Sanofi’s Charlotte Søby Vestergaard on purpose, a non-linear career path, the future for pharma and the need for resilience

I connected with the sector as a CEMSie. My Master’s thesis was focused on a pharmaceutical company, diving into their mission, processes and what they wanted to achieve. That mission – helping or even saving people’s lives—was hugely motivational to me and still is. Of course, coming from a business background, there was a steep learning curve. My early career at Sanofi was in sales which meant stepping right out of my comfort zone and mastering entirely new knowledge, pathways and vocabulary. So, there was a shift from the more theoretical business understanding to applying how to learn in a completely new context. What kept me going and keeps me going still is that mission of making a real difference to people.

Throughout my career, I’ve had the amazing opportunity of engaging with patients directly. And when you hear people’s stories, it makes you even more motivated about what you do in your daily life – even if today I am a bit more at the back end of operations. But it’s that impact in essence that drives my career. It’s extremely powerful. If you wish to do something meaningful with your life, pharma is one of the industries where you can really see the output of what you are doing every single day.

WHAT’S BEHIND YOUR CAREER PIVOTS FROM SALES TO GENERAL MANAGER TO HEAD OF DIGITAL MARKETS AT SANOFI?

I believe that organisations and leaders both really benefit from having wider perspectives and broader ways of seeing challenges and opportunities. What brought me into digital was what I felt I could bring from having a different perspective on how to bridge gaps and accelerate the way that we’re using technology in pharma.

I’m not a digital specialist, although I have the core understanding and knowledge of technology. My team are the experts. The benefit that I bring is that I have a background in international marketing and management– I am an expert in business—and it’s my role to keep my team close to the business and to provide the strategic guidance around where we are going and how it impacts our business model. Stepping into this role has really allowed me to unleash my focus on leadership itself in this sense. I can also leverage the diversity of my experience and my business expertise to have conversations with other business leaders around the world, to help them understand what we’re trying to achieve from a technology perspective, so there’s a translation element to my role: connecting technology and business ambition, or what we want to do as an organisation.

THESE ARE STILL BIG CAREER SHIFTS. WHAT KIND OF SUPPORT HAVE YOU RECEIVED FROM THE ORGANISATION?

From my first interview and throughout my career at Sanofi, I’ve been able to expand my career into different areas and directions. I’ve also been very open to opportunities that have arisen within the organisation. I was invited to apply for the role of general manager when I was on maternity leave, for example! That was my first pivot into a senior managerial role.

I do think there’s an onus on you as the individual to signal that you’re ready to take on new challenges, but at the same time, within Sanofi there is a very strong focus on people development. There’s a strong culture of following up with ambitious and talented people and putting mechanisms in place to help them make their next move, especially if it’s into a different area of the business. Sanofi offers learning and training opportunities to go beyond your specific or current scope precisely so that you can grow, develop and pivot and that’s quite rare, I think. I’ve seen so many examples here of people expressing a genuine interest in their development and being successful in achieving their ambitions within the organisation. The approach here whenever openings arise is to stop and say: who can we see moving up and into different roles? So, there is enormous support for internal mobility and career progression within the company.

That said, it all has to start with the individual. Because without ambition it’s very hard to progress.

WHAT DOES THE DAY-TO-DAY LOOK LIKE FOR GLOBAL HEAD OF DIGITAL MARKETS AT SANOFI?

It can range from the rollout and tracking of big projects to sitting down with senior leaders to see how we can support them as we drive digital transformation. Right now, we’re planning sessions with business leaders to facilitate AI onboarding for instance and integrating these tools more effectively in their daily work.

Given the global nature of my work, I’m also dealing with the impact of geopolitical and macro-economic issues. International sanctions tied to the conflict in Ukraine have squeezed certain services and software, so there are constant fires that need to be put out and the challenge of figuring out solutions to bottlenecks and what to do next.

There is no typical day and the work we do is hugely diverse. It’s quite normal to come to work with a plan in the morning and go home having achieved something quite different.