Kevin Sharer, former President, CEO, and Chairman of Amgen, the largest biotech company in the world, clearly has great hands-on experience to share about being a leader, which he does in this wide-ranging interview. Listen in for practical advice, no matter what the size of your company.
Kevin Sharer is the former president, CEO, and chairman of Amgen, the world’s largest biotech company, where he led its expansion over two decades from $1 billion to nearly $16 billion in annual revenue. After stepping down in 2012, he taught strategy and management at Harvard Business School for seven years and co-created with Nitin Nohria, the Harvard Business School dean, a popular course on the life and role of the CEO and how to lead senior executive teams. He has served on the boards of Chevron, Unocal, Northrop Grumman, and 3M. In his roles as an executive, director, and mentor, he has been involved with more than 20 successful CEO transitions, and he continues to advise CEOs of global corporations. Kevin is a Naval Academy graduate and served on two attack nuclear submarines.
In This Episode:
- Avoid ‘virtue signalling’ and deal with the issue at hand.
- Most companies already have somewhat of an impact focus, but it won’t go beyond that until it shows up as a performance measure in the CEO’s compensation package.
- You can have impact without [seemingly] having power.
All the core issues that a leader of a company has to deal with are covered in this wide-ranging interview: strategy, teams, culture, and more. Kevin’s view is that most companies already have somewhat of what I call an impact focus, but it needs to be further infused to be sustainable and go beyond small changes. I totally agree! When leading transformation, you need to communicate what has to change, and at the same time, that the core values, mission, and purpose will remain the same, providing a solid base to transform from. CEOs of entrepreneurial companies in particular face growth challenges as they move from starting to growing a company, and not everyone wants to do both. Understanding who you are is a trait of the best leaders.
Resources:
Kevin is a consultant with Merryck & Co.
Kevin’s book: The CEO Test is at all major book retailers – buy it at your local bookstore to support a local independent business
Ursula Jorch, Host of The Impact Interviews
Ursula Jorch is a business coach, speaker, and podcaster who shows women leaders how to turn their businesses into profitable agents for lasting change, global impact, and a force for good in the world.
