Selected work

Six mandates, measured by what changed

Each case below follows the same structure: the business problem, the approach and the people involved, the results, and what the work demonstrates. Figures are drawn from programmes led directly at Sandoz and Novartis.

Crisis leadership · Sandoz

Defending a biosimilar under safety scrutiny

Challenge

Negative coverage in the medical press questioned the safety of a multiple sclerosis biosimilar. Left unanswered, the claims risked prescriber confidence, regulatory follow-up questions, analyst concern and a share-price reaction for a newly listed company.

Approach & solution

I designed and ran a three-tier response. Tier one contained the issue in the originating market with rapid, factual local rebuttal. Tier two validated the science externally, mobilising key opinion leaders and regulatory data to reinforce the biosimilarity evidence with journals and specialist media. Tier three aligned the organisation internally up to Board level, with a single approved position, briefed spokespeople and a clear escalation path. Medical, regulatory, legal, investor relations and commercial worked from one playbook and one message house.

Results

100% pull-through of the Sandoz position across top-tier outlets, including the BMJ. No analyst commentary and no share-price impact. The response model became the reference template for subsequent product issues.

Conclusion

The project demonstrates the discipline that separates crisis management from crisis reaction: containment, scientific validation and Board-level alignment executed simultaneously rather than sequentially.

Corporate transactions · Sandoz

Communicating a spin-off and stock-exchange listing

Challenge

Separating from Novartis and listing on the SIX Swiss Exchange required Sandoz to establish an independent identity and equity story overnight — for investors, employees, customers, regulators and media, in dozens of markets at once.

Approach & solution

I built the business communications strategy that carried the separation: a global narrative connecting the generics and biosimilars portfolio to the equity story, executive messaging and speeches for the CEO and Chief Commercial Officer, earnings and Board-level communications, and a media-and-channel plan that kept the company consistent across every touchpoint. I introduced AI-enabled content development to compress drafting cycles during the peak period, and stood up a communications business-partner model so each business unit and global function had dedicated senior counsel.

Results

A consistent 'one voice' across corporate channels and executive platforms through listing and the first earnings cycles, with milestone messaging landing intact in top-tier business and trade media.

Conclusion

A demonstration of enterprise-scale narrative architecture: the ability to hold one story steady while an organisation changes owner, structure and audience at the same time.

Reputation recovery · Novartis Japan

Rebuilding trust in Japan after a compliance crisis

Challenge

A major compliance crisis had damaged Novartis' standing in its third-largest pharmaceutical market. The organisation was in a defensive crouch, media relations were reactive, and stakeholders — regulators, physicians, patient groups — had little reason to engage.

Approach & solution

I led external relations for the recovery, working directly with the executive team to map reputation risks and opportunities and to convert them into a proactive engagement plan. That meant re-establishing routine, credible contact with journalists, creating patient advocacy and social media functions from scratch for priority disease areas, and coordinating commercial, medical and executive leadership behind a shared standard of transparency. I built and managed a team of seven and coached senior leaders for public-facing roles.

Results

The organisation shifted from reactive defence to proactive stakeholder engagement, with functioning advocacy and digital channels where none had existed and a re-established voice in the Japanese healthcare debate.

Conclusion

Reputation recovery is an operating change, not a campaign. This project shows the capacity to rebuild trust in a culturally complex market while holding leadership to a higher standard of openness.

Change communications · Novartis

Carrying a USD 500m productivity transformation

Challenge

A global business-services organisation of 12,500 employees had to deliver USD 500m in productivity over three years. Programmes of this kind typically cost engagement, trust and talent as roles, processes and reporting lines are rebuilt.

Approach & solution

As Vice President and Global Head of Communications, I owned internal, external and digital communications for the organisation and reported into an Executive Committee member. I built a change narrative that explained the economics honestly, sequenced announcements so managers were briefed before their teams, and used listening data to steer the plan rather than confirm it. In parallel I redesigned my own function — a 30-plus team across five global service centres and Basel — into a new operating model, and coached leaders through the moments where credibility was most exposed.

Results

USD 500m in productivity delivered over three years with associate engagement maintained in line with benchmark, and engagement inside the communications organisation stabilised above benchmark after the restructure.

Conclusion

Evidence that transformation communications, done with candour and cadence, protects the human capital a programme depends on while the numbers are delivered.

Policy & advocacy · Sandoz

Putting biosimilar access on the political agenda

Challenge

Patients across Europe, the United States and Japan face avoidable barriers to lower-cost biosimilar medicines. Policy-makers understood the cost argument but not the systemic obstacles — and industry voices risked being dismissed as self-interested.

Approach & solution

I built an evidence-led advocacy programme rather than a lobbying push. With IQVIA as an independent data partner, I convened a 90-minute satellite symposium at the World Health Summit in Berlin bringing healthcare stakeholders together on access barriers, then launched the resulting report at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference to reach investors and industry. Around it, I ran policy-maker roundtables at EU, US and Japanese parliamentary and authority level on intellectual property, the urban wastewater treatment directive, biosimilar access and European supply-chain resilience, and secured partnership visibility with Politico, the Washington Post and Nikkei — including a Washington-based media event on cutting red tape for biosimilars.

Results

430 registrations for the Berlin symposium, exceeding awareness and engagement KPIs across all channels, plus a published report and sustained top-tier policy media coverage in three regions.

Conclusion

The work shows how to earn a hearing in policy circles: independent data, genuine multi-stakeholder convening, and a narrative disciplined enough to be consistent from Berlin to Washington to Tokyo.

Market access & government affairs · Novartis

Winning the value argument for a cardiovascular launch in Germany

Challenge

A heart-failure medicine entering Germany faced the AMNOG early benefit assessment, where reimbursement and price depend on demonstrating added benefit to payers and the G-BA — while physicians and patients needed to understand a new treatment paradigm.

Approach & solution

I led government-affairs and policy engagement for the launch, building value and reimbursement messaging for government and payer stakeholders and aligning it with physician- and consumer-facing campaigns so every audience heard a coherent story. I engaged parliamentarians and patient advocacy organisations early, coordinated closely with market access and medical affairs, and acted as company spokesperson through the assessment period.

Results

Treatment initiation for more than 1,000 patients in the product's first week on the German market, with a value narrative that held across payer negotiations and public debate.

Conclusion

Commercial outcomes and policy credibility are the same conversation in Germany. This project demonstrates fluency in both — and the ability to translate clinical value into terms payers, politicians and patients each accept.

Next step

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