execution. It's about making decisions. You know, we can make decisions. The nice thing about this industry, if it's wrong, if I made the wrong decision today, I'll fix it tomorrow, because it's a much more dynamic and fast-moving industry. So, it was a way of talking about all of those things and then thinking about how we try and move our culture to a place that is much more execution and speed focused.

Charles Moore: And where are you on that journey?

Richard Saynor: I guess it's different places to different parts of the organization in different locations. I think certainly, when you look at how attractive we are to talent now, I think it's very different. So certainly people want to come and join us, which is fantastic, and really good quality talent. And I think I've seen that change over the last two years. I think someone—and it wasn't meant in a bad way, but one of the banks said, “Look, Richard, you're attracting sort of aggressive B-grade talent.” And what they meant with that was, “Originally, you were attracting talent who were going to take a risk on an unknown company.” I think two years in, if you look at the caliber of CVs that we get across our desk and we get, you know, we have some really great, great people wanting to come and join us, which is fantastic. So, I think that's resonating.

Also, we're growing very quickly and that's a journey both for our internal colleagues, about how we support that change, as well as bringing in skill sets that we may not have, or we need to develop over the next few years. So, it's a balance between how we grow the people already in our organization and take them on that journey, as well as bringing in some fresh talent to perhaps bring skills or different mindsets about areas of the business that we need to develop.

Charles Moore: And if we noodle on that a little bit, just drill down; if you're a leader, why are you coming to Sandoz? What do you get here that you might not get somewhere else?

Richard Saynor: I would start with purpose. I think there are very few roles or very few companies that have got such a clarity of purpose. And it may sound a bit of a cliché, but it's not. I mean look, at Sandoz, we're probably the largest healthcare, or one of the largest healthcare companies in the world. We treat more patients than anybody else, which I think is insane. We're the last antibiotic manufacturer in the Western World. We challenge patents, we hold the originator industry to account. We drive access and change patients’ lives in a way that a lot of other companies talk to but just don't do. So, I'm incredibly proud about what we stand for as a company and the impact that we have on society. I don't struggle to see a line of sight between purpose and creating value, and I think that's unusual. And then how individuals could [see that] this is an exciting journey. I mean it's not often you get a chance to come and join a company and shape its future. Normally you join one where, effectively, the die is cast. But here, you know, we've grown rapidly over the last two years. Clearly our ambition is to continue growing at the same pace over the next few years. And as an industry, there are more opportunities in front of us than there is behind us and that's a very rare place to be.

Charles Moore: And if you look at those opportunities and get the crystal ball out, what are the skill sets going to be required to be successful in the generics and bio-similar space over the next 10, 20 years? And is that different from the basic skill sets you've talked about already, in terms of agility?

Richard Saynor: I think the basics are there, but I think, look, there's $400 billion of product coming off patent in the next 10 years. There are more products coming off patent that has ever actually come off in the history of this industry. So the opportunity, in a sense, is huge. The competitive intensity is actually going down, because the amount of cash needed to develop and bring those products is constrained. And I think as a leader, both in terms of scale and reach and having a strong balance sheet, puts us in a phenomenal position. So really the question is execution. How do we make sure we execute on that plan, which is really then a talent question: Do we have the right culture? Do we have the right leaders? And are we able to execute every day around a very clear set of objectives? And I think that's, to me, exciting, but be able to come on board and be part of that journey is a fairly unique experience.

Charles Moore: And I have to ask the question, because everybody's talking about it, and you know where I'm going: the AI piece, does that affect your business? And if so, how?

Richard Saynor: Look, I think some of it you could argue is maybe a little bit overhyped. We already use AI, but I look at it more as an enabler of the future. I mean look, we've been nearly doubled the value of the company in two years. How do we continue to do that and effectively stay lean, focused, and agile? It’s a great opportunity. Also, the fact [that] coming out of Novartis has been a gift because we had to, you know, effectively shift all our IT platforms, look at all of our systems and processes. So AI is only as good as the data that you start with. So not many companies, effectively, had to rewire themselves in two years and give yourself a stable platform. So I think that's given us a really great place to start.

And then it's really [a question of] how do we embed it but be clear about the solutions that we're trying to solve? I mean the trouble is sometimes AI is a solution to a problem I don't yet have, or I haven't yet identified. So, I've said to the team, “[Use it] where it has a place. If it allows it to be quicker, cheaper, or execute in a way that we were unable to do today, then clearly it has a role.” So whether that's then in development, in Silico, in how we plan our business, how we think [about] modelling, how we communicate with customers, it all has a role.

But I think it's incremental, rather than a big bang overnight. And I think time and time again—I mean, four or five years ago, I had to talk about block chain. I don't think I've talked about block chain in any presentation in the last two years. I think AI is similar. There are elements that we can see adds a lot of value very quickly. There are other areas you'll see it evolving over time.

Charles Moore: Okay, shift[ing] gears. Let's talk a little bit about you and how you lead and manage yourself, because you talked clearly around generics being intense, frequent policy shifts, pricing pressure, regulatory changes, and complexity. So how are you maintaining resilience and focus as a leader?

Richard Saynor: I love what we do, and I would say it's always been like that. I've liked, I guess, the fight of challenging patents, bringing products to court, bringing products to the market. I mean some of the stories—I remember flying an omeprazole into the UK on a Russian Antonov plane and landing a minute past midnight at East Midlands Airport to challenge the patent for Losec all those years ago. The journeys and experiences that this industry has given me, those are still there. So I get a lot of energy out of that. I get a lot of energy out of the team challenging, thinking about how we solve problems, how we work things through. But I've never really thought about it. I enjoy it, and certainly it's been an incredibly rewarding few years as we set up the company and incredibly rewarding now.

I think as we've become a more high-profile company—in some ways the spokescompany for the industry—it's interesting, the access that we've been given, whether it's to politicians, whether it's to media. People want to talk to us. People want to understand that there are two industries: there's an originator industry and the generics industry. In the US, our industry serves 95% of all patients. So, without the generics industry, there is no healthcare. It's insane. In Europe, it's about 80% of all drugs dispensed are generic and biosimilar. So we are, by far, the biggest part of the industry, certainly by volume, clearly not by value. But the social impact that we have and the importance that we have means increasingly having a voice about how we shape policy and [how to] support that. And I sort of describe it as democratizing access to patients. But how do we really work? And that goes back to our purpose, which is, I think, really cool.

Charles Moore: Sure. So one of the things I know that you're very focused on is the next generational leadership team that you've got at Sandoz. What advice are you giving them? What capabilities are you asking them to build on mindset, et cetera, so that they can help themselves be successful going forward?

Richard Saynor: I think first of all, it's a mindset. I guess what I want to [see] in a leader is curiosity. You don't want a leader who thinks they know all of the answers. I know I don't know all the answers, and I'm never going to be. I'm not a CFO. I'm not going to be the best CFO, I'm not a development scientist, but no one expects me to be. But I think it's important to have leaders that are curious and can energize their own organizations, [who are not] so concerned about hierarchy and having vertical careers, sometimes having horizontal careers, and different experiences that they can bring. And be a team player as well, because this is a team sport, and as a company gets bigger, you can't do things on your own. I had a very happy time at GSK, and I think what I learned at GSK is soft power. And what I mean by that is influencing across an organization, even when it doesn't necessarily report to you functionally. A lot of leaders get very hung up by the functional reporting organization, but actually, your ability to influence an agenda horizontally across an organization actually is really important. And as you get more senior, it's got to be cross-functional, and you need to be able to influence and have an agenda that is across the organization and doesn't necessarily happen just because you happen to be head of that function or head of that department. And sometimes that's hard, but I think having that skill set and, again, sort of looking back, I think those are the things that helped shape me and prepare me for this job. But perhaps at the time you don't appreciate it, it’s always easier after the event.

Charles Moore: Yes, looking back is easier.

Richard Saynor: Or you post-rationalize it, I don't know.

Charles Moore: No, perhaps. Yes, so this leadership without authority sort of mindset, you know, we see that the whole time, but I guess just moving it on in terms of advising the next gen in terms of a career in global pharmaceuticals. What advice do you give them on navigating international markets, working across different healthcare systems, culture, et cetera, based on your experience? Because how many countries have you lived in over the years?

Richard Saynor: I guess three or four, and I’ve managed dozens. But I think I was super lucky or super pleased, glad that we took the choice to move from the UK to Germany and Germany to Asia. So I think both personally and professionally, it's very rewarding. Grasp those opportunities with open arms and don't necessarily get so worried about the hierarchy of the role. It's the experience.

I don't think I ever really planned my career. I never sat down 30 years ago and said, “Right, I want to end up in this job.” That was never the game plan. It was almost just. “Enjoy the experience.” And if you enjoy the experience, generally you're quite good at it. And if you're quite good at it, opportunities will come your way. If you spend your entire life looking for your next job, invariably it doesn't quite work that way. So, you know, so that's what I look for people, and advise them, “Look, don't get so hung up by defining your own success by what you do. Just enjoy where you're at.” Be open minded to the opportunities. Don't be worried so much about the hierarchy, certainly in the beginning part of your career, really, it’s the experience. Do different things, be curious. Be open minded. Try and find mentors; they don't have to be formal, but people who are going to be honest with you and give you challenging and honest feedback. If you can, find people who will support you and put you in difficult positions. Because I know it's, again, a bit of a cliché, but you learn the most when you're in the positions where you make mistakes. Those are the things that shape you far more than the successes that you have. It tends to be the things that go wrong or the bosses that you didn't perhaps enjoy working for so much, and you go back and reflect on what [you] learned from that experience, and then enjoy it.

Charles Moore: And have fun.

Richard Saynor: And have fun. I mean you've got to have fun. You're at work a lot of time and if you're not enjoying it, then it shows.

Charles Moore: Okay, final question: What have you stopped doing since you became CEO of a public company, and what have you started doing?

Richard Saynor: That's a good question. I guess I've had to stop managing much more of the business day to day, I just don't have the bandwidth. I'd like to spend more time in the business, and some of that's not deliberate, [but] I'm trying to be much better with my diary. So I try and sit down and think, “You only have a very limited number of days each year,” so really trying to think about where can I have the most impact. I could be in a lot of places doing a lot of things and so [I’m] trying to be quite thoughtful about where I spend my time to have the most impact.

I have to trust the people around me. I'm blessed with the team that I've got, [which] means that I should be thinking three to five years out. So my job should be thinking where the company should be going, not what it's doing. And that's sometimes quite hard because, you know, variably you've got your board, and they're concerned about the quarter or the month end. But the reality is, I can't really influence that on a day-to-day basis, and so I shouldn't; I get in the way. So how do I give my team the space to let them run the business and the trust to do that? And where I can have the most impact is thinking about where the company should be five years from now.

Charles Moore: I said it was the last question but, of course, it's not. [What is your] advice to new CEOs coming into public company roles, in terms of the relationship with the board and how to build on that?

Richard Saynor: I've been super lucky. In a sense, mine was slightly back to front, because Gilbert, our chairman, joined when I had been appointed as CEO. So normally it's the other way around, the chairman normally appoints the CEO. But that said, I think we've both grown together. He’s a great chairman. He's been a good mentor, very supportive. And similarly with the board—I think I've been lucky that the board effectively all joined at the same time, so they shared the learning journey of the company, which has been a blessing. They also come from a very broad set of industries, and that brings its challenges and its opportunity. It brings a very fresh perspective sometimes, and sometimes the most obvious questions are the most useful. It's like, “Why do you do this? Why can't you do that?” So that naivety, in a positive sense, is actually a very, very useful thing.

My CFO was on our board, so it's unusual. He’d asked to come and join the company, so I think I took that as a strong endorsement as well. At the same time, they're deeply experienced. I mean I guess I'm super blessed. We got board members from Nestle, from Proctor and Gamble, you know, [the] whole gamut; from Nvidia, some really senior executives across the industry. They have a lot of experience, and their job really is to make the management team as successful as possible, because then the company's as successful as possible. And I think definitely our board have that mindset. But I think [regarding] the relationship with the chairman and the CEO, you may not have to be best friends, but—it's a bit of a cliché again, but it's the most important relationship. I try really hard not to surprise Gilbert. He should not find out anything that I can't tell him. He shouldn't find it from a third party, whether it's from the media or from the other parts of the organization, good or bad. I try really hard to live by that. Can't always do it, but I try really hard, and then it builds trust. Because I think he needs to trust you, just as you know you need to trust [that] the board really have the company’s and your best interests at heart.

Charles Moore: There you go. Well look, thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time. So, if I just play that back a little bit: for me, at least, one of the things that I'm hearing, and I see this day-in day-out with you, is the energy that you bring to this role. The fact the team is as important as the company, and the patient plays a big part in everything you do. So, really appreciate your time today.

Richard Saynor: It’s a pleasure, a real privilege. Thank you so much.

Thanks for listening to The Heidrick and Struggles Leadership Podcast. To make sure you don't miss the next conversation, please subscribe to our channel on your preferred podcast app. And if you're listening via LinkedIn or YouTube, why not share this with your connections? Until next time.

About the interviewer

Charles Moore (cmoore@heidrick.com) is a member of the Healthcare and Life Sciences Practice and regional leader of strategic accounts in Europe; he is based in the London office.