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--- Video Description ---
GSK CEO: Drug Discovery, AI in Pharma, and Changing Company Culture

How is the pharmaceutical industry evolving to meet the world’s biggest health challenges? In this episode, Nicolai Tangen sits down with Emma Walmsley, CEO of GSK, for an insightful conversation about the future of pharmaceuticals. They discuss GSK’s latest advances in cancer treatments, HIV therapies, and respiratory medicine, as well as the role of AI in speeding up drug discovery. Emma also shares her thoughts on navigating change, transforming company culture, and the role of curiosity in staying motivated.

In Good Company is hosted by Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management. New episode out every Wednesday.

The podcast In Good Company is part of Norges Bank Investment Management, a podcast about our investments. We are transparent about how the fund is invested. In this podcast, you get a deeper insight into the companies the fund is invested in. 

Our CEO, Nicolai Ta...

--- Video Description ---
GSK CEO: Drug Discovery, AI in Pharma, and Changing Company Culture

How is the pharmaceutical industry evolving to meet the world’s biggest health challenges? In this episode, Nicolai Tangen sits down with Emma Walmsley, CEO of GSK, for an insightful conversation about the future of pharmaceuticals. They discuss GSK’s latest advances in cancer treatments, HIV therapies, and respiratory medicine, as well as the role of AI in speeding up drug discovery. Emma also shares her thoughts on navigating change, transforming company culture, and the role of curiosity in staying motivated.

In Good Company is hosted by Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management. New episode out every Wednesday.

The podcast In Good Company is part of Norges Bank Investment Management, a podcast about our investments. We are transparent about how the fund is invested. In this podcast, you get a deeper insight into the companies the fund is invested in. 

Our CEO, Nicolai Tangen, has in-depth interviews with the leaders of some of the largest companies in the world. You will get insight into their leadership principles, the company’s strategy and how they are dealing with a large investor like us. You will also learn more about our role as an owner of the companies. 

You can read more about the podcast on https://www.nbim.no/en/publications/podcast/

--- Transcript ---
[Music] Hi everyone, I'm Nicola Tangan, the CEO of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund and today I'm in really good company with Emma Wsley, the CEO of GSK, one of the global leaders in pharmaceuticals. Now, we own 1.7% of GSK valued at$ 1.3 billion US. Emma, great to have you here. Wonderful to be here. Thanks for having and I believe this is the second podcast ever in your life. Second ever. Wow. Looking forward very much to the conversation. Very good. Now, which areas of research excites you the most just now? Uh, well, I'm excited about a lot of the ways that research both in science and technology are advancing and particularly those two things together. I mean, it is literally the point of our company is to innovate and that's where we allocate most of our capital. So in fact since I've been in this job I think we've nearly doubled our R&D spend uh organically and then of course opened up huge amounts of partnerships that we do externally and business development to supplement the pipeline. What excites me most uh is when we can innovate in a way that has real impact at scale for patients around the world. So I'm incredibly excited about five new approvals for new drugs and vaccines that we're expecting to get this year. One down and another four uh to go. And that's the first wave of a cohort of we think 14 scale medicines and vaccines each with the potential of more than two billion pounds worth of sales that we expect to launch this decade and that includes uh in areas of oncology in infectious diseases in respiratory uh immunology in HIV and you know some of these what's really exciting is when you have totally new technology platforms in pharmaceuticals. So for example um in multiple myoma uh very nasty blood cancer that uh where there are 180,000 new diagnoses every year. We have a new technology platform something called antibbody drug conjugates and you have to think of these as like kind of biological missiles that have precision targeting for cancer which means they can bring greater efficacy uh but also with less side effects. So we hopefully have a new multiple myoma drug uh that has data that proves it extends life expectancy by 3 years. That's a very big deal for these um uh patients in terms of uh overall survival uh in that new uh platform technology. Um another example of something totally new in emerging science is in a field called oligoucleotides. um you have to think of these as a kind of spell check for RNA expression to correct the way uh disease develops and there we may have a new functional cure for a horrible disease hepatitis B um which impacts 250 million people around the world. So these are examples of new nearterm assets. You are both in vaccines and in medicines and how do these areas complement each other? Well, vaccines are there fundamentally uh to prevent disease before it starts. And you know, at GSK, we say we combine science, tech, and talent to get ahead of disease. Um there is no better return on investment uh than vaccine technology. In fact, in healthcare perhaps except for clean water, um it's really is, you know, a very powerful uh solution uh mainly in infectious diseases. But you talk about what's exciting and new science coming through. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Oxford looking um with some part in a partnership we've uh developed there to look at precancer cell um biology and that is potentially we're really looking on long-term horizons in terms of exciting science here to imagine what cancer vaccines uh could bring. Um and you know that's very uh exciting science when you talk about um uh the complimentarity. Obviously when you're in medicines you tend to be more in the treatment space. Um but that can also be earlier intervention in disease to change its course because what costs money for society and health care systems is hospitalization and spending on people being sick. So intervening earlier um is really important and that can be with long acting medicines that keep people out of hospital and we have lots in our pipeline uh be it in HIV or respiratory that's looking at that too. For the people who don't know GSK what are your three bestselling products? Well our biggest sellers uh are um in uh HIV in respiratory drugs uh and in uh vaccines today. So uh in respiratory if you look at a drug called trilogy and that's for both asthma and COPD chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Perhaps many haven't heard of it but it's the third leading cause of death in the world. It's the I think 300 million people living with that. And so we have an everyday inhaler for both COPD and a asthma called trilogy because it's got three drugs in it. That's a huge one. In HIV we have two drug regimens. I mean, remember, you know, I an HIV diagnosis used to be a death sentence. Now, it's something that you can uh live with as a chronic disease because we have these fantastic uh drugs that that um uh that people can take and integr have have been pioneering in long acting solutions in HIV. So, that means an injection you can take six times a year. We're now looking at it being four times a year and eventually a couple of times a year. That's an extraordinary uh uh solution. And then in in vaccines, we really pioneered with an incredibly effective shingles vaccine. That's a multi-billion asset uh today. Uh gives 90% protection for at least 11 years. You know, one in three of us. Uh so your camera woman or you or me, we're going to deal with uh shingles um uh at some stage incredibly painful and we have a highly effective vaccines there. And then another example would be we had the world's first RSV vaccine uh uh that we launched last year still only in its very early stage of of global penetration. So those are the big ones today. But for the future, I think we're looking more and more towards cancer uh drugs as well. You've kind of overseen a major overhaul of your R&D uh approach since you became the CEO. So what are the biggest changes you made to that process? Well, I think these this process is always uh uh ongoing because as I said at the beginning, you know, the purpose of our company is to innovate and we're one of the only industries that has to literally replace itself every decade um because of the patent model um which is in place. And you know the first thing to do was simply to say we want to prioritize it and put really uh organize ourselves to prioritize the allocation of capital to R&D. We had um a radical overhaul of the key uh disease areas that we wanted to go into. So we explicitly said we're going to prioritize specialty medicines and uh vaccines within the port uh portfolio and within that are key therapy areas. We bet back big in cancer both through business development um acquisitions in licensing and homegrown innovation as well. I've been really excited to see that business more than double last year. is still emerging but I think when we look forward to the pipeline that's coming next um uh be it the multiple myoma approval we hope to get this year or a whole new portfolio of uh ADCs these antibbody uh body drug conjugates which we think will open up solutions to new areas of cancer I mean this is as you know and you very kindly brought um you very kindly brought forward this recording because I'm going from this meeting to the funeral of a friend who died of pancreatic cancer. She was in her early 50s, mom of three. More and more we're seeing uh diagnosis in younger people um uh uh for cancer. And although the science is advancing so fast here uh with new uh modalities, we've still got diseases like lung cancer where even the biggest drugs in the world are only effective on 20% of of the population. So um I think you know there's a lot lot more work uh to do there. It's one of our areas of our portfolio. The other incredible transformation that is coming to R&D and our industry and frankly the healthcare industry writ large is what's going to be done with technology. Exactly. And that's and you are and you are on the board of Microsoft correct privilege that that is and have been for six years. What are you taking from Microsoft into the processes? Well, first of all, um, just to reiterate, obviously my core job in accountability is as the CEO of GSK. Yeah, sure. But I mean I mean, normally I I'm a bit skeptical when people are on on boards, right? This is hugely useful. But this Well, exactly. So here you can just see it, right? It should really enable you to bring in new technologies and be totally cutting edge. I I believe we should all be on the board of Microsoft. I wish I wish I were. I would love to. F first of all uh it's very interesting the uh crossovers what are what are just let's just before you get into the obvious relevance of the fact that technology AI now gen AI are going to change every industry and society and it's the most exciting time we can possibly imagine especially when you consider a third of the world's data is related to healthcare and healthcare is one of the biggest challenges in terms of its sustainability its affordability and the enormous amount of unmet need there is out there when you think about aging populations and the rest in fact there isn't a single tech company that doesn't think that the best case study for the the possibilities of technology and its positive contribution to society is healthcare writ large what is most exciting for GSK is our biggest challenge is the productivity of R&D it is really really hard to uh discuss cover and develop a drug. 90% of um and this is industry large 90% of uh the assets uh fail which by the is an important thing when you think about the economic model of our industry and having to cover the cost of failure. It takes a decade and it can cost billions. Uh so capital allocation is a very very important thing for us to do. But just imagine um in this world of the explosion of data, genetics and genomics and health care systems um uh provision and new tech, wearable tech, how every aspect of the value chain uh for us in R&D and we think of that if you looked at the traditional linear mode, you would say target selection, so biological target selection, molecule design, uh what we call CMC. So the transition of that into manufacturing because that's often can be you know especially with all these new technology platforms it can be uh an area where you can get bottlenecks or a failure rate and then you get into clinical trials where things get really expensive. Um and patient identification is a part of that. So we've traditionally gone through a linear mode and each one of those today we are using AI and sometimes gen AI whether it's um to uh get more precision around the probability of success about the original biological target and we're using genetic data as well and we have examples of that whether it's about building completely industry-leading chemistry libraries to allow us to design molecules in silicone and again that work is going on. We're not it's that famous quote about you know the future here is here but it's not scaled and evenly distributed yet still in the sort of uh early stages of doing these experimentation but there's a lot so when you see how you've used um technology and how you use AI what has it done for you so far and how much more improvement will there be oh I think I think we've hardly scratched the surface we're already using it in the design of our clinicals trials to predict outcomes to be able to follow uh patterns of infectious diseases So what do you think it would do let's say over the next 5 years? What will it do and how and how will you measure it? Um well we will measure it in the performance of the discovery and development uh process. Um it will uh reduce cost, reduce time and ideally allow us to target labels for the medicines and vaccines that we have. So are they the descriptions of their benefits? Because we can design trials in a more precise way for patients that are specifically targeted. So you can get a disproportionate benefit. I give you two examples. Uh um I talked about um uh three examples. I talked about hepatitis B which is this huge disease that impacts 250 million people. But there are very different profiles within that. By being able to do um uh much more precision uh profiling phenotyping of patients, we're then able to design clinical trials to show a disproportionate um uh impact on a smaller cohort, not all of them, so that you can then get to what we call a functional cure as in people can then live with the disease more normally. Our early trials are showing that. We're going to have readouts of phase three as well. That would be one example. Another would be when you look at the biomarkers around um different cancer types. So in um colurectal uh cancer from learnings we did in endometrial cancer actually we looked at a particular um uh genetic marker called DMMR um which uh allowed us to be much more precise on the targeting in in in in cancer and then have trials where we've had them in the early stages 100% success rates which has allow us to then go into at risk phase uh three trials. Another example would be we accelerated our RSV vaccine and this is a simpler one. Accelerated our RSV vaccine um uh outcomes by two years because we were able to look at the infectious disease patterns in different parts of the globe uh and call the closure of clinical trials earlier and we've got a vaccine that has over 90% efficacy on those that represent 90% of the hospitalization. So at the moment these are spot examples. Do you think it will improve the hit rate? Um yes without with which to bring the early stage breakthroughs without any and that's the most important fact. In fact, I think what we're going to do, I think this five years, I'd say definitely within 10 years, and I hope we'll have more and more examples along that way, but instead of having this linear process, we're going to move to more of a lab in a loop, which is an overused term, but you actually get into reverse translation, patient back, um, uh, rather than target out, so that we can get to, frankly, um faster, better outcomes with more precise targeting for for patient cohorts. But Emma, um aren't all pharmaceutical companies doing this? I hope so. Absolutely. I mean, I hope I hope they do it. I mean, if not, I think you need to be pretty thick. But the thing is that what is this going to do to the competitive landscape? Well, what I hope I mean, Nico, let's just step back. In the end, our job is to meet the enormous amount of unmet need there is out there in the world and most of what we do doesn't work. I think it is a wonderful thing if this industry that frankly has, you know, too many negative Netflix movies made out about it is able to show the world uh what science and technology combined can do for good. We still have so many diseases that don't have uh solutions around the world. You know, one of the biggest ones, the most exciting area for science I think for the long term or we don't have good solutions in is is in everything to do with neurodeeneration, dementia and Alzheimer's. the trajectory of disease is going to change hugely I think over the next 10 or 20 years if you imagine that metabolic disorders that are going to be I think you know um and their squelli because of what's going on in these amazing discoveries in the obesity drugs is going to be less of a burden but we're going to have triple the number of over 80s in 20 years time than we have today and you know I'm afraid like shingles I'm going to be I'm going to be there soon but well no but of you're in our age group. Again, the probability for all the brains in the room, the probability of um of dementia or Alzheimer's, I'm afraid, is again one in three. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. We need the the the um introduction of of increasing technologies into into R&D and so on. Um are the US companies going to be better positioned than the Europeans? I wouldn't say that. I mean we have some great European um you know uh based farmer companies with proud histories and strong innovation and I think will be held back by increased regulation and different um different ways of looking at technology AI and so on. The uh I would say the first of all the um American tech companies supply the world they don't only supply uh the US. I do think the question of regulation is important. you you know you and we need uh growth focused regulation but honestly Nikolai I think it's really important that we have responsible regulation too on questions like quality privacy um security uh I think it's important that Europe opens uh up uh the possibilities um because we have strong regulators in the EMA and the FDA and the MH here in in in the UK Okay. Well, we have to recognize the most important thing we do is bring trusted, safe scale solutions and patients are waiting. So, what are you now seeing coming out of China and India? a lot the share of firstinass drugs developed in China the pace of uh clinical development the pace of innovation approval are all speeding up a lot and we're doing quite a lot of business development finding great assets in China that you know want to um export their drugs uh to to the world now in the medical sector there's always a trade-off between how you price your drugs and the availability and affordability Is you don't think there is a trade-off? Well, I think they're both there. I think there's occasionally tensions, but I don't either. Tension change. Is a t tension changing in any way? Well, I don't see these as an either or in any way. I think they are structurally they have to be an ant because you're not innovating unless you do it at scale. At GSK, we say we want to reach two and a half billion people uh this decade. It's one of the things that differentiates uh us. I think there is um is the scale of our impact relative to our size. I think there is a huge misunderstanding about the economics of our industry in terms of um the the the the pricing that is required to cover the cost of failure and the value that drugs and vaccines bring to a health care system. And remember what's expenses is treating sick people and having them in hospital. We all know an earlier diagnosis is better, an earlier intervention is better. So, so we need to value uh the innovation and recognize that there are so many diseases that don't have solutions yet. But at the same time, we have a social responsibility I believe to drive access and there are two billion people in the world that don't have access to the health care they need and it's not just a developing country agenda. By the way, GSK has been top of the access medicine or second to the of the access to medicines index every single year since it was founded. Um and we're really proud of the work we do with Gabby to provide tiered pricing on vaccines with in HIV where of the 28 million people that are on uh these um integrated inhibitors 23 of them are million of them in the world mainly in in subsahara and Africa because we opened up our IP to provide uh those drugs there. So, so I think it's not an either or, it is an and but. But we have to do a better job of communicating also about um you know the business model um and the value that our industry brings and take these responsibilities in you know extremely seriously and it's not just the developing countries as you Nikolai I mean you know in London between east London and southwest London there's a 12year difference um between life expectancy and in your beautiful country you know access to medicines I checked this um and was just looking at it before coming here, but I think of the 278 I think it was uh medicines uh this is in 2022 that were centrally approved in Europe, 40% of them are not yet available in Norway. I'm just saying that access is not simply a question of what we're familiar with talking in terms of aid to the poorest countries in the world. in the richest countries in the world sometimes it's getting approvals uh on time and this is where the US is definitely ahead definitely ahead drilling down on vaccines uh now you're a global leader in vaccines what did we learn from co well a lot um top three things uh older adult vaccination uh is a really important uh contribution to healthcare in society a lot of us are used to vaccinating our children and have been familiar with flu vaccines, but you're seeing this opening up of vaccine technology for older adults. Supply chain security geopolitically um is something that we all have to be thoughtful about um and certainly something that that GSK is invested in uh you know very aggressively in terms of regional supply chains, not just um in vaccines but also in in medicines. Last year we announced another 800 million that we're spending in in both medicine and vaccine um manufacturing in the US. Uh we also have strong European supply chains and we have partnerships in China um for distribution of vaccines. And then I think the third thing if I'm only allowed three although I could make the list go on is um you know we really have to watch out for the questions of vaccines hesitancy around the world and there's been a bit of politicization of that specifically through through co um but so how come so how come that I mean vaccines got the world back on its feet and then now there is so much misinformation and vaccine hesitancy and antivax and so on just um why why is this let's remember vaccines by definition are being given to healthy children or adults it is preventative care so you wake up in the morning you're I I can remember I'm I'm a mom of four I remember taking my brand new babies by the which were born in I have experience of three different countries of giving giving birth and you have different vaccine policies or it felt like you did and you have these questions I've got this precious newborn what is this what am I giving them what's it mean um and you want to have information then I think obviously we went through the global experience of COVID which engendered um you know huge pressure on the health care systems you know a lot of national protectionism tremendous energy around vaccines and a focus on some brand new technologies that had never been developed in vaccines before and people had questions about that. They had simultaneous fears about the risks involved and the news that was coming every day and then new technologies that you know they were being they wanted to make sure that they could trust the communication about. So it does come back to these questions of trust and and what does do here? Well, our answer is is what it has always been. Okay, which is you start off by saying if you have the responsibility of as we do today, frankly, vaccinating 40% of the world's children through our global programs and a a pipeline of new vaccines, of listening hard to people's questions, communicating transparently, underpinning everything with a 100% commitment to quality and safety and trust in our products. uh and remembering shouting trust us um you know as a frankly a company that is a public company with responsibilities to shareholders and that has to generate profits from these things is not the most effective way. So we seek to partner with governments to provide the data and total transparency and to frankly go to where people are with their questions be it in the community because that often is that um uh as well but also not to lose sight of the fact that I mean you know the US spends $9 billion a year on the hospitalization of people from vaccines preventable diseases. Um, so, you know, I think we're working through an age where people have questions and we just need to calmly um continue to underpin our work with uh, you know, the the value set that that we've been committed to for generations uh, and and uh, keep answering people's questions in it. Um, Bill Gates wrote a book about how uh, the next pandemic could be uh, handled better by spending I think it's roughly a billion dollars per year. Yeah, but that's not happening. So why are we not preparing ourselves better for the next pandemic? Well, I think we are actually at least inside the industry. Although I agree with you that you know memories feel a bit short, don't they? Uh at the moment and the challenges around this one is you're trying to keep capacity warm if I can say that. Um uh now the reality is at GSK we have contracts today with uh Europe, the US, Canada around pandemic preparedness um be it to be ready with our adivant or uh and and and sort of prepandemic assets. We have um you know uh some prioritized reviews for preandemic uh flu vaccines and in fact we're contracted also with the WH to make sure that I think 10% of any ready supply would also be immediately available um to uh you know some of the more underdeveloped countries in the world. So I would say there is better preparation. Um we won't be able to stop another pandemic coming but I hope the world um yeah will will remember uh and that we will mobilize faster before such so many lives are lost. But I'll tell you something else that we are really thoughtful about at GSK which is a different kind of pandemic and where and that's um sometimes referred to as the slow one which is antimicrobial resistance which will kill I think it's 38 million people by 2050 unless we develop more antibiotics and we have a very big portfolio and pipeline uh here last year we uh invested I think 40 million with the um uh the Fleming work that's done led out of the UK um with Imperial as well to to try and research because this is where the UK is very strong, right? Well, it's got a proud history uh in AMR and I think you know this is killing people all over the world. It's a real challenge in antibiotics because obviously you're asking the industry to develop drugs that you then don't want to be over subscribed. Um so you know we've we I'm actually one of the five approvals I'm hoping to get this year is for a brand new antibiotic in in um you know the common uh very common for women uh uh UTI uncomplicated UTI space. We haven't had a new antibiotic for 20 years. Um so uh you know I'm hopeful we'll get that approved later this year. You mentioned that uh I will soon going to be 80 years old. Uh now um I didn't mention that but yeah no um the elderly uh need to get a lot of vaccines right flu covid shingles pneumonia um when will we see a combination of all these things into into one shot there are there is ongoing work um on combo vaccines from us and from others uh we're used to having some combination vaccines with pediatric vaccines Um I think the thing you have to think through is what is uh well it's not as simple as just adding them together obviously um but but you also have to think through what the durability of different vaccines is. So I'll give you the example our RSV vaccine we now know has that's a seasonal um uh respiratory infection. We know we have protection probably it will at least three years maybe it will go up to five. So and flu tends to be something that mutates obviously every single year. So you know you you have to think about what the combinations would be when you're providing a solution that is required on an annual basis or you know more extended like that. So it's it's a bit more complicated. I think there are new technology platforms that will um allow more combinations potentially. So mRNA is one that that we and others are are looking at. Um uh but the science here is quite complex. Um and again you want to be in a place where you're looking at both efficacy and reacttogenicity as well to see whether that combination is is is um is going to be an effective solution. But definitely something that's on the horizon. Moving on a bit, you came into uh GSK with a remmit of uh dramatically change. Yes. The company. Yes. What are what are some of the dramatic changes you've you've done? Well, I don't know whe the dramatic is the word that I'd want to um uh use to describe it, but certainly uh very significant change in uh group strategy, structure, capital allocation, um balance sheet, which was a major challenge when we when we came in, which is part of the reason why we did the de merger of Halen. I mean, I'd originally joined. Yeah. I mean my my background was in consumer goods. I moved from China to London to uh build the consumer division of GSK and we went through two massive global joint ventures. Firstly with Novartis' portfolio and integrations frankly uh and then with Fisers and and then you know when I was CEO it became very very obvious that um to me that to solve that that a business that we built up from I don't know four to 10 billion in sales um was never going to be the primary uh recipient of capital allocation and it was sort of locked up division inside GSK that I never got a single question on at quarterly results and so it would be much better to set that business free and I'm delighted to see how brilliantly they're doing with that but also use that to reset the balance sheet and uh uh of GSK and frankly enable this fueling of growth and a step change in growth. How far how far are you into the into your change plan now? Well um you know I was really pleased at the beginning of this year to upgrade our 2031 outlook for the second times and that's you know we've added another seven billion to the outlook just in four years. That means we'll grow 17 billion this decade in sales which you know when I started we were only just over 20. So on the bioparma a bit. So I'm really pleased with the prog progress but the work is never ever done um on this because as I said you know in our industry we have to reinvent ourselves every decade because of the rolling patent. What's the biggest what's the biggest mentality change you have? Oh well this is my favorite question. Well mine too you see. So, we should we should delete the rest of this podcast and just start here because it's um I like the way you said mentality by the way because you if you say what was the radical change that I wanted to drive for I think culture is is you know definitely one of the things that we've been uh working hard to change what was the culture or what was the country in the past? Well, it's a company that's been around for over 300 years in a whole variety of forms. So, so it's got a long and proud history. Um but when I was asked to start it was to change the performance trajectory of the company whilst retaining some things that have made it very special for a long time including a commitment to global health including a deeply collaborative culture. Um because this is an industry where partnership and and serendipity um uh matter. um because it's hard and because you know it's the clash of brains and ideas um and creative friction uh that can create uh good things but I think we'd become for all the pride in our purpose to change the course of disease and to provide access to medicines and we'd lost our way in terms of performance edge in terms of looking outside the company. This happens in a lot of big companies by the way that you get heavily matrixed, you spend you think a day at work is doing good meeting and you don't you're not agile enough um and you start to think that all good science is inside whereas so how do you change this? It is first of all you say it's really important and you make it one of the stated priorities for the company. So I I've been very aggressive since I started to say look we got three priorities which are innovation, performance and trust. um writ large obviously we take our strategic direction in the therapy areas we're going to work in and you know specialty medicines and vaccines but we underpin that and we power that by culture so you say culture is the it's not an HR issue it's not something we write on the wall it is literally the job of the leadership of the company CEO first by the way and I think that is the secret source of everything because when you're running a company of you know in the beginning it was 100 thousand people we're now 70 or so um you you know you can't you you have to set an environment that doesn't need constant oversight or inspection. It's just the way we work. So we we we spent a lot of time defining what we wanted that culture to be at a leadership level and we say three simple things. Ambitious for patients because that's the point of everything. And there's a notion of ambition in there which is delivering what matters better and faster. uh accountable for our impact and that is about results not process which we needed to shift being a bit government department in the way we do things a lot more individual accountability um but in the spirit of uh um clear ownership and I think that's what sometimes goes wrong in collaborative organizations is that there's a bit too much by committee I'm a big believer in single point accountable decision-making so clear ownership and a positive mindset of support to succeed and then doing the right Absolutely. So this is all very good. So this is what you say and this is what your leader group say. But how do you get it through? How do you get it down through the perafrost level in the organization? Really simple. You define it and you just said it. You get the message down there. You never stop talking about it. You use a common language worldwide. Worldwide. Every single country when I go and and visit, I ask for a session on culture explicitly. Okay. You appoint for it. I've been very I mean the the the the the overhaul in talent in the company is one of the most radical things that that that we've done. And by the way, it's foundationally my philosophy of leadership is it's always about people and it's people that define culture. It's how they show up every day. It's the way you manage people. So you're incredibly intentional about your talent processes. I bet you are in order as well. I mean there's no way. But you don't you don't appoint people at level six and seven. No, not at six at seven. But there is a shadow of a leader principle. I spent a lot of time looking at succession planning. Two weeks ago I spent 3 days with the next generation top 30 um literally uh and I am very planful not on my own because it's a team effort with the leadership team around their career uh uh development. This is purely three days of development on on people and talking about culture is at the heart of it. you incentivize it, soft and hard incentives. So you I mean I we changed the I mean literally down to the bonuses system for the for the organization. Um you uh you promote for it and you fire for it. So you know there's that those famous matrices about the high performers with the bad culture. You know when I've made mistakes on people it's usually for cultural reasons. Um uh so that's really important and you measure it. And how do you screen? How do you screen for attitude? So here I am, you're interviewing me. I'm applying now level five. Uh I would love to work in GSK. Now how are you going to figure out whether I referencing I'm a big fan of referencing as a system my Yeah. I mean, but also we do we have we do surveys and we also do something called 180s which sounds a bit you know we're all familiar with the 360 thing. 180 is purely your team uh giving feedback on you completely anonymously in this K and we all do I have one on me as well and we we look at the um and we spend time talking about that in our midyear and our year-end reviews. So, so listen, here's what I would say. The work is not done and I am sure, in fact, I know there are still things that um we've got room for a lot more improvement on, but my goodness, the culture of the organization has shifted. You also look at where you spend your time, Chloe. I mean, I don't know how how you work on this, but you know, I spend I spend 55% of my time internally in the company because I tag every hour of But how do you work on culture specifically? all the time. I mean, I'm every time I get the microphone, every time every time I meet people, it's always I'm a maniac about it. But and and we need to stay that way. And by the way, the other thing you have to remember is if you're recruit if if you look at your workforce and if a third of it is new in the last three years, don't forget don't don't believe for a micro second that what you said in a town hall last time in the country has been heard. So, you have to be relentless on it. Tell me about uh Emma Wley 180 degree. Sorry. Well, I'm not sure I want to publish that completely. But listen, um people uh know that I care deeply about the company um and individuals development um and uh I'm hard driving on clarity of strategy and ownership uh of objectives. I could do a better job of saying thank you and well done because I have a habit which I'm sure is all sort of deeply rooted in my childhood of of um of looking up the mountain about you know how much more we've got to do rather than sometimes occasionally enjoying the view. Um uh and I think all you know we have to remember work is a human endeavor and everybody needs um uh to celebrate the wins along the way. So I could probably do a bit more of that. Tell me how your childhood has uh informed your leadership. Only if you do the same for me. Come on, you. Um well uh I grew up in a military family. So my father was in the Navy his whole career and I think that has definitely informed a sense of responsibility and a sense of duty um and a huge amount of frankly a a pretty strong work ethic. um and a lot of curiosity about uh the world as well. I mean I think um I wasn't well traveled at all as a you know as a young person but I had a chance when I was at university to go and live and work abroad and just before I went to university weirdly in the 1980s I decided to take myself off to China which is in the 1980s which was an odd thing to do. It was the first longhaul flight I'd ever been on. But that opened my mind to the world and and uh uh you know I was at because I was in in the way the system worked in the UK. I was in the in a boarding school from a very young age um because that was funded by the military in in those days and I think that gave me a sense of independence. So I I quite early in my career had an international career and wanted to go and do that and that opened up all sorts of opportunities I never dreamt of having. So I had no business background in my family. But um you said um I heard um somewhere you said that you need to have a really hard skin, a tough skin to survive as a CEO. Well, I think yeah, I think there's nothing more obnoxious than CEOs saying they have a hard life because it's like it's an insane um privilege and opportunity and especially at this time in the world which is you know volatile and uncertain as we all here and and know but it is extremely exciting and science and tech are advancing and there's just so much talent out there with um ambition and creativity. So I you know I think these jobs are a tremendous privilege but with them come the res responsibility to absorb a certain amount of public pressure and uh not take that personally. Um but I do think part of our job is also to protect the organization from that kind of distraction and and you know that comes with the territory. So yeah you need some resilience that's what kind of things get under your skin. Look, I think like all human beings, if you if your organization is being distracted by public reporting that is factually incorrect, that is annoying. Um because it's hard to, you know, what do people get to uh measure public commentary on? So you know I think um you know my job is to keep the organization alongside my leadership team because by the way I'm really don't agree with the kind of CEO as superhero notion. I think our first job is to hire people that's part of culture who are better than us and who stand with us in the leadership um uh you know priorities and uh an agenda. But our job is to keep the organization focused on what it can control. and what it is there to do. And our people are so inspired by the purpose of GSK. I mean, they literally, you know, blows my mind when you see the energy with which 15,000 scientists get up to do the near impossible and to try and, you know, explore new frontiers of neurodeeneration or literally cure cancer or help people breathe easier every day. And where do you where do you seek seek advice? Presently I have a very good board and a brilliant chairman. Um uh I quite like the European way of the separation of these jobs. Everyone will have their different views on that. Yeah, we we fully support that too. Uh uh and and you know a good board and a and a brilliant chairman means people who challenge you to be better at the job and are at stake for the company and its stakeholders be they patients, shareholders or our people. Um I have technical advisers who are externals who are experts in their fields and then I have I suppose maybe they're not advisers as much as the sort of support system of your family. I my children are adult now so they're they uh it's not they advise me on the strategy of GSK but they sometimes they remind me to keep my feet very firmly on the ground in terms of what matters in in life and the point of it all. You have um an honors system in the UK and you were uh you were named a Dame. Yes. Right. You are Dame Emma, right? Yeah. Um what did what did that do to you? You think? Well, it was a surprise. That was certainly true. Um I think it was a very important moment for my parents actually um and my family. And then sometimes, I mean, it's an incredible honor and I uh I never dreamt that my life would um take the paths it has. And that's, you know, I'm a I'm a great patriot. I'm a I'm a globalist. I've lived in mainland Europe, in the US, in China. Uh I travel all the time. I think next week I'm in three continents, so that'll be um reasonably physically uh entertaining. Um but I I am very proud of this country. So, it meant something, but honestly, it's not something I think about very much. I I'm um and I usually forget. Um I saw some research once that when you get an honor like that, you tend to um think more about all the stakeholders in society and actually um you people tend to lay off less people. uh they tend uh sometimes economic results of the company you run uh actually deteriorates and takes a hit from this because suddenly because you you just become I don't know less uh you become perhaps less cynical more thinking about society overall. Do you think there is something in that? Well, the thing I would absolutely uh argue against is the notion that uh there is a contradiction between the delivery of performance and strong financial results and being social responsible. I mean in my industry and in my company they are literally completely aligned because if we grow we are changing the lives of more patients. If we innovate that's recognized by the market in terms of you know the value of our pipeline. So I and by the way if you actually look uh not to sound offensive but at our track record of performance since that happened it has been completely transformed. That is literally probably the pivot point. But I'm afraid that it would be again I don't want to I would express my gratitude but it is it's not something I think about and I honestly I have never felt more full of energy and appetite for impact. Um uh but I do think it's important to remember it's not only about you know pounds and and and dollars. It's about the lives that you change, which is why you asked me earlier, what are the biggest medicines? And I answered in terms of revenue. Actually, uh I think it would be fair to say that last year we the biggest medicine or one of the biggest medicines that we gave were donations. I think 440 million donations of doses um of a drug that's for a neglected tropical disease in in Africa which we've called lymphatic fyeris um a horrible disease um uh and the scale of lives you know protected uh from that is is really meaningful so I think we do have to think in a multistakeholder world but nothing will happen unless we are financially successful because we need to fund the next wave of innovation a bit more um on the personal frontier at the end. Um sure. What is energy? Well, for me it's something uh that is fueled um and allows you to uh keep getting back up whatever the challenges are, but also inspire others as a leader to do more than they ever dreamt possible both individually but also as scale. Uh and and where do you get your energy from? purpose, um, opportunity, curiosity, other human beings, um, uh, the love of my family, and the deep belief that you get one life and you shouldn't waste a single second of it. What are you trying to learn these days? Oh, everything about what's possible. I mean, I'm just I am so uh fascinated by how technology is going to change society again. I mean, as it always has done, by the way. I think we think we're in a uniquely privileged moment, but probably people have done throughout throughout history. Um, I've been lucky enough to have, you know, a lot of exposure to um to the world and and uh issues that matter to society more broadly and the role of business in society and all of those things I'm extremely curious about. But I, you know, I get annoyed when I walk into libraries about all the books I haven't read. So, what about you? What do you read now? Well, I've got about I've got far too many books going on. I've just finished a novel called Demon Copperhead. I don't know if you've read it, but it's brilliant. Absolutely extraordinary and so clever in terms of um the David Copperfield uh alignment. I listen to things when I'm exercising badly in the gym occasionally. I I'm I love I mean I mean I'm originally a literature student, so I like I like poetry. I don't get enough time to read to be honest. It's one of the things if I if I could have a I was going to say a bad habit, but it's not a bad habit. Be very poetry you have in common with Saja Nadella. He's actually the only one we've had on the podcast series who reads poetry or who talks about reading poetry. Well, you know, so it's the two of you. So, I know that I'll have to ask her about it. I definitely can't talk to him about cricket. So, I should ask him about that. When do you wake up in the morning? Early. I'm an early morning person. I mean, by the way, because I travel so much, I don't know whether it's morning or night. I'm I'm and I'm I'm good at sleeping, but normally my alarm is set for five. What is your advice to young people? Last question. Well, first of all, I will answer that question if you answer it. And I would say uh three things. First of all, don't listen to the advice of old people too much. Totally. Um second of all, um you know, we we invented a sort of family motto when the kids were little, which for us was be was and this is probably us just trying to shorthand what parents thought we should do, which would was which which was be kind, be brave, and be truthful. And I still stand by that. probably add um be curious because I think I think to I worry about the pressure that's on young people today who all seem to be worrying about strategizing their careers. I don't know how much strategizing your career did. I said none like literally none. I think my entire work experience was waitressing when I left university and then I just worked really hard at things I thought were really interesting and opportunities arose. I mean like luck was a huge part of it, but I think they put too much pressure on themselves and and and should genuinely be just crazy curious to learn as much as they can in this exciting world at the moment. And then the last thing I would say is I think the title of your podcast, which I'm now going to be very enthusiastic about listening to all the past episodes of, is brilliant. Um because what matters in life is the company you keep. So whether it's personally or professionally, hang out with extraordinary people who teach you a lot and make you laugh, uh, help you get up again when you fall over, um, and stretch you to do more than you ever thought you could do. Well, Dame, Emma, Wly, you are for sure an amazing person and a big thanks for coming here. Well, thank you. That's been such a pleasure. But what about you? You got to tell me the last answer yourself. What do you say to young people? A separate podcast. [Music]