Hana Dvořáková is the Market Access, Pricing, Policy and Communications Director for Organon in its division for eastern, south and central Europe. As a leader and a professional in the pharmaceutical industry with many years of experience, Hana has shared insights into her career as well as advice and inspiration for others.
After graduation, I began my career as a pharmaceutical sales representative. My intention and reason to start working in the pharma industry was to move to the clinical research department in a few years. But… I recognized that strategies creation is something that interests me more and more and I decided to change direction and therefore move to a marketing position. The main reason behind it was my passion for creating new things - new strategies, new approaches or just simply creating. I was lucky enough that I was present during new products launches and suddenly I had a chance to develop marketing strategies and design processes for others to follow.
The next turning point and opportunity to grow as a leader was the decision to move from a local Business Unit Director to my first international role where I got the first direct experience of working with different cultures and preparing different countries for new product launches.
I reached the next turning point in the following 3 years when I wanted to get a different perspective and know the pharma industry from another angle. Therefore, I once again shifted my focus and accepted an offer in the Market access and Policy area.
My last turning point appeared suddenly. It was that „go easy way or a hard“ choice again. I got the opportunity to build something almost from scratch. Not just my team but the entire department and to some degree an entire company. Therefore, I joined Organon.
I was very lucky that I met many incredibly talented people and created high performing teams where people were growing as professionals as well as human beings.
There are a few advice that I would extend to myself as a recent graduate – starting with focusing much more on networking. Good contacts are priceless.
I would also advise my freshly graduated self not to fear too much to make mistakes. Fear of making mistakes was not making me more successful, it was actually blocking me and slowing me down.
Another advice I would give myself is to search for people more capable and smarter than myself and those who could balance my weaknesses. Why? Because this is the only way to create great and strong teams.
My advice to anyone would be to open up to new opportunities, explore them, and embrace change in your career. Lastly, follow your intuition and choose the job which you can do by your heart, and which gives sense to your life.
It doesn't matter whether I work with women or men, trust and respect are the most important thing for me. As a leader, I encourage women to believe that they can make it, that they can harmonize difficulties related to being a woman and a mother and challenges related to their professional role. As a leader, I am here to create space for my team members, empower them, allow them to grow, inspire them and be there to offer help when they need it.
As women, we have unique opportunity to bring another value into leadership, often characterized by qualities such as empathy, collaboration, effective communication, adaptability and relationship building.
Women, during their lifetime, go through different life phases. Each of those phases closely influences the working performance and overall well-being of women. For instance, women experience things like menstrual pain, menopause or complicated births that influence women physically as well as psychologically. Many of these topics are taboo and our societies, mainly led by men, do not pay enough attention to them. Even though these life phases are sometimes difficult, women still pursue careers and fulfil their professional dreams. Of course, what would help is more empathy given by society. For example, employees should benefit from digitisation, and systems increasing the well-being of female employees can be introduced. Digitisation may help to create a fluid work schedule and help women to adjust their work routine according to their physical and psychological condition related to period pain, maternity related difficulties or menopause. Of course, some smaller things may help too - for instance menstruation aids might be given for free by an employer in a workplace.
There are also more significant things like the new paid menstrual leave introduced by the Spanish government allowing women to take between three and five days paid leave in case of a painful period. Another example is our own at Organon. We provide care-leave days that can be used in similar fashion - to improve well-being of employees or to take care of family members. Another Organon benefit is half-year maternity leave support when a woman gets full monthly compensation for 6 months. We are, of course, certain that a woman also needs her partner by her side. Therefore, also Organon employed fathers are allowed to take 2 months of paternity leave in order to provide full support to their partners.
Sadly, only 4% of global R&D investments is dedicated to women's health. I believe that this percentage will increase over time. An important thing to mention is that every 10th woman suffers from endometriosis, more attention should and will be paid to it and treatment option might be coming soon. Relevant topics are also maternity planning and birth control. Therefore, non-hormonal treatment might be an essential thing for many women. Overall, it is important to have broader debate about women's health challenges like fertility issues, menopause, menstrual pain etc. Otherwise, no progress will be made, women's overall well-being won’t improve, and society will not harness that huge potential women can offer to the whole world. The more we talk about health of women openly, the more normal it becomes for the general public.
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