Women’s History Month is a time to commemorate and celebrate the vital role of women in American history. At Eisai, the month also provides a perfect opportunity to spotlight three of our women site heads who lead our U.S. R&D and manufacturing sites. Each site head has overcome challenges to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and they are making significant contributions to our company and a difference in the lives of patients and care partners who depend on us.
The Power of Mentorship
Janna Hutz, Ph.D., is President of our Center for Genetics Guided Dementia Discovery (G2D2) and Head of the Microenvironment Dynamics Domain within Eisai’s Deep Human Biology Learning (DHBL) based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Janna leads one of our drug discovery units targeting Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases as well as cancer. Throughout her career, she has been fortunate to have women managers who have served as mentors, helping her to not only expand her scientific knowledge, but also help her develop the confidence, communication and leadership skills that make her such a valued leader in our company.
“I'm really thankful for all the women who have paved the way in earlier generations to make our workplace what it is now,” said Janna. “Eisai is a wonderful place for growth and development for women, where we have built a culture that encourages them to challenge conventional ways of thinking, to expand their responsibilities and become amazing leaders.”
Generational Inspiration
Likewise, Joye Bramble, Vice President, Biopharmaceutical Development, Pharmaceutical Science and Technology, Pharmaceutical Profiling and Development, DHBL, and site head in Exton, Pennsylvania, leads a team that develops processes and analytical methods, as well as manufactures and tests biologics targeting cancer or neurodegenerative diseases.
From the start of her career, Joye had the desire to work in a field that offered solutions for patients with unmet needs. She understood that patients and care partners are both affected by diseases like cancer and it’s vital to support, not only patients, but everyone affected by the disease. Throughout her life, Joye has looked to resilient women to motivate and inspire her both professionally and personally. For example, Joye often credits her grandmother for fostering her strength and wisdom. As a widow and single mother raising her children during the Great Depression, Joye’s grandmother serves as the perfect representation of a strong woman who was able to achieve incredible things through perseverance, resilience and commitment. “It’s this same approach that has guided me in my work,” Joye noted. “Historically, there haven’t been too many women in engineering, but that’s changed, and I like to take what I’ve learned as a leader and help the next generation seize new opportunities and believe in themselves. The only person holding them back is themselves.”
Building Meaningful Relationships
Trudy T. Burke is Global Lead Gliadel Demand Chain & Baltimore Site Head. As a child, Trudy was interested in manufacturing and engineering which stemmed from her fascination with how different functions come together to produce a product. For Trudy, a key to her early success as an engineer was to build relationships and get to know the people she worked with. Through mentorship programs, Trudy and Joye had the opportunity to coach and connect with women from other Eisai facilities. These meaningful work relationships helped her overcome the challenges of being a woman in a male-dominated field by providing a support system that lets her passion for the work shine through. Recently, she has worked directly with Joye and Janna to collaborate on specific issues related to each of their sites. Together they have found innovative solutions to enhance their site’s performance and results and share best practices. Trudy embraces the support and camaraderie between her fellow site heads and other women leaders to help build a positive culture of women supporting other women at Eisai.
“As someone who started her career at a time when there weren’t many women in engineering roles, I know that we really need to support each other” Trudy said. “There's enough success to go around, and I truly believe that support systems need to be in place to drive that success and give them an opportunity to see what a future in STEM could look like.”
Supporting Women Through human health care (hhc) Activities & Beyond
As part of our hhc activities, Joye and members of the Exton site partnered with Unite for HER to better understand the oncology patient experience. Unite for HER works to ensure that every person with breast or ovarian cancer feels the support of a loving community and has access to comprehensive education, services and tools that enrich their health and well-being. Joining forces provided a unique opportunity for our employees to listen to and learn from breast and ovarian cancer survivors. Based on these interactions, employees develop ideas that we could pursue to better address the varied needs of people living with breast and ovarian cancer.
Additionally, Janna emphasized the impact of activities that have been organized at the Cambridge site to improve work-life balance and to invite and spotlight female leaders from across the global organization. These activities enabled Cambridge colleagues to see examples of successful career journeys for women leaders and also helped colleagues raise their business acumen by learning more about functions not represented in Cambridge. Since the inception of efforts like these, the team has seen increases in the percentage of female leaders at all levels of the organization, and the current site leadership team in Cambridge is approximately 50% female.
Most recently, Trudy and members of our Baltimore site attended the “Women Making a Difference for Maryland” event, which celebrated women in manufacturing, recognized their impact on Maryland’s economy and encouraged local young women to pursue manufacturing careers. The event is led by the Regional Manufacturing Institute of Maryland in close partnership with the Maryland Manufacturing Extension Partnership. Trudy and nine members from our Baltimore site team were proud to host six students from an all-girls polytechnic institute in Baltimore at their event tables. The team answered questions about their career journeys in manufacturing and provided advice on navigating professional life as a woman in the pharmaceutical world.
We are extremely proud of the women in leadership roles at Eisai today and their contributions to our success. Janna, Joye, Trudy and other female leaders within Eisai are leading the way for future women leaders in the industry and enhancing our culture of collaboration by working together across functions and sites.
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