THE BUSINESS CHIEF INTERVIEW

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DIDN’ T LIKE WORKING FOR BILL ANDERSON? It’ s an admission we find hard to believe. This is, after all, the man at the helm of one of the world’ s most influential life science companies, navigating it through one of its most radical transformations yet, and the chief proponent of‘ Dynamic Shared Ownership’ – a leadership model centred around trust, empathy and empowerment. But then, we all have to begin somewhere.“ I realised that simply applying the skills I’ d gained as an individual contributor across various functions wasn’ t enough,” says Anderson of his first move into leadership, and that awkward realisation. A chemical engineer by trade with a Double Master’ s from MIT in Chemical Engineering and Management, Anderson spent his early years at US-based fuel additives firm Ethyl Corporation, before a move to Raychem Corporation. He later spent nine years at US multinational biotech firm Biogen between 1997 and 2006, rising from finance manager to Vice President and GM of its neurology unit. In 2006 he joined Genentech, later part of Roche, eventually becoming its CEO in 2017.

2019 to 2022, Anderson served as CEO of Roche Pharmaceuticals division.“ It was uncomfortable realising people didn’ t like working for me, but that became a turning point,” Anderson says.“ I had to rethink what leadership actually is. I learned that it requires a completely different set of capabilities. You have to learn how to be a good boss – it took me three to four years. During that time, I checked in with my team regularly and asked for honest feedback. It changed how I lead, and how I define success.”

Dynamic shared ownership Today Anderson is renowned for his innovative approach to leadership. The skills he learned over that three to four year period and his successive years in leadership became the blueprint for his current and ongoing radical restructuring of Bayer, designed to dismantle traditional corporate bureaucracy and shift the company towards a more agile, people driven model more akin to a startup than a 160-year old science firm.“ Early in my career, working in smaller companies we made visible progress,” says Anderson, discussing how he learned the importance of agility and letting go of legacy processes. businesschief. com

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