GSK’s Maya Martinez-Davis On How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Enhances ability to understand and meet needs of customers: As a result of listening to our employees, we knew a long time ago that clinical trial diversity would become more and more critical to the future of pharma. GSK’s Global Demographics and Diversity team looks at the demographics of the people involved in clinical trials to ensure we are enabling participation from a variety of patient populations impacted by a respective disease. This team has played a pivotal role in ensuring populations disproportionately affected by certain diseases are properly represented in research for respective treatments. We’ve also partnered with our LGBTQ+ ERG to gain a better understanding of appropriate questions around gender and identity for clinical research.

As a part of our series about “How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Maya Martinez-Davis.

Maya Martinez-Davis joined GSK in September 2019 to lead the $20B+ pharmaceuticals and vaccines businesses in the US and Puerto Rico as President of US Pharmaceuticals. Since joining, Maya has played a pivotal role in the launch and commercial execution of a number of innovative medicines. Her leadership of the U.S. Pharmaceutical business will be vital as GSK splits into two new companies and aims to achieve £33bn per year in sales by 2031.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive into the main part of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you share a bit of your “backstory” with us?

I joined GSK in 2019 as President of U.S. pharmaceuticals. Prior to that, I spent two decades leading people, energizing teams, and delivering on strategy to expand oncology and vaccine markets in the US, Latin America, and beyond.

What my vita doesn’t immediately show is that I haven’t just moved up the ladder throughout these last 20 years. I’ve taken both lateral moves and stretch roles — both of which have enabled me to build my interests and capabilities, not just my resume. For example, early in my career, after spending 15 years in oncology, I took the leap into a new therapeutic area. It was uncomfortable at first — but growth usually is. This move gave me the confidence and the capabilities I needed to make other moves — all steppingstones that have led me to where I am today.

The most important takeaway from my backstory is that growth can be defined differently. There isn’t one easy-to-follow road map — it’s different for everyone.

Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us the lesson or take away you took out of that story?

During my business travels to various countries including Korea, Senegal, Japan, and Brazil, I often was faced with situations where I had to quickly assimilate or follow a local practice. I learned during these visits to nurture a sensitivity and acceptance to local cultures and customs and to appreciate the diversity of these experiences.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you tell us a story about how that was relevant in your own life?

“Look for opportunities, position everything as a positive, and explore areas that are less comfortable.”

This quote is relevant and timely for several reasons. The COVID-19 Pandemic has affected everyone differently. It’s fair to say that none of us have experienced a crisis of this magnitude before, and we most certainly weren’t prepared for this. We’ve been forced to re-learn how to live, how to work, how to be there for our family and friends, how to help in our communities and how to be leaders when people need us. There have been moments when many of us have struggled with finding a sense of purpose, stability, and positivity during these turbulent times. We’ve also experienced feelings of hope, fear, anxiety, pride, and panic all at the same time.

Professionally, my team and I have turned the pandemic into an opportunity to grow, learn, and work differently under uncomfortable circumstances. We collaborate better to support each other and find solutions, we work smarter, and we’ve learned to stay motivated by reminding one another why our work is so important and how our role of bringing together people and science contributes to our shared purpose.

On a personal level, we’ve learned to focus on and feed into feelings of hope and positivity, set boundaries to create a better work/life balance, and prioritize what is truly important (e.g., loved ones, mental health). I’ve even encouraged my team members to do something positive every day, whether it be for themselves or others. One simple act makes a difference and really does take your glass from half empty to half full.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?

My father is the person I will always be grateful toward. Throughout his life, he showered me with unconditional love and support and encouraged me to be anyone I wanted to be. My father always gave me positive encouragement.

As an only daughter with two older brothers, he really encouraged me to be the best person I could be and to never forget my values.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

It’s an exciting time to be at GSK as we have embarked on the Herculean task of a company demerger, which is essentially a spinoff of our consumer health brands arm from our pharmaceutical and vaccine business.

Major changes like this tend to shed light on a company’s culture. This transformation has revealed the unique level of open-mindedness, inclusiveness, and transparency that differentiates GSK’s culture from that of other companies.

Our leaders have not only been incredibly transparent and communicative throughout the two-year transition process — but they’ve also looked to our associates for different ideas and input on how to use this pivotal time to empower our people and ultimately, enhance our ability to respond to the differing needs of our patients and consumers.

I attribute our unique culture to two things: our passionate employees that bring unique and diverse perspectives and experiences to their work, and our supportive leaders who truly recognize that business success results from diversity of knowledge, abilities, and experiences.

Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?

We’re currently working to increase diversity within our company, as well as across the larger healthcare industry.

In March 2021, GSK set new aspirations for gender and ethnically diverse representation in senior roles in the UK and US by the end of 2025. We are on track to reach our 2025 targets, which is a result of our newly developed requirements for diverse shortlists for senior vacancies, ethnic diversity development programs and diversity targets for early talent programs.

One of the early talent diversity programs we’re involved with is the HBCU (historically black colleges and universities) Partnership Challenge, which was created by Congresswoman Alma S. Adams, Ph.D., to encourage more companies to create strategic recruitment partnerships with our nation’s HBCUs. In support of this initiative, we recently announced a US Medical Fellowship Program in partnership with Howard University and are working on developing a Legal fellowship program for students at HBCUs while simultaneously recruiting students from more than 15 HBCUs for 2022 Co-Ops and Internships.

We’re also investing in several initiatives to help diversify the healthcare industry. We joined the Philadelphia STEM Ecosystem and Philadelphia Education Fund to launch the Philadelphia STEM Equity Collective, which aims to increase the number of Black, Latinx and women Philadelphians in STEM careers. We’ve also committed to donating $10 million in grants over the next 10 years to support initiatives focused on STEM equity in Philadelphia.

GSK has had one of its best years yet in 2021. I truly believe this is in part due to our focus on DEI. Not only is prioritizing diversity and inclusion the right way to do business, but it will also be a critical factor determining continued future success within GSK as well as the larger industry.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I’ve used my success to make the world a better place for underrepresented and underserved populations in two major ways:

• I’ve used my position as a Latina woman leading GSK’s pharmaceutical and vaccine business in the U.S. to mentor and inspire others to pursue their aspirations. I’ve participated in conferences, such as the Pennsylvania Conference for Women, to share tips and advice based on my experience as a minority woman climbing the corporate ladder. I’ve been a voice for DEI and community partnership initiatives at GSK and other companies where I’ve worked to help promote diversity on an industry-wide scale
• I’ve also played a critical role in expanding access to medications that disproportionately affect Black and Brown patients as well as women. During my first few years at GSK, I’ve led the rollout of life-changing specialty drugs for ovarian and endometrial cancers. A few of GSK’s latest and upcoming therapeutics, like Benlysta and sotrovimab, also treat diseases that primarily disproportionately affect Black and Brown patients. For context, Benlysta is the first and only biologic approved for both the chronic autoimmune disease systemic lupus erythematosus and lupus nephritis (the kidney inflammation caused by lupus), and sotrovimab is a monoclonal antibody treatment for COVID-19 launched under emergency use authorization. Through my work at GSK and other companies, I’ve helped expand access to life-saving therapies in Latin America, developing countries and underserved areas within the United States.

Ok. Thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main part of our interview. This may be obvious to you, but it is not intuitive to many people. Can you articulate to our readers five ways that increased diversity can help a company’s bottom line.

1. Results in happier employees who are more passionate and likely to stick around: People want to work for a company where they can bring their authentic selves to work and feel like a valuable asset for doing so. We’ve received a lot of positive feedback on our Employee Resource Groups (ERG), which are inclusive groups covering many dimensions of diversity and which allow members to share ideas, views, and perspectives. They serve as a platform for employees to spearhead company partnerships, enhance leadership capabilities, educate their peers, push for new policies, as well as contribute to important business initiatives and decisions. Our ERG members are some of our most talented, innovative, and hardworking employees. We often tap our ERGs to help with business initiatives and ERG members are encouraged to implement their unique experiences, identities and ideas into their own work and roles.
2. Enhances ability to understand and meet needs of customers: As a result of listening to our employees, we knew a long time ago that clinical trial diversity would become more and more critical to the future of pharma. GSK’s Global Demographics and Diversity team looks at the demographics of the people involved in clinical trials to ensure we are enabling participation from a variety of patient populations impacted by a respective disease. This team has played a pivotal role in ensuring populations disproportionately affected by certain diseases are properly represented in research for respective treatments. We’ve also partnered with our LGBTQ+ ERG to gain a better understanding of appropriate questions around gender and identity for clinical research.
3. Evolves outdated methods and policies to attract future talent: Individuals’ lived experiences bring unique perspectives that can improve the quality of a workplace and ultimately attract forward-thinking talent. For example, we tapped a few of our ERGs to brainstorm tangible ways to accomplish our gender and ethnically diverse representation aspirations for 2025, which I discussed earlier. They’ve shared ideas and enhancements that included some of the initiatives I also shared earlier, such as requirements for diverse shortlists for senior vacancies, enhanced ethnic diversity development programs and diversity targets for early talent programs. Our LGBTQ+ ERG has also played a pivotal role in helping create equitable policies in areas such as health benefits and building access, which most recently resulted in installing gender neutral bathrooms in several offices across the country.
4. Equips companies to address real-world issues: Over the last few years, our employees have often spoken up and expressed interest in partaking in conversations around key issues such as racial injustice, the effects of conscious and unconscious bias in society, and the pandemic. As a result, GSK created internal opportunities for engagement through open “Listening Session” forums where employees felt safe to share, learn, reflect and come together. For those who may have not realized the impact of these external issues on their colleagues, it fostered a growing sense of awareness. These types of discussions spark actions and lend more energy to our DEI efforts and reinforce the need to implement impactful change.
5. Leads to more authentic charitable giving agenda, and ultimately enhanced reputation: Consumers are starting to pay more attention to companies’ charitable efforts and whether they are driving positive outcomes for communities where their customers and employees live and work. Our US Charitable Investments team invest our charitable funds with nonprofit partners focused on improving educational and career outcomes for students in STEM from groups that are traditionally under-represented in STEM fields. We hope these investments will support the long-term talent pipeline for our industry and beyond.

What advice would you give to other business leaders to help their employees to thrive?

A successful business leader empowers their employees to do the best possible job they can, not only for the sake of bettering the company, but for their employee’s own professional growth. To do this, a leader should:

1. Cultivate a culture that thrives on diverse talent and unique perspectives. The most successful leaders encourage their employees to share unique points of views and experiences and apply that to their own work. This will lead to new ideas, innovative solutions and ultimately address the evolving needs of the targeted markets. Plus, your employees will feel valued for being true to their unique identities, experiences, and points of views.
2. Implement an open-door policy. Encourage team members to come to you if they need support or have a question about an assignment. Make sure they know it’s okay not to know everything or ask for help. Asking questions and asking for support leads to further growth and learning, and in many cases, better business results.
3. Encourage curiosity. Have your team reach out to other business partners to understand what they’re working on. For example, if your team is in sales, encourage them to learn about initiatives that the communications team is working on. This will help them understand the business better, expand their network and give them a new perspective on their work — all of which could help them do their job better.
4. Pass along career development opportunities (inside or outside the company) to your employees. As I mentioned earlier, career development does not just mean promotions or climbing up the ladder, but it also includes lateral moves that bring employees different capabilities to keep pace with the ever-changing external world.

What advice would you give to other business leaders about how to manage a large team?

It’s important that every single one of your employees understands how their own day-to-day work contributes to your team’s role in fulfilling the company’s larger purpose, goals and priorities. I constantly remind my team of why our work is so important and how it contributes to our company’s larger purpose — ultimately, providing medicines to patients that need them.

At GSK, each person and team has clear values and expectations and we put them at the heart of everything we do. We have incentives, meetings, reviews, and other unique resources that help our people map out how their individual roles and teams are helping the greater company and, ultimately, the patient. These resources help our people at GSK realize how their work aligns with our three long-term priorities: Innovation, Performance, Trust.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this :-)

There are so many, but if I were to think about one, it would be Rafael Nadal. He is someone I admire not only because of his amazing talent for playing tennis, (I am an enthusiastic tennis player) but his behaviors on the court, and his family values. For me, he represents strength, respect, and tenacity.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

You can follow me on LinkedIn. You can follow GSK on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Thank you for these excellent insights. We wish you continued success in your great work.