Emma Walmsley on leading and leaving GSK

Emma Walmsley:
No one should take on these jobs without taking on the accountability. It’s easy to talk about this now. I think any CEO that tells you it’s easy at the time is being a bit disingenuous. It’s definitely a moment that makes you properly stop and think.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
Today on the CEO Signal, we’re talking to Dame Emma Walmsley, the former CEO of Global Pharmaceuticals Company, GSK. She took the helm with a mandate to shake it up. Not everyone liked that, but we caught her at the end of 2025 just as she was handing over to her successor, Luke Miles. This is a rare chance to hear a CEO reflect on the full arc of their tenure. From Semafor, this is the CEO Signal. Morning, Penny.

Penny Pritzker:
Good morning, Edge. How are you?

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
Very good. Great to have you in New York.

Penny Pritzker:
I do love New York City.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
So Penny, I sat down with Emma recently for a CEO Signal interview, and I remember her telling me, “I’m not famous for my patience.” But you’ve known her for a lot longer than I have. What have you seen of her?

Penny Pritzker:
I’ve seen Emma lead in the boardroom. She starts with her curiosity and incredibly insightful questions. And when she speaks, not only is everyone listening, she changes the dynamic in the room.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
So what are you hoping she’ll open up about today?

Penny Pritzker:
Well, I’d really love to hear about the arc of her accomplishments and where she took GSK from beginning to now where she’s announced she’s leaving.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
Yeah. And I think along that way, there were some moments of real challenge and tension. I want to hear from her what that was like, particularly when she was challenged by an activist investor a few years ago called Elliott Management, because those things really put a CEO on the spot.

Penny Pritzker:
Absolutely. Lots for us to learn today.
Welcome, Emma. We are so thrilled to have you here. It’s great to see you. I get to see you in the boardroom, but this is the first time I get to have an opportunity to ask you some questions about where all your curiosity came from, how you’re such a great leader. So I’m really looking forward to this session.

Emma Walmsley:
Well, I’m absolutely thrilled to be here. And you know, Penny, if you ask me to do something, I say yes.

Penny Pritzker:
Thank you. Thank you.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
Look, we’ve got a whole load of questions about how you’ve led through some really interesting challenges, made some big strategic decisions and executed them. But first of all, welcome back to New York. You lived here for several years earlier in your career.

Emma Walmsley:
So I was here in the early 2000s for five years. When I was working for L’Oreal, I was running a great American iconic brand called Maybelline. And I moved here from London with two young kids and my husband, and I left here five years later for Shanghai with four young kids.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
So this is your sort of early experience of the US healthcare system?

Emma Walmsley:
Well, actually in lots of ways. Yeah. I mean, not to get into it in too much detail, but two of those four children were quite sick when we were here and one of them had open heart surgery actually.

Penny Pritzker:
Oh, wow.

Emma Walmsley:
And the other one spent the first two weeks of her life in an ICU in New York. So I saw the very best of the American healthcare system, actually. And I think there’s no doubt that those kinds of foundational experiences can inspire your decisions for where you allocate your time capital later. And it’s been... I had an extraordinary career with L’Oreal for 17 years all over the world, but there was definitely a moment when I thought it was a great opportunity to then move into healthcare.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
What was the most formative bit of that time with L’Oreal? What did you take from it that you’ve carried through to GSK?

Emma Walmsley:
I didn’t go on holiday abroad as a child, so to have all of that world opened up to me in an organization that was incredibly creative, super smart people... So it was an incredibly exciting and creative time with wonderful people. But the most formative part was understanding what it takes to lead and run global brands and global businesses. And the incredible humility you get from moving into a new culture, a different language, some you speak. Operating in Paris and speaking French was fine for me, but then moving to China in 2007 at a time when everything was booming and growing so fast, that was an incredible experience.

Penny Pritzker:
What was it like in the senior leadership room trying to convince French leadership as a Brit to meet the moment in each of those markets?

Emma Walmsley:
So look, I think it was... There’s no question you had to stand up and speak up for what you believed in and stand by your convictions. And I always loved the fact that one of the big boardrooms in Paris at the time, I don’t know if it’s still true, I left nearly 16 years ago, was called the [French 00:05:26], which was literally the idea of confronting ideas. And so you learned to act on your feet, but always be underpinned with facts. It was a very performance oriented culture.

Penny Pritzker:
So Emma, my experience of you though, is that you have enormous confidence in inquiring, in opening up the conversation. Where did that confidence come from? Does that from your upbringing, from experience being in a military family, going to boarding school?

Emma Walmsley:
Yeah. I don’t know if the source of it is confidence or curiosity. And I think the source of it is probably the latter, but I’m not afraid to ask questions. I think... I’m the oldest child. I’m sure that says all sorts of strange things or important things. I don’t know.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
Of how many?

Emma Walmsley:
Of three. Oldest of three.

Penny Pritzker:
I’m the oldest of three too.

Emma Walmsley:
Yeah. And I have a brother who’s a lawyer and a sister who’s a therapist. So both of those things are probably necessary in every family. But I think there’s no doubt that growing up in a military family has a huge influence on all sorts of dynamics, a sense of discipline, a sense of hard work, a sense of duty and responsibility. But I think the core of it was don’t waste the opportunities that you have if you... And a very strong emphasis on education.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
I want to pick up on the asking good questions because you mentioned that French boardroom, [French 00:07:01]. Have you brought that ethos to the GSK boardroom or to the GSK leadership team?

Emma Walmsley:
I think it’s really important that we do. One of the risks when you’re a CEO is that you don’t have enough straight talk, put it on the table, difficult conversations. Because people, at the beginning it’s easier, but then people learn to start to try and anticipate what you want or what you expect, and it is harder to have that equal to equal debate. One of the things I like to do with my leadership team is not have these huge performative CEO sessions. When people are nervous to come in and present, I really like to have small meetings, a bit less formality, a bit more debate. And I’ve often found myself having... Because I come across as having conviction and an opinion, which I do, but I also am quite comfortable with shifting it if the facts change. And so I often have to remind people to disagree.

Penny Pritzker:
Can I ask you, was there a moment where you started to... Early in your CEO leadership where you knew you had to create that permission to be able to have confrontation and disagreement? Give us a specific. How did you allow people to get comfortable that it was okay to disagree with you or to offer other opinions?

Emma Walmsley:
Well, I think I learned this from a brilliant head of R&D that came in, which is, look, let’s give... I mean, literally explicitly invite the counter view. And we do an enormous amount of business development in our industry. And it’s one of the things that we changed most at GSK because we had to completely reset the balance sheet by de-merging the consumer business. We had been going through an era where we’d be disinvesting in R&D and decided to do it all in house and that’s just not what... We then did a complete pivot, doubled the spend in R&D, and we’re now in a world where half of our pipeline comes externally.
But the issue when you’re doing deals, and we’ve probably done 50 of them, is that you get a bit of deal fever, and everyone knows we want to do something. There’s been a huge amount of work. People have been working all nights, you’ve got the banks coming, all of that stuff’s going on. And I think having a stop and think and doing the red team case or the bear case is an explicit tool you can use to take a counter view. And then the other thing that I like doing is something we call a pre-mortem on how things can go wrong, which sounds a bit depressing.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
Which is the memento mori, it’s the skull in the corner of the painting. Isn’t it?

Emma Walmsley:
Exactly. Exactly, exactly.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
You look at how bad things might be.

Emma Walmsley:
And that’s a really useful tool when you’re about to allocate a large amount of capital or make a big strategic choice. It’s just to step back and go, “Okay, let’s take the counter view of this recommendation.”

Penny Pritzker:
I find myself, in order to encourage more confrontation, if you will, or disagreeing agreeably, if you will, is to actually applaud people afterwards for taking that risk.

Emma Walmsley:
That’s a great example. And one of the things I actually... This is why I’m laughing about it with Hal, who’s now a board director, but was our head of R&D. There were a couple of times when we had some tricky things to call, and he and I said, “Look, this is going to be in quite a large forum. Why don’t you just extremely disagree with me on that point in the meeting?” So we did that a couple of times, which is really helpful.
And people saw it happening and actually there was an even better example of that, which is when we were looking at a deal, he was looking at a deal and I didn’t particularly love it, but it was his decision. And one of the cultural changes we most wanted to make at GSK was moving from kind of lowest common denominator decision making to a world where we were very clear on the single point accountability decision maker. That doesn’t mean you don’t invite input from lots of other people, but we wanted to remove this big corporate land where decisions just kept being pushed up. And there was something that was within his remit to decide. I wasn’t sure about it. And I gave him in a public environment the input that if it was my decision, I wouldn’t do it, but I was happy for him to take the responsibility of the decision and he decided to do it. And we did all of that in a public way. So that there wasn’t the world where you just had to guess what the boss thought and that was going to become the outcome.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
So you were publicly modeling that it’s okay to have those debates.

Emma Walmsley:
Well, it’s not only okay to have those debates. It’s okay for a more senior person to delegate a decision and give full authority to that individual.

Penny Pritzker:
That’s extremely powerful and it also creates enormous accountability.

Emma Walmsley:
Correct. And that’s one of the things in big companies you have to make sure, if you want to drive to a more performance culture, this question of accountability, especially in heavily matrices organizations and heavily regulated organizations is really, really key.

Penny Pritzker:
So one of the things that you’ve talked about yourself, and I see it in your nature, is your impatience.

Emma Walmsley:
Listen, what about you?

Penny Pritzker:
Well, it takes one to know one, right? We bond over that.

Emma Walmsley:
Yes, that’s for sure.

Penny Pritzker:
Where’d that come from? For me, my impatience started with the idea I lost my parents at a young age and I felt like life is short and I have a lot of life I want to live in a short period of time. Now, fortunately, my life has gone on longer than theirs did, but it started at a very young age. Where did impatience come into your life?

Emma Walmsley:
I think I was born with it. Some of it may be genetic and my father was quite an impatient man. And I think probably like you, I have this overwhelming sense that you have one life and you should fill it with as much as you possibly can and not waste a moment. And I think one of the advantages of having been able to live all over the world, as I have, is there’s just so much you don’t know about and so much more to discover and learn. It’s a sense of curiosity. And I get a bit frustrated by wasting time on stuff. We always talk about strategy being how you allocate capital. I think strategy is also how you allocate your time capital and whether that be professional strategy and what you spend your time on running the companies that we do or what you want to do with your life. And I just, I think the world has so much opportunity and we have so much responsibility to drive change and impact and I’m impatient for that.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
So Emma, can you just set the scene for us a little bit? Nine years as CEO, three years since the Haleon demerger, the consumer business, and you’ve announced your plans to hand over to your successor. What does this particular chapter of your time at GSK mean to you?

Emma Walmsley:
Well, I think being a CEO is the privilege of a lifetime, maybe alongside being a mom. And so I am immensely grateful to have had the opportunity. And I’m actually extremely proud to be leaving having done two things that I think most of us would like to achieve. One is to have a company in materially better position than when you started. And GSK is a completely different company in terms of structure, strategy, performance momentum. But the second thing that I’m immensely proud of is enabling a smooth succession. And that’s in the interest of the company’s momentum, it’s in the interest of shareholders. I was announced in September 2016, I took over at the beginning of ’17, and I actually interviewed my successor, Luke Miels, in December 2016, when I started to, in a very dodgy wine bar in Cambridge.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
Were you already thinking of him as a potential future leader?

Emma Walmsley:
Yes, because I was an insider outsider with a brief to change everything. Of course, the most important thing I needed to do was hire the best people in the world to go with me on that journey. And I knew Luke could be a candidate for the commercial part of that.

Penny Pritzker:
So in setting him up for success, when did you go to the boardroom and say, “We need to really think about a transition over a period.” What was that conversation like in that boardroom?

Emma Walmsley:
Well, I don’t think it happened like that. I mean-

Penny Pritzker:
How did it happen?

Emma Walmsley:
So first of all, I believe that succession is a job that should start day one.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
Did it in this case?

Emma Walmsley:
It was certainly, I mean, we’ve reviewed it at the board every year, and I certainly put it on the table at the end of my first year. And I think these things, you have to remember, they are human moments as well. They are without doubt, however well planned they are and however happy everybody is and how orchestrated they are and the brilliant due process of internal and external and a proper definition of what the next chapter of the company needs and is required. And even with all of that, when you’ve given everything you’ve got to a company for a long time, they are not without their emotion of all transitions. I think it’s probably like moving house, even if you’ve decided to do it and you’re handing it on to a new family, it’s memories, it’s impact, it’s a big slice of your life.
So the reason I mention that is it’s not without emotion. So it’s important to not make it emotional or not make it some difficult topic to raise. I think you make it part of currency. It’s hugely helpful. And then you also have to make it very deliberate. And I really believe in this. I think it’s one of the most rewarding parts of leadership, is how do you invest in development, not of one person, by the way, because that’s important too, but of a group of people to open up all of their possibilities for professional impact inside the company and outside if necessary.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
You’re operating in a famously short term focused capital market, and that’s a perennial, I’m sure, for any pharma company CEO. You had a very specific and acute illustration of that tension a few years ago where an activist shareholder, Elliott Management, came along challenging your leadership and your strategy, challenging you personally. I wonder if you can take us inside that moment. Who was your first call to?

Emma Walmsley:
Well, obviously talking about it with the board was extremely important. I mean, step back, it’s easy to talk about this now. I think any CEO that tells you it’s easy at the time is being a bit disingenuous. It’s definitely a moment that makes you properly stop and think. And when it’s personal, it adds an extra layer of flavor to the experience, no question.
But I think first thing is no one should take on these jobs without taking on the accountability for the comprehensive performance of the company in every sense, and without being ready to have people ask questions about that and challenge that. Learning to not be defensive about it and to be at your most honest with yourself about what you believe about it is really key and be ready to answer those questions. I think that the moment that mattered most is when you say, “Okay, what do I think objectively?” And it’s hard to muster that level of clarity on it for sure, but, “What do I stand by with full conviction around the purpose and strategy of the company and what will I continue to stand up for on that front?” And that’s what we did and we did it with the board.
And then you just have to accept that there’s going to be noise. And the most important thing I did in all of this, looking back on it, was to anchor in my own belief in what we were doing, but more importantly, to absorb the pressure personally and not let the rest of the organization be distracted. So I had to-

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
What did it take to do that?

Emma Walmsley:
Well, I sat down with my leadership team and... Well, first of all, you said, “Who’s the first person you called?” I definitely discussed it with my chair in a great deal of detail and with the board, as you would expect. And obviously you go through the thesis that other have put forward and where the company is and the reality of how you see it and what needs working on, et cetera, and what the strategy and approach should be. But what I didn’t want was an enormous amount of swirl and anxiety in a company of 70,000 people who could do nothing about it, but whose job was to keep delivering quarter after quarter. Because we are a long-term industry, but every quarter matters and the mix of every quarter matters and that you keep doing what you say you’re going to do and we’ve done that consistently with upgrades every year since 2021 and a double upgrade of our long-term outlook. And I wanted people inspired by the work they do to save lives with new cancer drugs and HIV drugs and brand new vaccines and to celebrate the performance of the company.
So I just had to say, “This is what I’m paid for,” stand and take it and tell the rest of your leadership team with a very, very small inner group who worked on it regularly with me, “But the rest of you, your job is to keep the organization motivated, inspired, and focused, and this will come through.” And that’s what happened in the end.

Penny Pritzker:
What surprised you most about the way you handled or reacted in that time about yourself?

Emma Walmsley:
I don’t know what it’s like for you, Penny, but I think you need operating resilience, but you also need incredible personal resilience. And I’ve seen that in my personal life when you’ve had really difficult moments and I’ve seen it in my professional life. And I think the anchor of that for me is honestly a love of what I do, a recognition that it’s not actually about me.
I mean, this is a really important thing for me in a CEO experience is you can... I mean, I know there’s a bit of a fashion for co CEOs now, but in most cases there’s one CEO and people laugh at your jokes a lot and people are trying to guess what you want. The reality is you have a brief moment in our brief lives when you are lucky enough to do this and you just have to do the very best you can standing by your personal value set. And in my case, the love of my family and the perspective I get from faith, those things allow you to carry through what at the time felt incredibly difficult. And I look back on and I’m going to say something super weird, which I think I was lucky to have gone through that.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
Why? What did it give you?

Emma Walmsley:
A sense of conviction of what you should stand for at work and to... Someone once said to me that what you have to realize as a CEO is you should wake up every morning and think with the mindset of, “What is the disgustingly difficult challenge I am going to have the privilege of thinking about today?” And I thought that was a... He’s a brilliant African conglomerate leader and it was just the world is messy and full of challenges and people don’t bring you lots of easy decisions to make, but if you see it like that and just keep trying to do your best and have the humility and self-awareness to recognize it’s what you worry about is not what everyone else wakes up, whether it’s your employees or your customers or all the people that work there, it’s not about you. What do you think?

Penny Pritzker:
It is a privilege to work on hard things where you have to bring a team together, you have to figure out what you believe is most important, what you stand for. We overuse the word values, but they really are critical in creating the foundation that allows for making tough calls in unclear situations.

Emma Walmsley:
And Penny, I have seen you do this so many times alongside you on the board that we serve on. It’s one of the many reasons I deeply admire you, is your ability to see... And I suppose that’s because it’s hard to imagine anyone who’s had a more comprehensive career in so many different walks of life, but I watch you in the most complex industry on the most complex challenges, laser in... Well, first of all, ask the right questions and then laser in on what matters, underpinned by a value set. I think that’s a phenomenal role model for all of us.

Penny Pritzker:
Well, you and I work on that project together and it’s a team effort, but I think your point about the privilege of working on tough things and getting to bring everything you’ve ever learned in your life to really the unknown or the complex or the uncertain.

Emma Walmsley:
And any really hard decision, because where it’s gray, if you answer it with values, it’s not a hard decision.

Penny Pritzker:
Emma, let’s talk a little bit about what’s changed, not at GSK, but with you personally. How have you leading differently? How are you thinking differently given all these great experiences you’ve had?

Emma Walmsley:
I think the instincts you have when you begin as CEO, my gut feel around the things that were going to matter most have been sustained, whether that’s innovation is the answer to every question in the sector, and if you’ve got it, everything’s possible. Whether that is that people are the other answer to every question and build it whether it’s building bench strength or having the best team, including people with very different opinions to you and instincts to you, I think that kind of diversity is incredibly important to keep the challenge-

Penny Pritzker:
How about the way you lead those people?

Emma Walmsley:
I think I’ve learned I underestimated how important the communications work is in these jobs. Because it’s all operating at such incredible scale and in aligning a complicated matrices, geographically time zone spread organization to all go behind one purpose and be informed and agile for the environment, but not unnecessarily distracted by the daily things. And we’re all human. That’s one of the things that I love in this great age of technology which will change absolutely everything, human beings are motivated by human beings. And I think that’s something that I’ve learned to understand more. I don’t know, how’s your... I mean, if you look over the last decade, Penny, how do you think you’ve shifted your leadership?

Penny Pritzker:
Well, I think this point about communication is really, really important, both internally and externally. And I was thinking as we’re going through our interview here, that the need internally, you have 70,000 people, for them to understand their purpose, their value, the way they’re changing the world and their role in that. And yet then to educate externally, whether it’s the consumer of the drugs that you’re creating, or it’s the medical field, or it’s governments, or it’s influencers, and needing to communicate on every one of those levels in a way where you can resonate, it’s hard in a world where communication is so disparate.

Emma Walmsley:
I think that’s completely right. And in the end, work is a human endeavor, and finding a way to connect, properly connect human to human, I think is something I’ve learned more. In fact, ironically, the longer I’ve been in the job, I don’t know what I thought a CEO was supposed to do beforehand, but I think more informality, more proximity, more listening, more-

Penny Pritzker:
In a funny way, more intimacy, right?

Emma Walmsley:
Yeah, exactly. No, I think that’s completely right. I think there’s just a... I think I probably worried more at the beginning that I had to be some kind of perfect, polished, invincible fount of wisdom, which obviously I’m not at any level, whereas I think-

Penny Pritzker:
I disagree with that, but-

Emma Walmsley:
I think asking for help, asking people what they think I think using your ears and your mouth proportionately is... All of those things are important.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
So you’ve talked about so much of the work you’ve done internally to keep people motivated around this purpose and mission of a company like GSK. I’m sure everybody you work with truly believes in what they’re doing. There’s an outside world you’re working with, which has become increasingly skeptical of science, specifically around vaccines, for example. We’ve lived through a pandemic, very difficult time for everybody in your industry and everybody. What have you learned about changing minds in the outside world when you encounter that skepticism of the work that you and your 70,000 colleagues truly believe in?

Emma Walmsley:
Well, first of all, I don’t think when you are leading a for profit public company, shouting, “Trust us,” is the effective way of doing it. And especially not in an industry that frankly has some pretty tricky kind of track record stories. And actually, we have to be careful to separate the headlines from the reality. Most people in America still believe that vaccination is a good thing. I mean, all the research shows that. And what I care about is that we answer people’s questions, mothers’ questions with science and facts and patients. And I think we’re in a bit of a difficult moment there, but our job is to be consistent and to recognize that there’s no better return on investment than stopping disease before it starts. And sadly, history shows that when vaccinations rates have dropped anywhere in the world, disease surges, people die and usually the most vulnerable, and then vaccination rates come back up very, very fast.
So I think we’re in a moment and we just have to engage constructively on that kind of question. It would just be good if we could try and share the agenda, which is to bring more of an American-born innovation to more patients at an affordable price, but still put primacy on incenting innovation because that is what will reduce the cost of healthcare. It’s people being sick that’s expensive.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
If in your next chapter a government calls you up and says, “Emma, we need to fix the amount of money we’re spending on healthcare. Can you tell us how to lower drug prices without putting businesses like GSK out of business?” What would your first recommendation be?

Emma Walmsley:
The way to reduce the cost of healthcare is to keep people out of hospital and keep them well for longer. That means we need more diagnostics, we need better use of the data that is coming, and we need sustainable, affordable, predictable pricing. So I definitely agree that in America, we need reform for that. I definitely agree that we need more countries around the world recognizing the value that innovation brings, including my own country, to keep people out of hospital.

Penny Pritzker:
You talked about we’re at a time where the pace of change is so fast and it is changing industries overnight. How’s it changing? How is AI changing the world of pharmaceuticals?

Emma Walmsley:
It’s not by coincidence that pretty much all of big tech use healthcare as the number one use case in terms of what benefits AI can bring to the world. Where there’s quite a current conversation about the risks of it, the societal risks that we can all see, but the reality is there is an enormous amount of unmet need in the world for healthcare. And what’s so exciting about AI is a third of the world’s data is somehow related to healthcare. Think of all of the medical records, all of the academic institutions, all of the big pharma companies around the world, the search prioritization. I bet all of us have looked up for somebody we love, what X means or what Y drug does. So there is a huge opportunity when we can harness this data to improve the thing that our industry does most, and spends most money on, which is drug discovery and development.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
But with those years of experience as CEO, as you hand over to your successor, what is the advice you’ve given him to set your successor up for success?

Emma Walmsley:
Well, first of all, one of the weird thing that happens when you get publicly announced is that you are absolutely inundated with people who want to give you advice. So I’m trying not to... Luke and I talk all the time. We’ve been working together for a long time. I’m trying not to add to the unhelpful tsunami of input and advice that he’s getting. But we talk a lot about how to pace the delivery of what lies ahead, how to think about what’s unique in the brief that he has for this next chapter of the company, how to feel free to make changes that are necessary. But the great joy for me is this is someone who’s architected the portfolio that we have, who’s done the deals with me for the pipeline that’s ahead. So there’s a really big execution drive for him, but also how to think, as we’ve said several times, I think any CEO needs to think so hard about the team they put around them that compliments them.
And he and I are very different people, so he will have a different set of needs for that.

Penny Pritzker:
Let me ask you a question. How’s it feel to be in the coach position right now rather being a player?

Emma Walmsley:
I honestly feel absolutely great because I couldn’t be prouder of the momentum in the company right now. Our operating delivery is great. And remember, when we have a good quarter, I don’t think about that in the dollars and the margin. I think about the lives changed and the lives saved and the families who are waking up with more optimism. So it’s massively uplifting when you’re growing because of that impact that you have. And I feel I couldn’t be happier about the successor I’m handing onto. I fundamentally feel excited for GSK, whose greatest days are ahead and for me.

Penny Pritzker:
Well, I’m excited for both, but I’m particularly excited for whomever figures out that you are a great catch and a wonderful leader. I’ve had the privilege of sitting, as I’ve said, in a boardroom with you, and I see how you lead. I see how you exhibit your curiosity to help organizations become really superb. So I’m very excited for your future.

Emma Walmsley:
Well, it’s just been wonderful to have a chance to chat to you and next time I’m doing the interview.

Penny Pritzker:
Looking forward to that.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
Emma, thanks so much.

Emma Walmsley:
Oh, it’s been wonderful to be here. Good luck to both of you and can’t wait to listen to the future episodes too.

Penny Pritzker:
Thank you.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
Thanks, Emma.

Penny Pritzker:
Thank you.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
Stay with us. Penny and I will be back after the break with the readout.
Well, Penny, that was fascinating. What stuck with you?

Penny Pritzker:
I think her humility about becoming a CEO, but then what she really learned is that the persona of CEO is about being more human and more vulnerable.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
Yes. And not every CEO I interview confesses to that, frankly, and that fascinated me. I think a related point on that was related to her candor, is how she’s encouraged candid feedback from the people around her. And she’s saying she actively encourages this challenge of contested ideas and a little pushback from senior people around her, which is an interesting mix of empowering the people you’ve given very specific jobs to and told to go and do those jobs and feel that they have the authority to do it. But also it’s a way, I think, of breaking through that bubble that can surround CEOs where everybody’s trying to please them, everybody thinks they need to be on their best behavior and say what the boss wants to hear.

Penny Pritzker:
It’s a real art and she clearly has thought about how to make that a reality at GSK. There’s so much to learn. I also think the thing that stuck with me is her confession of what a privilege it is to work on hard problems.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
Yes. And there have been plenty, if you’re running a pharma company in this era, to be honest. But she doesn’t seem defensive about that or beaten down. She’s saying, actively knows, we’ve got to lean into this.

Penny Pritzker:
Absolutely.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
What did you think about how she described the process of succession?

Penny Pritzker:
What was amazing is she talked about succession as a day one activity, as a day one contemplation. And I’d never heard a CEO say that before. And actually, I think it’s a great way to lead. I’m going through my own succession planning and I think about it all the time and I view it as it’s been a 10-year... I’m in the middle of a 10-year process.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
Can you give us a glimpse into what’s been most important for you in your thinking about succession?

Penny Pritzker:
It’s really what she talked about, the team, and that you don’t want to hand over a company as a cliff, but rather, how do you move seamlessly from one leader to the next? How do you also make sure that the leadership that’s going to carry out the next set of activities, take a company to the next level, has actually been there on the journey up the hill, not just at the new mesa?

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
One more thing stuck with me, and that’s where she said that when they’re planning a big investment or a big deal, she will actively say, “Let’s look at how this might go wrong.” I thought that was a great discipline.

Penny Pritzker:
But you know what? I think that really smart leaders do that. They ask someone in the group or in the team to take the alternative point of view so that they’re constantly looking at what are the vulnerabilities. Because it is easy to get kind of deal energy or deal enthusiasm and say, “I’m going to look past this problem or that problem because I really want to do this.” And in fact, I think that discipline is so great.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
She was also very candid about what it felt like to be attacked publicly by an activist investor. She made no secret of the fact that it’s hard not to take that personally. What did you think?

Penny Pritzker:
Well, how can you not take it personally? You’re not being attacked by an anonymous force. There’s a human being who’s attacking you as a leader and questioning your capability or your vision. And the fact that she was able to ask herself, “Am I living into the right values and the right priorities for GSK?” And when she satisfied herself about that, she had a lot of confidence in moving forward and rebuffing the activist.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson:
Well, Penny, thank you. That was a brilliant guest. Thanks for tuning into the CEO Signal. For more conversations like this, don’t forget to like and subscribe.
The CEO Signal is produced by Joanna Harrison, Semafor’s editor-in-chief is Ben Smith. Special thanks to Jim Hoegg by Kenzie Kurth, Daniel Marlborough, Francesca Robinson, and Rita Okun from BSP, and from Semafor, Anna Pizzino, Claire Einstein, Tori Kuhr, Daniel Hoeft, Josh Billinson, Joey Feifer, Katherine Bill Gore, Rachel Kuyton, and Xana Ed. Video editing is by Kurt Goldberg and Pear Boys & Miller, graphics by Noetic and Daniel Romero, and the music was composed by Steve Burr.