Female Disruptors: Wendy Lund Of Organon On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
The last piece of advice came from a sympathetic CEO male boss I had at the time. I had just gotten divorced, and I was commuting four hours round trip to Manhattan while raising two children. He said to me, “You can’t do this anymore. You have to set up scheduled days to work from home.” This was the best thing that ever happened to me. It relieved an incredible sense of pressure, allowing me to be present and available for my work team and my children. It made me a fierce advocate for people to work wherever they needed to, way before the pandemic. My goal was to have a positive impact on people’s work lives the way he had on mine.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Wendy Lund.
Wendy Lund is a passionate women’s health advocate, adviser and activist with more than 30 years of experience in marketing and communications. After working at Planned Parenthood, the National League of Nursing and some of the country’s leading healthcare communications firms, Wendy joined Organon, the largest women’s health company of its kind. As Chief Communications Officer, she’s working to change how women’s health is approached, treated, shaped and especially talked about.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I feel like all the roads in my career led me to Organon where we have this incredible opportunity to improve the health and lives of women. My awakening to the inequities facing women started at the University of Albany where I majored in women’s studies and history and then continued at NYU where I gained my master’s degree in women’s history.
The spark that ignited in the classroom brought me to Planned Parenthood where I became VP of Marketing. There I learned to fight for what I believe in from some of America’s greatest reproductive rights advocates. It was a role that later led to the National League of Nursing where I championed the lives and livelihoods of nurses who were predominantly women at the time.
Finally I went agency side for the unique opportunities to apply all my skills as a health advocate, adviser and activist. I led GCI Health for 11 years to rise from a boutique healthcare shop into a large, award-winning specialty healthcare communications agency.
The campaigns I’m most proud of encouraged women to put their health first instead of last. One of my favorites was HealthiHer, a movement to give women the tools they need to make that change, whether at home, at work or in their community.
When I made the choice to become Organon’s Chief Communications Officer it was very deliberate. I was so inspired by the company’s vision of creating a better and healthier every day for every woman and their deep commitment to being Here for Her Health.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Organon is the only global women’s health company of its kind. I like to think of us as a unicorn in this space. When we launched last June in the middle of the pandemic, our focus was on more than launching a company. It was really about launching a commitment — a commitment to listen to ALL women and work to meet her unmet healthcare needs.
The women we interviewed explained that they were doing a lot of talking, but no one was listening. So, we launched a listening platform at HereForHerHealth.com and adopted a microphone as our global symbol. Here for Her Health became our rallying cry and one that all our stakeholders could believe in, because health begins when we hear her.
We’re challenging existing norms in the biopharmaceutical industry, putting ourselves in women’s shoes with real empathy in ways no other company has before. Already we’ve made significant progress in identifying areas where women have felt left out of the healthcare equation. Our campaigns reframe how people think about women’s health, moving beyond her reproduction and her uterus, to address the real health needs of women across all life stages.
Visit us on social media and you’ll see we’re unafraid to speak boldly about taboo topics and sensitive issues for Her. On World Contraception Day, for instance, we issued a PSA shining a light on unplanned pregnancies. And for International Women’s Day (IWD) on March 8, our CEO, Kevin Ali, penned an open letter to business leaders encouraging them to adopt initiatives that help women prioritize their health. Organon is also giving its nearly 9,500 global employees around the world time off on IWD, encouraging them to use that day to commit to their own health or the health of the women in their lives.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
At the National League of Nursing early in my career, I remember meeting with our CEO Pamela Maraldo, who was a fierce and effective leader. We were discussing a particular project I was driving, and she asked, “So, what’s the strategy?” to which I stared at her blankly.
Clearly, my background in women’s health studies and my desire to actually one day be a professor, did not include business strategy 101. Pamela promptly ended the meeting and told me to come back when I had a strategy to support my project. Once I did my homework, including consulting with my dad who was a CFO, I quickly realized the importance of marketing with intention and putting in the strategic thought required to achieve the goals at hand. Now, anyone who works with me knows we all need to work strategically.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
Pamela Maraldo, the same woman who opened my eyes to the importance of strategy, made an enduring impact on my career and life. I had the privilege of working with her for more than 13 years and learned so many critical business lessons from her. She taught me that as a woman, you may need to work harder than your male counterparts to get your point of view across, but that with the right level of preparation and organization I had the power to make a positive impact on people’s lives. She was a real change agent and visionary who always encouraged those around her to think bigger than what may be visible on the surface.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
When I think about the word ‘disruption,’ it has different meanings depending on the context. Disruption to spur innovation is great. But disruption just for the sake of creating change is another story altogether. Right now, I think we need to be especially careful when using this word as the pandemic has disrupted almost every aspect of people’s lives.
In healthcare, two examples of positive disruption come to mind. First is the way our industry has embraced digital communications. Given that we were five years behind almost every industry, I’m proud of how quickly we caught up to speed on digital transformation, and in some ways, superseded our own expectations.
Second is the progress we’ve made putting patients at the center of our work. When people started talking about this idea of patient-centricity 10 years ago, there was a lot of talking the talk, but not really walking the walk. Over the last five years, and especially with Covid-19, patients have truly become healthcare companies’ North Star.
I consider what we’re doing at Organon to be a great example of positive disruption. For too long, there has been limited investment in health products and solutions that meet women’s needs. Few companies have dedicated resources to women’s health innovation. But Organon is addressing these challenges head on, reframing how the world thinks about women’s health and filling the biggest gaps in treatment and care, while keeping women at the center of our efforts.
On the flip side, I’ve seen many instances of negative disruption when leaders come into new companies and want to make an immediate mark. Instead of taking the time to listen and understand the needs of the business or customers, some leaders choose to blow everything up instead. When you shake things up so significantly without a clear plan in place, people often become the casualty. That is why it’s so important to only change the things that are really in need of changing. Disruption for the sake of disruption is in nobody’s best interest.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
My dad told me something that has stuck with me throughout my life: “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” This was particularly meaningful because I was someone who saw the world in a thousand colors and took my career very seriously. This advice really motivated me to stay focused on the bigger picture of what I wanted to achieve, while helping me to better manage my stress level.
The second piece of valuable advice came from Gloria Feldt, the former CEO of Planned Parenthood, who said, “Always get the best out of everyone you work with.” I grew up in a more authoritarian world of work, so this advice resonated with me strongly as it gave me the opportunity to see the good in everyone. Treating others with kindness and respect can go such a long way in creating a positive workplace.
The last piece of advice came from a sympathetic CEO male boss I had at the time. I had just gotten divorced, and I was commuting four hours round trip to Manhattan while raising two children. He said to me, “You can’t do this anymore. You have to set up scheduled days to work from home.” This was the best thing that ever happened to me. It relieved an incredible sense of pressure, allowing me to be present and available for my work team and my children. It made me a fierce advocate for people to work wherever they needed to, way before the pandemic. My goal was to have a positive impact on people’s work lives the way he had on mine.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
We are just at the beginning of realizing our vision to create a better and healthier every day for every woman. There’s still a lot to accomplish given the cycle of health inequity and neglect that women have faced for generations.
Moving forward, Organon will definitely raise our level of understanding and acting for women and their unmet needs through education, information, mobilization and calls to action, both internally and externally. We will continue to share all the outrageous facts and findings related to women’s health and especially the ones that have led to deep disparities. For instance, the United States continues to have the highest maternal death rate of all developed countries, especially among women of color. Black women are about three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy or delivery complications than white women.
We will also continue to listen closely to women to deliver solutions for her the way she needs and wants. From menstruation to menopause and beyond reproductive health, there’s a long list of illnesses and conditions with persistent need. We’re putting real muscle behind finding and advancing new medicines — as well as other products — that center on women’s needs, across all life stages and areas of her health.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
While women disruptors are taken more seriously now, I still believe that women have to work twice as hard to prove why transformation and disruption is needed in the first place. Creating disruption to some women may cause issues that they don’t want to take on. And because of how women work, they are more likely to build consensus and prioritize collaboration and creativity. While this is great in some ways, it may also make her more hesitant to do something that creates any negativity or backlash around them.
Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?
I’m going to go with “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” This book gave me the freedom and permission to think and talk about topics like sex and menstruation that were previously unmentionable. In my role as CCO at Organon, it’s incredible to reflect on the power of this book, knowing how much progress we’ve made in demystifying women’s health and how much left we have to go.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
If I could inspire any movement, it would be for women to talk openly and honestly about their health needs. For too long, women have been told to accept and normalize many common conditions, such as heavy, painful, and irregular menstrual bleeding, unplanned pregnancy, incontinence, menopause and many others. It’s time to hit the “unmute” button for women everywhere, break through taboos about our bodies and bust through the myths that hold our health back — from period pain and menopause to the cruelness of infertility.
I want women to think for a minute about themselves and make a commitment to prioritize their health. Whether it’s making a long overdue medical appointment or asking for help at work, women need to stop making their needs secondary.
There are so many health inequities today and Covid has exacerbated this so much. So we need to ask the tough questions and seek out the help we all inevitably need — both physically and for our mental health — as we journey through life. And if we can start to meet some of those healthcare needs, it would do so much to advance the wellness of women and the world. And we need that help to seek out women and make sure they are getting the care they need and deserve. Health is a right, not a privilege.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Build your team before you build your plan” from “You’re CEO, Now What?” I read this when I became the CEO of GCI Health and kept this idea close throughout my career. I truly believe you are only as good as the people around you. The book taught me how important it is to listen and learn from the people surrounding you, be open to hear their advice, understand the bigger needs, and then create your plan around those elements.
How can our readers follow you online?
Connect with me on LinkedIn. I look forward to hearing from you!
Thank you so much for the time you spent doing this interview. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success.
