Belén Garijo, Chief Executive Officer of Sanofi, shared on LinkedIn:
“A few days ago, I was inducted into the Hall of Fame of German Economy by manager magazin.
It’s an honor I’m immensely proud of and still taking in.
This recognition celebrates what has guided me throughout my career: a relentless commitment to excellence, and the conviction that our work must make a difference in people’s lives.
Germany wasn’t in my plans for most of my career.
I worked in the US, Spain, and France before Merck brought me to Darmstadt. Little did I know I would stay thirteen years, and how much I would learn and achieve in this chapter of my life.
Those years shaped three leadership principles that still guide me:
- Truth. In pharma, we seek truth, not progression. We don’t advance science just to show speed. We follow the data. If it can truly improve patients’ lives, we move forward. If not, we stop.
- Trust. No leader succeeds without it. It’s what makes teams build something bigger together.
- Transparency. Truth plus the courage to share it, especially when it’s uncomfortable. It helps us find better solutions, faster.
Today, I carry these principles forward to Sanofi. Not to recreate the past, but to write the best chapter yet. And we are on it.
My sincere thanks to Robert Habeck for his generous words at the ceremony, and for a sentence that stayed with me: ‘We first have to know where to get into, before we get out of something.‘ It’s a very honest question any leader can ask themselves.”
Other articles featuring Belén Garijo on OncoDaily.
