ACS Boss Talk

Industry executives say these are top 5 skills to advance your career

Larry Hamann, Global Head, Drug Discovery Sciences at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, shares how the premature death of a parent influenced his leadership style, why optimism is central to his outlook, and the most important thing for early career research team members to accomplish in their first five years with his company

Seva Rostovtsev, Director of Discovery Chemistry, FMC Agricultural Solutions, explains the benefits of greater public investment in agricultural research, the biggest challenge confronting farmers that the public doesn’t fully appreciate, and the non-technical skills he highly values among his scientists

Jason Harcup, Unilever’s Global Vice President for Skin Care Research & Development, explains how his company plans to eliminate carbon emissions from its own operations by 2030. Jason also shares some details on how Unilever develops and retains young talent, and his plans to write a book on the Science and Technology of Skin Care (or not write it – Jason explains)

Robert Reiter, Bayer’s Head of R&D, Crop Science, talks about how collaboration has changed at Bayer in the last year, how Bayer Crop Science is arming farmers with critical data accessible through their smart phones, and the connection between the company’s Carbon Farming Initiative and its commitment to sustainability

Bonnie Charpentier, Senior VP of Regulatory and Compliance at Cytokinetics, Inc., forecasts how clinical trials may change in the wake of the pandemic, argues for more federal R&D research spending, and explains three critical career decisions

Corning’s Christine Heckle, Research Director, Inorganic Materials Research & Asia Research Labs, explains why the company introduced a new material for Apple’s iPhone 12, why she thinks advances in materials science in the next 15 years will eclipse those from the last 15, and how a Wuhan-based Corning factory gave the company some valuable early information on how to manage the pandemic in its other global facilities

Dow’s Global Director of Digitalization, Billy Bardin, explains digitalization in a remarkably clear terms: What it is, why it has the attention of industry leaders, and perhaps most importantly, how it will impact your future

Chuck Crawford, the Chief Innovation Officer at GOJO Industries - which manufactures Purell - discusses how the company has responded to the unprecedented demand for its product, and why the future of hand hygiene will never be the same

Mark Noe, Pfizer’s Vice President of Discovery Sciences, has had a ringside seat as Pfizer, and its partner, BioNTech, developed and rolled-out their COVID-19 vaccine. Mark takes us behind the scenes to help us better understand how the vaccine came to be

Amy Ripka, CEO, Lucy Therapeutics, explains how playing the violin professionally is great training for drug discovery work, why she rejects the command and control approach modeled by many biotech CEOs, and explains how climate science and ecology may contribute to a cure for Alzheimer’s

Karin Briner, VP, Global Discovery Chemistry with Novartis, explains how the work conducted in the pharma industry has changed in the wake of the pandemic, and additional changes she projects for the future

Victor Aguilar, P&G’s Chief Research, Development and Innovation Officer, talks about what he has learned about innovation, P&G’s efforts toward more sustainable packaging, and what fuels his passion for diversity and inclusion in the workplace

As part of our ACS Boss Talk feature in 2020, we posed hundreds of questions to leading industry executives. Here are some of the most interesting responses we received last year

Fourteen industry executives reveal how their parents shaped the type of leaders they are today