Cross-Pollination and DEI Strategies with Ben Osborn

Sabine Hutchison
Welcome to another episode of Cut the Chat. I'm Sabine Hutchison, and today we're delving into a topic that resonates throughout our industry, regardless of the size of the organization. We're exploring the intricate landscape of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and its dynamic interplay within the pharmaceutical and biotech realms. We often associate DE&I with gender. However, there are a multitude of topics that should be considered: religion, family status, education, nationality, or work background, to name a few. The DE&I landscape is vast, intricate, and undeniably crucial. It's a concept that's embraced by many pharmaceutical giants, and can be considered a nice-to-have by smaller biotech organizations. But why is that? And what can the smaller, innovative, agile biotechs learn from large pharmaceutical strategies?
In this episode, we'll unravel the nuances of DE&I, navigating through the contrasting perspectives that exist within our industry. We'll explore how DE&I is much more than a buzzword — it's a philosophy that can enrich the very fabric of our organizations, regardless of size.
As we embark on this journey, we'll draw inspiration from the commitment of the pharmaceutical powerhouse Pfizer, recognizing how they've prioritized DE&I. But we won't stop there — we'll dissect the barriers that smaller biotechs and startups might face, and discuss ways to bridge the gap between aspiration and implementation. Join me as we uncover actionable strategies that can transform DE&I from a nice-to-have into a cornerstone of success.
Through real-world examples from the insightful interview with Ben Osborne, who brings his expert perspective, our goal is to provide you with some of the tools you need to drive meaningful change within your own organization. So buckle up, because we're about to embark on a journey that we hope will reshape how you view diversity, equity, and inclusion in the biotech landscape. So let's dive in.
After graduating from Leeds University, Ben joined Pfizer in 1998, where his career has taken him through a variety of leadership roles, both in the UK and internationally. In recent years, Ben served as IM Chief Commercial Officer across Europe, Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, where he led the digital transformation of the commercial organization and innovative partnerships across the sector. He is passionate about organizational culture and the purpose of ensuring patients benefit from breakthrough innovation in science. Ben was the UK Country Manager and Managing Director for Pfizer UK, leading the organization through unprecedented times of opportunity to bring science, data, and technology together to transform healthcare. He led the UK rollout of Pfizer's COVID vaccine and antiviral, working closely with the government and the NHS.
In January of 2022, Ben was appointed regional president, hospital business, for the IDM — the International Developed Markets region — and then, in July 2022, took on the role of president of the Europe Eastern Cluster of IDM. From May 2021 to May 2022, Ben served as president of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry. He also represented the industry on a number of committees with government and the NHS. And I personally have the pleasure of collaborating with Ben in his role as advisory board member of the EMEA Healthcare Businesswomen's Association, and I'm so appreciative of his long-term, continued commitment to supporting diversity and inclusion topics, including the gender pay gap.
Ben, it is such a pleasure to have you here today, and I'm really looking forward to our chat.

Ben Osborne
Thanks for having me.

Sabine Hutchison
So, Ben, we've had a couple of conversations — well, we've actually had lots of conversations — around this topic, around DE&I, and had the idea, since we work — since Seuss+ works so closely with biotechs — how can organizations take some of the learnings from Pfizer, and what you have done particularly on this topic, and integrate it into the culture of their organization? One of the conversations we've had in the past was really about the why — you know, why DE&I? There are lots of views on this topic — some people embrace it and really want to move forward with it, but there are also a lot of critics on this topic. They argue issues like reverse discrimination, or tokenism, or whether there's true economic efficiency in this. I'm really curious to hear what you think about this, and how you deal with some of these critics, both internally and externally, within your position.

Ben Osborne
Yeah, thanks, and thank you for inviting me along today. As you said, it's a topic I'm really, really passionate about, and most of all, it really matters — not just to organizations, but most importantly, to the patients that we serve. So I'm always a little bit flummoxed when I get this question, because for me the response is, well, of course, it's obvious, it's just the right thing to do. But I have, over many years, faced lots of questions and challenge.
I guess I'd break it down as follows. Most importantly, if you look at the role and purpose of healthcare, life science, biotech companies, it's to develop innovative medicines to treat patients across the world. And if we don't understand the really diverse needs of those patients, then how can we develop the innovative medicines they're ultimately going to rely on? So that's where I always start from — that we need, in our organizations, to as best we can reflect the diversity of the societies we're there to serve.
I guess I'd add the following — you mentioned the economic side. There's so much literature on this; the study I always refer back to is one by McKinsey, which basically shows that organizations that prioritize diversity and inclusion, and actually bring it to life — so it's not just words on a page — are, on average, 35% more profitable than those that don't. Any organization would love to benefit from a 35% increase in profitability — we invest huge amounts of effort to try and get one or 2%. So that, for me, is a really key driver. The second is around employee attraction and retention — we know now, particularly for some of the younger generations coming through, this is a really key factor in whether they want to come and work for an organization or not, and for those colleagues already part of the organization, whether they choose to stay or not.
And then, finally — and again, I think this really speaks to the fantastic work that comes out of many biotechs — is the complexity of the scientific challenge we face now, and the healthcare problems we're trying to address, which are not straightforward. If they were, we would have addressed them many years back. And that requires real diversity of thought, of opinion, of viewpoint, in order to really progress the scientific data forward. So I guess I bring that to a point of: we will not be able to innovate with the transformation and the level of progression we really need if we don't have diversity in our organizations. And it's not just diversity, it's the inclusion as well — making sure all of those colleagues' voices are heard within the company.

Sabine Hutchison
Ben, it's so true. It's interesting — this last point, the inclusion piece, is that if you can hire diverse individuals within the team, but you actually don't listen to their voices and include them in the dialogue, it's also obviously not beneficial. And I love the points you've raised — the economic piece, the 35%, every company — it's so true, if we get a few percent, but 35% is a huge benefit. And also this idea — our industry is all about innovation, and innovation requires creativity and new ideas, and if you have a diverse mindset at the table, that is only going to foster innovation. So it's so true. Sometimes those conversations can be difficult, because the more diverse people you bring in, they're going to challenge you. But I think that, again, is the point of strong leadership and strong organizations — that they actually welcome that challenge. So, great points.

Ben Osborne
Yeah, and just a quick example — at the heart of, I guess, what all of our companies do, whether you're the smallest biotech or one of the biggest pharma companies, is clinical trials. And I genuinely believe, and we've seen that time and time again in our organisation, if you do not have diversity of opinion and understanding of the different populations you're aiming to treat, at the point that you are designing those clinical trials —

Sabine Hutchison
Right?

Ben Osborne
— and then trying to take them to the clinic, you will not be successful. You've got to have that diversity upfront. And of course, the benefit then is really significant — significant in that you get the diversity of population into the clinical trial, to have a broader data set. You then, through the regulatory process, hopefully get a broader label, treat more patients. And ultimately, again, that speaks to the economic benefit for companies, that they're able to bring their medicines to more patients.

Sabine Hutchison
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, again, to that point too, with the clinical trials piece — we see it as well, that there's so much focus now on bringing those diverse populations, and making sure you're looking at a broad group of patients in the clinical trials. And I know organizations are doing a lot to ensure that happens.
And again, to the point — diversity is, if you look at it, kind of the bedrock of all of this, isn't it, to bring in those ideas and the innovation. Yeah, thanks. One of the other things, especially with smaller organizations — and particularly we're focusing today on biotechs — is that, as I said in the beginning, they can sometimes see this as a nice-to-have. They're thinking, "okay, I've got an asset, maybe just one, I need to get it to the clinic, I need to move it forward, I don't have time." And diversity and inclusion, of course, it's a topic that's relevant, but maybe it's not something I need to get to the next stage of my asset development, or the next round of funding — I don't have the financial background, I have limited funding, I don't have resources. Pfizer, of course, has a large pool of individuals, and there's a lot of focus and financial backing for this topic. How do you address that point? What can you do with a small budget, to ensure that you're including a diversity and inclusion culture within your organization?

Ben Osborne
Yeah, sure — no, no, great question. I'd go back to the why — I think you can't afford not to address this. But I think the real point here is: at the heart of great diversity and inclusion within an organization is a great culture, where DE&I is absolutely part of the way the organization works and behaves. And I genuinely believe that culture is driven by the words and behaviors of leaders and colleagues, and not by pounds and dollars. You can have an incredible culture in an organization with the most limited of financial budgets.
Equally, I'm sure we've all had experiences of organizations that have been absolutely awash with cash, but their culture is absolutely terrible, or they've not been as diverse or as inclusive as they should be. So I don't think diversity and inclusion has to come from big economic investment and opex — I think really it's about getting that culture right. And so for us at Pfizer, it comes down to one, very simple but impactful, word: equity. For us, that means every single colleague is seen, heard, and cared for across the globe — and they're not words we say lightly, or just words on a page, they're words we actively bring to life every day, every week that we're working. Now, that said, I recognize that many small biotechs may only have a handful of colleagues — less than 10, in some cases.
I think the important piece here is to recognize: if you've only got 10 colleagues in the organization, you're not necessarily going to be able to represent every single voice or patient across the society you're ultimately aiming to serve — it's just not possible, there's more than 10 groups you want to serve if you've only got 10. So the first and most important thing is to recognize where your gaps or blind spots may be, and then take action to address those. For instance, if you don't have as much racial balance in your organization as you should, what are the steps you can take to try and build deeper understanding of some of those ethnic minority groups you ultimately want to be serving? There are many ways you can reach out to communities, into our societies — and I don't mean through market research, but just reaching out to have very simple conversations with leaders in society, to understand how you can better understand the needs of those populations.
We saw this during the government rollout of the vaccine — there were certain ethnic minority groups that were really vaccine-hesitant. That wasn't going to be addressed through big investment advertising campaigns — actually, that was through speaking to individuals who were trusted in those societies and communities: religious leaders, leaders in schools, who were able to educate their communities. And that worked really, really successfully — it didn't require any investment at all, it required a little bit of time and some careful thought and words. So again, it doesn't always have to come back to the pounds or the dollars.
I think it's about recognizing where you've got gaps, and then trying to address that. I think the other piece is you can't do everything at once — this has been a journey we've been on as an organization for many years, but I'd say, in particular over the last five years, we've really made this a priority, globally as well as here in the UK.
And I think, for smaller organizations, it's about making some priority decisions — to say, okay, let's really try and address this aspect of diversity, be it the gender gap, sexual orientation, difference of opinion — there are many different groups we obviously need to understand and bring into our organizations. So work through and focus on a couple of those, don't try to solve everything at once. I think there are three things, though, that ultimately any organization should make sure it has for its DEI strategy. It's got to be really simple and clear, because if it's not, colleagues won't engage and understand the importance of it. Secondly, it has to empower colleagues — this cannot just be a top-down leadership voice, it's the responsibility of every single colleague in the organization. And thirdly, organizations need to support and trust colleagues to bring their true, authentic self to work. And I think when you get that, you get the real person in the organization — that's when you get the real inclusion.

Sabine Hutchison
Yeah, such a valid point. And this triggers me to look at — you talked about simple and easy, so first, simply to understand, but also to implement. And I know one of the programs you've actually been recognized for is the UK gender pay gap initiative that Pfizer has taken on. You said, don't try to do everything at once, do simple things. So potentially, even though you may not consider it a DE&I initiative, the pay gap within your organization — it starts there. And that's one of the most simple things you can do, is ensure that when you bring individuals on, you're hiring for merit and experience, and not necessarily for gender, or some of the other topics we raised — ethnic background, religion — making sure everyone's on a level playing field.

Ben Osborne
Yeah, I think recruitment is a really critical part of a DEI strategy. From my experience, when I was in the UK role, the gender pay gap when I first came in was 15.9%. When I asked what the trajectory was — how long that was going to take to solve if we'd taken no action — the natural development of that would have meant it would have taken around 60 to 65 years to address. I was not going to wait 65 years for that to happen. So we set about a number of very clear actions, but at the heart of that was our recruitment strategy.
And I'd call out two key things that I think are relatable to any organization. One was making sure that the role profile you're developing is actually relatable, and attracting the diversity you want into your organization. In this case, we were specifically trying to address our gender pay gap, and to attract more females into director-and-above roles. What we found is that some of the language we were using — such as "pursue aggressive growth strategies" — that word "aggressive" was not relatable for the majority of females. We were also putting in things like "ideally 15 to 20 years' experience," and many women were looking at that and saying, "either I don't have 15 to 20 years, or I kind of have that, but I took two lots of maternity leave, so it's not really 15."
And it was putting them off the role. So we used a very simple gender decoding tool that's accessible online — there are multiple of these tools — and we now ensure every single one of our role profiles goes through that tool. Essentially, it takes out the words and statement sentences that may put off females from applying. And it's remarkable — I know, from the role profiles I wrote, I didn't think I had a bias towards particular words, but I clearly did, and I've now learned there are particular words I shouldn't be using. So we make sure everyone does that.
The second point, after the role profile, is making sure the interview panel and process is as fair, transparent, and balanced as possible. For us, that means using a very standard set of questions, so that everybody is asked at least the core of the interview in the same way, and given equal opportunity to respond. Now, of course, we put some other questions around that to dive into people's experience, but we're really assessing people in a fair and balanced way. And we make sure our interview panels are always balanced from a gender perspective — we don't have any all-male or all-female panels, they're always balanced in the way we conduct our hiring. And I think both of those steps can be applied to the smallest biotech or one of the biggest pharma companies.

Sabine Hutchison
Yep, yep, absolutely. And I think those are just two fairly simple things to do — they can take a bit more time in the beginning, it's like with anything, when we step out of our habits it can take a bit more time initially when we adapt processes. But as we incorporate that, and have it just be a standard way of working — you have your role description and use some of the tools, and you're right, there are fantastic tools online individuals can use to check. Maybe, just for everyone listening, we'll add a few examples of those in the notes after the podcast and share some of that. But also a very simple thing to do. And to your point about the interview process as well — I think so many individuals go and interview people, and we've never really been trained, have we? Many people haven't been trained to do interviews. So one of the things we encourage with our clients too is we actually have a list of questions and a form that's used, and you score an individual on the set questions, so you have a much more unbiased comparison when you sit together and review the panel and then discuss the individual. You can say, "I've rated the individual at this number, and these are the reasons why," and you're all comparing the same questions. And I think that's again something simple. But so many people just — you run last-minute into an interview, pull a CV open, and start asking random questions. And that doesn't lead to a very structured process, able to evaluate individuals equally. So, really valid point.

Ben Osborne
It's a great example, and I've seen that in practice — where you've had a particularly extroverted interviewer, in terms of their character, their nature, interviewing someone who's very quiet, much more subdued, much more introverted. They didn't necessarily gel and warm in terms of the communication, but when we looked at the data and the response the candidate gave, it was the strongest of all of them. So, without that much more focused and clear scoring, there was a potential bias there, just because of the character of the hiring manager.

Sabine Hutchison
Yeah. Ben, you mentioned in one of our previous conversations as well — you were talking about how some people ask the question, or give the feedback, that an individual doesn't have a "team fit," or doesn't fit into the team dynamics — I've forgotten exactly how you phrased it — but you said that's actually one of the worst questions you can ask, because you want individuals to be more diverse, and to bring their own authentic self into the organization, and that can be so valuable.

Ben Osborne
Yeah, I banned that question of "team fit," because I think for so many years people were looking at that through the lens of "how similar to me, or to us, are they?" And they were essentially looking to hire mini-me's — similar characteristics, similar leadership traits, similar beliefs. That's the polar opposite of what we now need in life science companies.
We need real diversity of opinion. I want, within my leadership team, the teams I'm a part of, people to be challenging, to have different perspectives — because if we don't have that debate, we're really not going to address some of these really challenging problems. We'll end up wandering into decisions because we've all just been furiously in agreement with each other, and they weren't necessarily the right decisions to make.
So that diversity of opinion is absolutely critical, and making sure, as you look across your team, there are people you wouldn't necessarily naturally feel are like you. Those are the real individuals you want on your team — you want that difference.

Sabine Hutchison
Absolutely. And also on this point — because we're focusing a bit on the brand, and how important that is for an organization for potential employees to come in, and we're seeing that more and more. One of the things you listed is, we talked about the roles, how to make sure those are diverse and are going to attract a diverse group of applicants. But how do you actually hit more targets of cultures or individuals? Because you can have a diverse role, and advertise it on your website, but are there any other tips or tricks you have to actually attract a more diverse culture, and hit more demographics when you're looking to bring individuals on — again, kind of focusing on a biotech that has a bit more limited resources?

Ben Osborne
Yes, we believe trust is everything in our industry and our sector. Without trust, we won't attract the right employees, we won't retain the right employees. Without trust, we won't engage with our physicians in the right way, we won't be able to establish the clinical trials in the right way. We won't engage with the regulators and governments around the world, and, most importantly, ultimately patients won't trust us. So trust has to run through the organisation and be a central part of the DEI strategy and plan. I think, in terms of tips or tricks, for me it comes down to two things. One is being really clear, as I said at the beginning, on what the gaps are that you're looking to address in your organisation — so don't start off with ten.
You may have ten gaps, but choose one or two of those and really go at them. But also recognize you're not necessarily going to address this over a short period of time — this will take a sustained effort. To get our gender pay gap from 15.9% to 7.5%, that took us three years. We then had a bump the next year, actually, where it went up — that's not because we were doing anything wrong, it's just the nature of the organization during that year.
And you need to really stay the course. And I think that then speaks to perhaps one of the most important things — to be really clear on the data you need to collect, and have available in your organization, to be able to assess your progress. Whether that be hard numbers on your gender balance, or some of the — often perceived as softer — data, like engagement data with colleagues. How can you run some very simple surveys through the year, to do those little pulse checks with your organization, to see how they're feeling? Do they feel included? Do they feel their voice is heard? Things like that take very little time, and cost very little, if anything, with some of the online survey services available. But it requires the thought of a leader, or a leadership team, to put that in place and make it a priority — not just to put the survey out there, but to then come back and commit to action based on what the data is showing us. And no one can argue with the data — if your organization is telling you you've not got strong colleague engagement, you need to listen, you need to act on that.

Sabine Hutchison
That is so true. I think, regardless of the size of an organization, keeping your finger on the pulse of what individuals are feeling is relevant, whether it's 5, 10, or 10,000 employees within the organization. And to your point, it's a really interesting point you raised, doing these kinds of surveys and checking the pulse — I believe that often smaller organizations don't necessarily think about doing that. They're just moving on, they're small, they think, "okay, we have a lot of dialogue with each other, we're close, I know what everyone is feeling." But a survey can actually give someone a bit of freedom to share what they're really feeling. So I think that's again a very valid, simple thing to do, to check the pulse of the organization, regardless of its size.

Ben Osborne
I think the other piece, for leaders of organisations, is to take some time each week — 10, 15 minutes — just to reflect back on the week you've had. I tend to do this on a Friday, I tend to keep the diary a bit freer, to have a bit of a reflection period — and for me, it's not just about the diversity topics, but where were the moments this week where perhaps you weren't as inclusive, or you had the opportunity to be more inclusive? Where were the moments you could have made more of an impact? And just reflect on those, so that the following week, if that moment arises again, you can address it. I think in this world we work at such a fast pace, weeks roll into months and before you know it the year is done. So just taking that 10, 15 minutes each week to reflect, I think, can lead to some small micro steps and changes in culture, changes in language and behaviors that really make the difference.

Sabine Hutchison
And that's one of the things you shared — looking at KPIs, and what do we measure. That's also a very simple thing to measure, isn't it? Within the leadership team, the CEO takes time in the management meeting and says, "alright, let's everyone think about the situations that happened this week, and how can we do those better." Simple, and very easy to implement.

Ben Osborne
Exactly, yeah, yeah — and that voice, it's amazing, it will quickly spread. The rest of the organization will quickly hear that that's what's happening at the leadership team level. And it's amazing how such a simple action can then have a really powerful change in the view of colleagues.

Sabine Hutchison
You're absolutely right — just asking that question when you're having a weekly update with one of your employees: what went well this week, and what could you have done better? If you reflect on "was I inclusive this week," in everything I did, not only internally within the organization, but also to the point around patients, around vendors you work with — it's a ripple, it goes far beyond just sometimes the small organization we're in. So true. Ben, I could go on for hours on this topic with you. I think our goal in this conversation was to really pull out a couple of nuggets and a couple of simple things to start the journey. As you said, you need to start with one or two things, take steps, start taking some action, and then have that become more of an aspect and a culture of the organization — this diversity piece, and also the inclusive piece, which is so crucial. So I just want to thank you, Ben, for everything you do. I see you as an individual who doesn't just talk the talk, you walk the walk. And I appreciate the time you always give — for instance, the HBA, the time you've given me, and the podcast today too. Because who would have thought, our podcast around biotechs, that I would pull Pfizer in — but I think this conversation has been very valuable, and we can really learn.
Pfizer has done amazing things on this topic, and I'm excited to see what the future holds as well, because I'm sure more exciting things are going to be happening there too.

Ben Osborne
Excellent, thank you — it's been a real pleasure, and ultimately we owe it to our patients to get this right. And when we get it right in our organisations, the impact will be felt across all of the patients we serve.

Sabine Hutchison
Thanks, Ben. And as we head off into the weekend — enjoy, wishing you some nice weather and some relaxing time. And I know you like to run, so hopefully you get some good runs in over the weekend.