Sanofi Launches First-in-Pharma Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Board
The first-in-pharma board focuses on building leadership and creating a work environment where employees can bring their whole selves and engage with Sanofi’s diverse communities.
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By - Sanofi recently launched its first-in-pharma Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DE&I) Board to encourage an inclusive and diverse culture that enables breakthrough innovations.
The DE&I strategy focuses on building representative leadership, creating a work environment where employees can bring their whole selves, and engaging with the company’s diverse communities.
In addition, Sanofi will launch a global Employee Resource Group (ERG) framework and five global focused ERGs: Gender+, Generations+, Pride+, Ability+, and Culture and Origins+, which will allow existing local ERGs to scale and grow.
EGRs are critical in supporting members’ professional and personal growth and cultivating a sense of belonging, a Sanofi spokesperson emphasized. Overall, EGRs ensure the company reflects, values, and listens to its diverse employees’ communities.
“We’re committed to driving diversity, equity, and inclusion in Sanofi and beyond. These new initiatives will help us bring the outside in, so we can hear, listen and learn faster, and grow stronger as we continue our DE&I journey,” Paul Hudson, CEO of Sanofi, said in the announcement.
The DE&I Board is composed of eleven members, including seven members from Sanofi’s leadership: Paul Hudson, Natalie Bickford, chief people officer, Olivier Charmeil, head of general medicines, Roy Papatheodorou, general counsel and head of legal, ethics, and business integrity, John Reed, head of research and development, Thomas Triomphe, head of vaccines, and Raj Verma, chief diversity, culture, and experience officer. Verma will chair the DE&I Board.
Notably, the board is the first in the pharmaceutical industry to feature outside advisors, including Jon Amaechi, organizational psychologist and best-selling author, Caroline Casey, award-winning social entrepreneur, and Rohini Anand, MD, DE&I pioneer and thought-leader.
Overall, the DE&I Board will ensure Sanofi’s strategy is rightly executed, monitor progress on the company’s 2025 targets, and advise on how to boost the company’s impact in this space.
“I am thrilled to join Sanofi’s DE&I Board as it affords me an opportunity to influence the critical need to address health care disparities globally. I am motivated to support Sanofi as it seeks to foster an equitable and inclusive culture that enables breakthrough innovations because it is the desired destination for diverse talent,” Anand stated.
I am impressed by the authenticity and humility with which the leadership approaches DE&I and its willingness and openness to learn from external thought leaders,” he concluded.
