Life Science Leaders on the Future of Diversity and Inclusion
by Leah Kinthaert
On a warm evening in Boston this September, over one hundred professionals in the life sciences industry got together to talk about diversity in the workforce – including diversity of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability and age - at Biotech Week Boston’s “An Evening of Diversity and Inclusion.”
Why an event devoted to diversity in the life sciences? In their whitepaper: “Impacting the Bottom Line: Strategies and Case Studies on Diversity from Leading Life Sciences Organizations”, KNect365 Life Sciences explains the importance of diversity: “diversity… in the life sciences industry is key to driving not only profitability for a company but in creating novel ideas and advancing innovation.”
In a sector which is completely reliant on innovation to exist and thrive, diversity is much more than a buzzword, it’s a survival strategy.
Listen to an audio recording of the diversion and inclusion panel session.
When you take a look at the current landscape, making life science organizations diverse is set to be a huge challenge. In Massachusetts, a location of one of the top Life Sciences clusters in the world, a MassBio report showed that “men hold 76 percent of all C-suite positions in life science companies across the state. Additionally, the report showed that men hold 86 percent of board seats as well.” And in “a survey of the 20 largest biotech companies in the Bay Area, the San Francisco Business Times reported that 86 percent of boards of director seats were held by men.” So nights like the one Biotech Week Boston is putting on, where professionals ask questions like: “What does a diverse life science industry look like? What will it take to get there? And who is doing it well and how are they doing it?” are key.
Men hold 76% of all C-suite positions in life science companies across Massachusetts and 86% of board seats as well.”
In “a survey of the 20 largest biotech companies in the Bay Area, the San Francisco Business Times reported that 86 percent of boards of director seats were held by men.”
The industry is slowly making strides, and the change has come due to commitments from leadership to make diversity a priority, not a “nice to have”. The organization BIO, for example, established a workforce development, diversity and inclusion committee which successfully increased diversity on their Board, while the organization MassBio has made a pledge for their leaders to refuse to sit on all-male panels, and they will not hold any events where there are all-male panels. Additionally at MassBio: “50% of all the new board members being elected at … (their 2018) Annual Meeting were women.”
Employee resource groups have been one very effective way to shatter the glass ceiling. Vertex, Genentech and AbbVie all offer Employee Resource Groups. Vertex’ various networks for diversity have brought huge success with: “51% women in its workforce and 38% of women in senior leadership positions”; they’ve also enabled Vertex to be ranked #5 in diversity at Forbes. Genentech’s wide range of diversity network associations has given them the accolades of “10 awards in diversity and inclusion in the past three years”. Employee resource networks are particularly important because while some organizations succeed in hiring diverse candidates, often those candidates fall through the cracks when it comes time for promotions.
With an introduction by Wendy Nelson, CEO and President, of our sister organization Leading Biotech and Karyn Polito Lt. Governor, Government of Massachusetts, the theme throughout was biotech and pharma taking responsibility for the adoption of diversity and inclusion; this continued through the panel discussion “Diversity 2050” which featured Sarah MacDonald, Executive Director, Life Science Cares; Joanne Duncan - President, Membership and Business Operations Division, BIO, Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO); Nadeem Sarwar - President, Eisai Center for Genetics Guided Dementia Discovery (G2D2), Eisai Inc.; and Edie Stringfellow, Director of Diversity and Inclusion, MassBio.
Massachusetts Lt. Governor Karyn Polito advised that improving workforce diversity needs to start as early as high school: “Our challenge is, we’ve got this incredible economy that is continuing to grow…but at the same time…we have this (skills) gap that continues to grow...”. She continued: “how do we make it equitable that gateway cities and neighborhoods of color can get into pipelines that lead to (higher-paying careers)? For women and communities of color, we should be accessing jobs that pay more – the human development piece of this is how to help students early on be relevant and add value to that workplace.” Polito explained that Massachusetts has put $62 Million into its education system to make that happen.
During the panel discussion, Edie Stringfellow gave an impassioned plea to the audience which was extremely moving:
Stringfellow then gave an example of what could be a gloomy future for retaining a talented workforce in Boston because of our bad (non-inclusive) reputation: ”An Atlanta based company was hesitant to move to Boston, (they said) there are other places that are more welcoming. There are other areas watching us, we can’t blame (if we don’t continue to grow at a biotech cluster) on $100 a square foot.”
Later in the evening, multiple roundtable discussions were led by:
• Carolina Alarco, President, Global Marketing and International Markets, Novelion Therapeutics • Denise Barrant, Steering Committee Member, The Color of Biotech Massachusetts • Linda Blackerby, President, Pharma Intelligence; • Erica Colonero, Partner & Co-Founder, VisionSpring, Inc; • Erin Cowhig, Vice President, Human Resources, Vertex Pharmaceuticals; • Diala Ezzeddine, President and CEO, Xios Therapeutics; • Jeffrey Herrera, Manager, Diversity and Inclusion Program, Biogen; • Felicia Jadczak, Co-CEO | Diversity and Inclusion Leader, She+ Geeks Out; • Ramsey Johnson - Founder, OUTBio; José Juves , Vice President of Public Affairs, Wave Life Sciences; • Patrick LeRoy, Scientist, Takeda Pharmaceuticals; • Yolla Levitt, Vice President and General Manager of Separation and Purification Sciences Division (SPSD), 3M; • Marie Muniz, Associate Director, Global Marketing and Commercial Strategy, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals; and • Rita Smith, Director, Human Resources, AbbVie.
LeadersIn was able to sit in on two amazing discussions, the first led by Denise Barrant of The Color of Biotech: “Meaningful conversations across racial differences, the second led by Felicia Jadczak: “Creating an environment that effectively develops diverse talent”. It is uncanny that the same points came up with both groups, with totally different people on the opposite sides of the room. It was a safe space, so we will not direct quote anyone but the moderators here; there were HR and executives from some of the largest pharmaceutical firms in the world, it was pretty amazing.
The discussion at “Conversations across racial differences” went as such: “Why are we still having this conversation (about race) 25 years later? We need to build a culture of trust, with safe spaces. Open floor plans take away safe spaces personal space. Studies show they’re not better, they simply save companies money.”
An executive from one Massachusetts organization who works with diversity described some of her frustrations with smaller biotech firms: “I know you’re small, but you need to start thinking about diversity. Why does everybody’s last name look like yours with these interns? Are you all related? Some of these people are hiring who they’re comfortable with, who look like them, speak the same language.“
At Felica Jadzak’s table, the conversation went like this: Jadzak told the story of how a woman with Tourette’s (a neurological disorder) who recounted her experience at job interviews. ”If I see they have access for wheelchairs, are in tune with some sort of disability awareness, I feel comfortable. If not, I know this place is probably not going to be good for me.”
Another pharma employee talked about how a high-level exec at her firm came out about his bout with alcoholism rehabilitation, he showed great vulnerability in doing so. “That is what we need to see, a more vulnerable, more human C- Level.” Again similar opinions were shared:
A discussion came up on employee surveys, and not one person in this group of fairly large and well-known pharma and biotech companies could recall a survey that ever mentioned issues around diversity and inclusion. It was a mixed group, men and women, black, white, Latin American, Asian, and everyone asked the same question: “Our company surveys, are they asking about diversity issues? Who does what with that feedback? How can we most effectively use it?” “
And so closed Biotech Week Boston “Evening of Diversity and Inclusion”. Our take away from the experience: No real change will happen until companies address diversity and inclusion throughout the employee lifecycle, from job descriptions to the interviewing process, professional development and promotions. Events like these, where people come together to share ideas and experiences, are a great way to begin to learn how to implement change.
