New leadership needs in biopharma: The connecting leader

In the biopharmaceutical industry, Open Innovation (OI) is a transformative approach to research and development that has emerged as a critical enabler of progress. It is an approach that emphasizes collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and the integration of external and internal resources to drive innovation.

A variety of OI models have been introduced across the sector, including external partnerships and alliances, innovation hubs, open innovation challenges, start-up accelerators and ventures, and technology licensing and IP exchange deals.

In this new environment, we have seen that a few companies have reached a level of significant scientific co-creation by seamlessly connecting internal research and development with the external environment.

This does not happen by accident; organizations that are successful with this approach are intentional about identifying and developing the required capabilities for talent. However, in many organizations, specific scientific expertise and credentials are key factors for promoting individuals into senior leadership roles, and little emphasis is placed on key leadership abilities that will ensure long-term success as OI continues to transform the sector.

Looking forward, the sector will need more leaders with not only scientific expertise but also leadership capabilities to deliver on an agenda that is bigger than any one of them or any single organization.

Our work has found that leadership capabilities focused on person-to-person connection—within, outside, and across their organization’s ecosystem even as it changes—can enable this kind of success.¹ Heidrick & Struggles refers to these leaders as “connecting leaders.” These are people who can deliver on five imperatives:

1. Envision the future, deliver today
2. Act with purpose and courage
3. Harness the power of others
4. Orchestrate ecosystems
5. Cultivate a learning mindset

Envision the future, deliver today

As OI creates new opportunities for collaboration, envisioning the future is more complicated and more important than in the past because successful collaboration requires alignment on a clear vision. While biopharma leaders often understand the importance of creating the future vision, we have seen that they can become overwhelmed with day-to-day leadership responsibilities and problem solving.

It has long been true that if a leader is not able to deliver today, they will not have the permission to build future capabilities and offerings—and yet, if they neglect to look ahead, other organizations in this fast-moving and innovative industry will overtake them. Therefore, leaders must be able to hold both the short- and long-term perspectives simultaneously. 

Five characteristics differentiate leaders who can envision the future while delivering today:

1. Strategic and forward-looking: Envisioning and planning multiple futures, developing flexible strategies, and making choices to profit from uncertainty and turbulence in the market
2. Digital and AI savvy: Becoming digitally attuned enough to ask the right questions, stay ahead of emerging technologies such as AI, and adapt (personally and organizationally) at the speed of digital transformation
3. Transformational: Thinking and building for exponential growth and anticipating the impact of change on employees and customers, while remaining laser-focused on organizational purpose
4. Simplicity-focused: Distinguishing between necessary and needless complexity and becoming ruthless about reducing or even eliminating organizational clutter
5. Decisive and data-focused: Ensuring a foundation of financial excellence, business acumen, and real-time analytics to support making decisions and trade-offs at pace

Act with purpose and courage

Despite biopharma’s innovative nature, courage can be difficult for leaders in such a highly regulated industry. The stakes are high, as many leaders know—we hear often that their drive to address patients’ unmet medical needs is what led people to biopharma. We believe that connecting purpose and courage can enable leaders to act boldly while still maintaining ethical and careful leadership.

Personal purpose can become a compass that allows leaders to navigate through a crisis, make courageous decisions, take risks, and stay resilient, all while remaining focused on the innovation that will lead to breakthroughs in patient care and treatment.

Five characteristics help leaders act with purpose and courage. Leaders should be:

1. Self-aware: Understanding their own personal drivers, motivations, and biases; able to objectively evaluate personal emotions, strengths, weaknesses; and aware of the perception of others
2. Purpose-driven: Being strongly grounded in a sense of purpose, aligning personal and organizational goals with a socially meaningful purpose
3. Inspirational: Energizing others with a vision for the future that helps them ascribe greater meaning to their roles, resulting in heightened engagement and focus
4. Courageous: Willing to make tough decisions in an uncertain environment, even when actions may have unpredictable outcomes, and ready to take risks and learn from failures
5. Resilient: Adapting to and overcoming adversity in the face of turbulences, recovering quickly from difficult situations

Harness the power of others

Because OI emphasizes collaboration, knowledge sharing, and the integration of external and internal resources to drive innovation, the ability to harness the power of others as a leader has never been more critical. 

To solve today’s problems at pace, especially in an industry with both regional hubs and global networks, leaders must draw on a wide range of people with diverse skill sets, perspectives, and backgrounds. They must develop a truly global mindset to drive collaboration and leadership across the boundaries of stakeholder considerations, partnerships, and ecosystems. 

Five characteristics help leaders harness the power of others. Leaders should be:

1. Human-centered: Connecting deeply with the human beings surrounding the organization—customers, employees, partners, or stakeholders—listening to, caring for, and empathizing with them
2. Inclusive: Seeking different opinions, backgrounds, experiences, and capabilities to inform decision making, creating a psychologically safe space, and embracing differences and diversity of thought as second nature
3. Empowering: Creating space for others to experiment, test, and learn in order to build self-confidence, develop individual capabilities, and drive innovation
4. Collaborative: Creating an environment where everyone shares information and capabilities to engage the right people to solve problems, building trust and consensus
5. Talent-focused: Attracting the best talent and focusing on development, building a culture of development, creating opportunities, and challenging for growth

Orchestrate ecosystems

In addition to the ability to harness the power of others, the ability to manage and build robust ecosystems has long been necessary to competitive strategy. But today, as OI advances and as many forces—such as geopolitical volatility and technological advances—are blurring the boundaries of the enterprise, biopharma leaders are required to build lasting ecosystems to address more complex challenges.

Five key characteristics help leaders orchestrate ecosystems. Leaders should be:

1. Customer-centric: Deeply understanding of the customer segments, looking at products and services through the lens of the customer to improve overall customer experience and understand how their interests are evolving
2. Externally networked: Connecting and building relationships with leaders of organizations with complementary capabilities, whether the company is currently working with them or not
3. Invested in external innovation: Driving innovation through teaming within and across organizations, as well as across industries
4. Committed to solving the big problems, such as sustainability: Adapting business practices that consider social and environmental impact, only partnering with ecosystem actors who embrace responsible business practices
5. Culturally adept: Navigating diverse cultures seamlessly, balancing global and local capabilities, understanding differences among global and local customers, regulators, and suppliers

Cultivating a learning mindset

Innovation requires both curiosity and know-how and, generally, leaders in biopharma come with a natural curiosity and learning agility. However, it is important for them to extend their curiosity beyond incremental scientific developments to more holistic future possibilities in order to solve broader enterprise challenges, particularly in this OI environment.

A learning mindset underpins the four preceding leadership imperatives. Whoever learns the fastest has a major competitive advantage, and those who are willing to learn, who are open to embracing change, will be best able to maximize their agility and adaptability.

There are three characteristics that help leaders develop a learning mindset. Leaders should be:

1. Curious: Seeking new ideas, having an open mind, challenging the status quo, actively listening to others
2. Agile: Spotting opportunities and threats and then adapting and pivoting at a faster pace than competitors to create a competitive advantage
3. Entrepreneurial: Willing to take risks in an uncertain environment, being resourceful, creative, and solution-oriented

Conclusion

We have seen that adopting and applying OI in biopharma requires profound changes within the organization and in talent and leadership profiles. The next generation of leaders needs to be agile and able to work effectively across functions and departments in service of driving innovation.

Biopharma organizations must break down silos and encourage openness, transparency, and communication. Success hinges not only on partnerships and technology but also on culture and the people leading and working within these frameworks. Leaders must be able to connect with people and teams and connect them with each other, managing internal and external partnerships all while fostering trust, providing strategic purpose and vision, and balancing competition with collaboration.

Leaders who are able to envision the future while delivering today; act with purpose and courage; harness the power of others; orchestrate ecosystems; and cultivate a learning mindset will be best positioned to lead their organizations into the future.

About the authors

Alessandro Buccella (abuccella@heidrick.com) is a partner in Heidrick & Struggles’ Zurich office and leads Heidrick Consulting's global Healthcare & Life Sciences Practice.

Dr. Marion Fengler-Veith (mfenglerveith@heidrick.com) is the partner in charge of the Zurich office and a member of the Healthcare & Life Sciences and Supply Chain & Operations Officers practices.

Jennifer Streitwieser (jstreitwieser@heidrick.com) is a partner in the Philadelphia office and a member of Heidrick Consulting.

Reference

¹ Dr. Regis Chasse and TA Mitchell, “The connecting leader: Five imperatives for leaders today,” Heidrick & Struggles, September 25, 2024.