Cecile

Area Manager, Clinical Operations, Africa and Middle East

When I first joined the company 11 years ago, I knew it had a great pharmaceutical reputation and that the vaccines headquarters were here in Belgium, but not much more. I was really drawn to the fact that it was a large employer that could offer plenty of career development potential. Since then, the company's grown so much, and it's a journey we're all on together. There's a real sense of partnership and collaboration here.

Our success and growth is great for the business and the amazing people who make it all possible. The challenge lies in ensuring that we afford enough time for managers to spend sharing knowledge and expertise with people who are new to the business. Learning and development is key, and needs to be adapted to suit all the new talent that's coming into the organisation.

It's hard to talk about an average day. With responsibility for Africa and the Middle East, I spend half my time travelling across the region, working closely with GSK local offices, and the hospitals and universities that will handle our clinical trials. This region has only been a stand-alone focus for the last year, so there's still a lot of work to be done. Everything needs to be built in order to support the trials process. It makes sense to run the trials within the region where the drugs would ultimately be used. It also allows for greater support of regulatory functions, which depend on local data for registration of new vaccines.

These days, I don't find I'm getting as much formalised training as I did when I started here. But that's because the business encourages self-empowerment. As for the future, I'm very focused on my current role at the moment. Rather than thinking in terms of next career steps, I'm more interested in developing the region and finding more collaborative ways of working with the Pharma teams. We have a lot to learn from each other and make sure we avoid gaps and/or duplication. We're stronger when we work together.

The fact that I work in the developing world makes me proud, but it's a little more in-depth than simply developing new drugs. What really drives me is the fact that, by developing the clinical expertise locally, we can empower our local organisations and offer new career opportunities.