Latest / Chief Officer / Betty Larson, Chief Officer at Merck: Solve the Bigger Problem

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Betty Larson, Chief Officer at Merck: Solve the Bigger Problem · Chief Officer

• 0:00
  Hi Betty, how are you? So good to see you. Hi Tiffany, I'm glad to be
• 0:03
  here. Thanks for the invitation. Of course, it's always a delight to
• 0:07
  talk to you. So I'm excited to dig into your journey and be able to
• 0:11
  share with listeners why you've had such an incredible and an impressive
• 0:15
  and inspiring journey. So I'm delighted to have you here. Well, it's a
• 0:19
  pleasure to be here. So I look forward to jumping in.
• 0:22
  Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, part of our purpose on this show is to
• 0:26
  be able to dig into how you got to that chief officer seat for the very
• 0:31
  first time and how it felt like got you there. So I'd love to ask you
• 0:35
  that to hear more about your journey. And you've been chief officer four
• 0:39
  times or more at this point. So there's a lot to share here but
• 0:43
  Tell us about your journey prior to that first Chief Officer role.
• 0:47
  Yeah, so you know what, it's always a pleasure to have these
• 0:51
  opportunities to reflect. It's a bit humbling when you do think that my
• 0:55
  first chief HR officer role was 12 years ago now, but luckily I still
• 1:00
  remember much about the journey. So my story's a little bit unique to
• 1:04
  other CHROs, I think. Many CHROs had a career maybe starting in a
• 1:08
  different function or somewhere else in the organization and they
• 1:12
  happened to find their way to HR and fell in love with it. I fell in
• 1:17
  love with HR from the very beginning. I went to school in Illinois in
• 1:21
  Champaign-Urbana, so at the University of Illinois and probably jumped
• 1:26
  around to a couple different majors as I remind my college age kids now,
• 1:30
  I didn't know what I was going to do and took an I/O psychology class
• 1:35
  and fell in love with the idea of
• 1:37
  I guess the marriage between psychology and business and how can you
• 1:41
  help human beings perform at their best? And so I started to study HR
• 1:46
  and a master's program there and started my career at a company called
• 1:51
  Baxter Healthcare and a rotational program and spent 16 years there
• 1:55
  rotating around between different divisions and different jobs and
• 1:59
  moving.
• 2:00
  And then left. Was there something about healthcare that was most
• 2:04
  interesting to you? You know, so I've been 30 years plus in healthcare
• 2:08
  and I just love the industry. I think it's very human capital intensive.
• 2:13
  It's very purpose driven. You know, I've been in different parts of
• 2:17
  healthcare, life sciences, medical device, diagnostic imaging. And I
• 2:22
  I guess if you're going to do what I do, it's a place where it's an
• 2:25
  industry where people are incredibly motivated around the purpose of the
• 2:29
  company and you have cross-functional disciplines that are pretty wide
• 2:33
  and it's human capital intensive. So it's been a pleasure to feel that
• 2:37
  you can serve others through your daily work. Incredible, absolutely.
• 2:40
  And so what happened after Baxter?
• 2:42
  Yes, so I was at Baxter for 16 years as I mentioned moving around a bit
• 2:47
  I'm sure we'll talk about you know when I when I got the call or when I
• 2:51
  Realized I had the opportunities, but I was There when Baxter was going
• 2:56
  to go through a separation of sorts so they were spinning out their life
• 3:00
  sciences business and consequently at the same time hadn't received a
• 3:05
  call to
• 3:05
  consider a CHRO role at a medical device company called C.R. Bard. That
• 3:10
  was smaller, but it was the top job. And through a series of discussions
• 3:15
  and then different decisions, I decided to take the shot and move out to
• 3:19
  New Jersey with my young family at the time and take my first CHRO
• 3:24
  position. And it was hands down the best decision I've made in my
• 3:28
  career.
• 3:29
  That's amazing. And was that call from C.R. Bard directly or was it from
• 3:33
  a search firm or how did it go? Yeah, so it was through a search firm,
• 3:38
  but you know, it was an amazing lesson for me in regards to network and
• 3:43
  relationships because I think the search firm didn't find me. I think I
• 3:47
  had been at a point now with 16 years at Baxter. Search firms stopped.
• 3:52
  calling because they weren't that confident that I was going to leave. I
• 3:56
  was fortunate enough to be developing towards succession plans there and
• 4:01
  in a big role. But a mentor and advisor and advocate for myself had
• 4:05
  given my name to the COO of the company. And so the COO and CEO looked
• 4:10
  at my background and asked the search firm to reach out. So yes, it was
• 4:14
  through a search firm, but
• 4:16
  We all talk about the power of our network. It was an advocate, someone
• 4:20
  who had been a mentor. Yeah, I agree with that. Wonderful. Yeah, it was
• 4:24
  the mentor. It was your friendships, relationships that brought you that
• 4:28
  opportunity. I love that. Do you want to give that mentor a shout out?
• 4:31
  Were they a colleague, a former colleague, someone you had met in the
• 4:35
  field?
• 4:35
  Yeah, so she was, she still does business with a lot of organizations
• 4:40
  and she was an individual who runs her own consulting company and we had
• 4:45
  been doing some work together so she had an opportunity to see how I
• 4:50
  think, how I approach the work, how I partner and so a fabulous
• 4:54
  individual. I'll protect her confidentiality about it.
• 4:58
  Amazing though. I love to hear how it came about and the fact that it
• 5:02
  came from a mentor is so special. And so then you were a chief officer
• 5:06
  there at now C.R. Bard and then you became chief officer again. That's
• 5:11
  right. I was at C.R. Bard for about two and a half years when our board
• 5:15
  informed us that we were being acquired by a company called Becton
• 5:19
  Dickinson.
• 5:20
  And so we were about $4 billion in revenue, and Becton Dickinson at the
• 5:24
  time, I think was about $16 billion in revenue. And so we were acquired
• 5:29
  by Becton Dickinson. My mission at that point was to work through the
• 5:33
  integration and to help the C.R. Bard associates land appropriate jobs
• 5:38
  in the new combined entity. And I was fortunate enough through that
• 5:43
  integration process to
• 5:44
  be asked then to serve as the CHRO of the combined company. And so I
• 5:49
  took over as the CHRO for Becton Dickinson, which now included C.R.
• 5:54
  Bard, it was about a 20 billion revenue organization and in combination
• 5:58
  of both companies, I was there for about eight years. - That's
• 6:03
  amazing. And that speaks a lot to you since obviously in that M&A
• 6:07
  process, it can be,
• 6:09
  you know, a lot of there can be a lot of uncertainty as to who's going
• 6:13
  to be the final chief officer of the combined entity. So that's, that's
• 6:17
  amazing to hear and speaks again a lot to your leadership. That it was
• 6:20
  a, it was a great organization. I had actually worked with the president
• 6:24
  at a prior company. So again, it comes back to the impressions that we
• 6:28
  make and the experiences that we have in the networks that we build. And
• 6:32
  so we had worked together.
• 6:34
  Back at Baxter, we worked together through the integration. I got to
• 6:38
  know the CEO of the combined company. I had the opportunity then to step
• 6:42
  into the role and it was a fantastic experience both from a personal
• 6:46
  growth and development and lots of personal and professional
• 6:50
  fulfillment. So we create relationships there and it was a tremendous
• 6:54
  experience. I honestly didn't think I would leave there, but
• 6:58
  you know, as luck would have it, I got a call from a CEO I had
• 7:02
  worked with also back at Baxter, who was going to be leading the GE
• 7:07
  Healthcare spin out of big GE CEO by the name of Peter Arduini. And
• 7:12
  we started talking really more around advice or counsel relative to
• 7:17
  some things that he was looking to do. And inevitably, we got to the
• 7:22
  point where
• 7:23
  He asked if I would consider coming over to the organization and so I
• 7:27
  was at a point in my career where I'd been through a major integration
• 7:32
  and some spin activity at Becton Dickinson as well and Wanted to go have
• 7:37
  the opportunity not to spin a company but be part of a fun company and
• 7:41
  have a chance to set up a new culture we ended up establishing
• 7:45
  the brand for the organization, built the leadership team. It was really
• 7:50
  a tremendous experience. GE Healthcare is another great company. I've
• 7:54
  been fortunate to work with great companies and had a true pleasure
• 7:58
  there building the team and building the organization. Again, it's one
• 8:03
  of those stories, Tiffany, where you don't expect you're going to leave.
• 8:07
  You get a call out of left field. Again, it was for a really
• 8:11
  amazing organization, Merck, where I'm the CHRO today. And this is a
• 8:16
  pure CHRO position at GE Healthcare. I had HR communications in
• 8:20
  corporate marketing at Becton Dickinson. I had some broader
• 8:25
  responsibilities as well for communications in the foundation. And so
• 8:29
  this is a larger HR organization with an iconic
• 8:33
  healthcare company and I've explained it to people as I loved GE. Again,
• 8:37
  I never thought I would leave. Up until this point, I'd only left for my
• 8:42
  first CHRO assignment at C.R. Bard. After 16 years with one company and
• 8:46
  then stayed through a major integration and stayed there eight years. So
• 8:51
  I really didn't feel like I was a job hopper at the time. So it was a
• 8:55
  big deal to consider, but this is
• 8:58
  If you're in healthcare, a company like Merck comes along only so often.
• 9:01
  It's a tremendous place with tremendous people and incredible pipeline.
• 9:05
  And I felt very fortunate to get the call. And so that's how I ended up
• 9:09
  here. Yeah. You just give me chills. I love your story. And I feel like
• 9:13
  again, I admire you so much. I feel like you've always been heads down
• 9:17
  focused on doing a really great job, never thinking you're going to
• 9:20
  leave, but
• 9:21
  clearly leaving such an incredible impression on everyone who works with
• 9:26
  you, who has the honor of collaborating with you. And so as a result,
• 9:31
  you get these calls and it's well deserved. And so now how did it go
• 9:35
  when you got the call from Merck that they were selecting you as the
• 9:40
  chief officer? Who was the first person you called to tell the news?
• 9:44
  Yeah, well, well, funnily enough, I mean, I think I was walking the dog
• 9:49
  with my husband. And so he's like, he's usually the first person that I
• 9:53
  call or talk to for most things. But, you know, maybe, maybe a few
• 9:57
  mentors from that point. It's amazing when you, like I said, over the
• 10:01
  course of my career, you learn the power of your network.
• 10:04
  So amongst the first few calls that I made, and honestly, this was a
• 10:08
  really difficult decision for me. It was really not obvious that I
• 10:12
  should leave. I felt very committed to what GE Healthcare was doing.
• 10:17
  And we can talk a little bit about the type of HR work that I'm doing
• 10:21
  here at Merck and why that's so compelling to me at this point in my
• 10:25
  career.
• 10:26
  I called my former CEO. So the CEO Tim Ring from C.R. Bard. Part of the
• 10:30
  reason I said it was one of the best, if not the best professional
• 10:34
  decisions I made to go to Bard is I met some executives there who've
• 10:38
  been in my professional life ever since. Tim Ring is one of them. I
• 10:42
  think I've probably visited with Tim around every major career decision
• 10:46
  I've made. So I talked to Tim for advice and counsel.
• 10:49
  a long time mentor and advisor on the HR side, a woman by the name of
• 10:53
  Anne Hill. She was probably one of the first leaders that took a real
• 10:57
  chance on me and threw me into larger and bigger roles, despite maybe
• 11:01
  some pushback from peers and other colleagues. And so I will forever be
• 11:05
  indebted to Anne, but she's been someone that I've sought counsel from
• 11:09
  at many different points in my career. And then...
• 11:12
  I have one or two girlfriends that I've worked with at a couple
• 11:16
  different companies that always give me good feedback and advice. And we
• 11:20
  can talk more about that decision. That was a decision that was
• 11:24
  difficult for me. And as a mom of two kids, having just moved my kids
• 11:28
  back to Chicago, it was one I wrestled with. But ultimately, everyone
• 11:32
  was really strong in their encouragement. And I haven't regretted the
• 11:36
  decision a day yet.
• 11:38
  And your kids must have been so proud of you Yeah, I mean look my my
• 11:42
  daughter was 14 at the time I think and had just moved at 12 So it took
• 11:47
  a while for her to be excited for me proud of me. Yes But you know my
• 11:51
  son my son's funny we can talk about kids reaction I think his first
• 11:56
  question was what's the market cap?
• 11:59
  - Wow. - It was the market cap of Merck. He was in investment club at
• 12:03
  the time. It was fun to have those conversations with the kids. -
• 12:08
  That's amazing. So I see a clear pattern emerging from your journey.
• 12:13
  You're so good at maintaining relationships with your peers, with your
• 12:18
  leaders clearly over the course of even.
• 12:21
  moving to new companies, you still keep in touch with your past leaders
• 12:25
  and close friendship and collaboration. And you're also very good at
• 12:30
  selecting companies as well. Clearly Baxter was a great breeding ground
• 12:35
  it sounds like for HR leaders, for healthcare leaders, kind of like the
• 12:39
  PayPal mafia, it's like the Baxter mafia, right? I know there's the GE
• 12:44
  leadership engine but
• 12:45
  in the early days of biotech and bioscience, there was some articles or
• 12:49
  some books written about how many of those leaders actually had come out
• 12:52
  of Baxter. And so it really was a great training ground for so many of
• 12:56
  us. Yeah, it's amazing. And so I would love to hear more about your work
• 12:59
  at Merck, you were mentioning, and I know you and I have had a lot of
• 13:03
  conversations actually about the incredible work you're doing there. So
• 13:06
  I'd love for everyone.
• 13:07
  want to hear as well about your insights on AI and how excited you are
• 13:11
  and what you're doing there that I think has been so impressive when
• 13:15
  I've listened to you talk about it. Yeah, I mean, first and foremost,
• 13:20
  it's a it's a fantastic organization that has a very storied past and
• 13:24
  has been a leader in many different ways in healthcare over many, many
• 13:28
  years and decades. And so it's a
• 13:30
  It's an incredibly purpose-driven organization. When you're in
• 13:34
  healthcare, you have the distinct advantage of working with very
• 13:37
  purpose-driven organizations. I think this company takes it to the next
• 13:41
  level. People are highly, highly committed to doing anything we can do
• 13:46
  to help advance care for patients. So it's an amazing place to be. We
• 13:49
  are transforming over the last several years, and for the next several
• 13:53
  years, we're moving from
• 13:55
  a focus in a couple therapeutic areas and leadership positions to
• 13:59
  launching products and entering into therapeutic areas or markets that
• 14:03
  are new to us or new again. So it's an incredible place to be an HR
• 14:07
  professional because we get to help the organization think about what
• 14:11
  are those capabilities that we're going to need in the future, whether
• 14:14
  it be because we're going into new therapeutic areas or to your point,
• 14:19
  We're looking to leverage AI and so we want to work new ways but this
• 14:22
  exercise around what capabilities are we going to need? Can we start
• 14:26
  thinking about them now so that we can think about how do we take our
• 14:30
  workforce through learning or development or hiring and make sure that
• 14:34
  the workforce is ready? The workforce is tomorrow we have today. But
• 14:38
  there's also a lot of culture change that comes with that. We are a
• 14:41
  fantastic organization but
• 14:43
  We keep talking to our teams and each other about how can we actually
• 14:47
  move with more agility? How do we embrace new ways of working? So
• 14:50
  there's cultural transformation there as well. And so it's really great
• 14:54
  HR work for the team to do. I'm so proud of the team and the work that
• 14:59
  they're doing. And so it's an honor to be in a position to have an
• 15:02
  impact on the organization that is aspiring to have an impact on so many
• 15:06
  patients around the world.
• 15:08
  - That's amazing. And so looking back upon your journey, now having
• 15:12
  again been chief officer a number of times, what was the first week like
• 15:16
  each time you started? What's the typical pattern for you when you take
• 15:21
  on the new role? - You know, it's interesting. I was just reflecting on
• 15:25
  a discussion I had with someone recently and she was talking about the
• 15:29
  fact she's a researcher in leadership and management development.
• 15:34
  And she was talking about learning from failures and really the idea
• 15:37
  that if you're not failing, you're probably not ambitious enough in your
• 15:42
  goal, right? We have to be willing to strive for bigger and better
• 15:45
  things and expect that we're going to have some speed bumps along the
• 15:49
  way. And so I think any of us that have stepped into our first chief
• 15:53
  officer role or our second or third in a different organization, the
• 15:57
  first several weeks are humbling.
• 15:59
  You are suddenly aware of everything that you don't know and you have to
• 16:03
  recalibrate a little bit about what is it that you bring to the role
• 16:08
  that's different and what do you still need to learn about the
• 16:11
  organization, about the role to be successful. So it's often a period
• 16:16
  of...
• 16:16
  humility. It can be nerve wracking or a little scary at first and at the
• 16:21
  same time there's excitement. You get to learn new things, new people,
• 16:25
  new organizations. So humbling is probably the single word I would
• 16:30
  choose. Amazing. And I'm curious actually, and I'm sure some of our
• 16:34
  listeners are, you know, who perhaps see the chief officer role as more
• 16:39
  of a black box.
• 16:40
  What's your typical day like or give us like an insight into your most
• 16:44
  exciting day that you've had recently? Like tell us like as if we're in
• 16:49
  a movie watching you. What was the day like? And look, I would probably
• 16:53
  say it's different at every organization. Just depending on the size of
• 16:58
  the organization as well as what the remit is for the HR function at
• 17:02
  that organization. I'm pretty hands on.
• 17:05
  So a typical day usually would involve me getting deep into some sort of
• 17:09
  topic with some team at any point in the day. If I have a day where it's
• 17:14
  just people presenting to me or...
• 17:16
  or sitting in business meetings. That's not a great day. I like to get
• 17:20
  out there and learn. So if I think about the last couple of weeks, you
• 17:24
  know, I spent a day two days ago in a full R&D review with a team deeper
• 17:29
  in the organization, the CEO and I visiting them to understand their
• 17:33
  work, but more importantly, understand how they're working, their
• 17:36
  capabilities, their culture. A couple days before that, I was walking
• 17:40
  around to dairy farms and
• 17:42
  a feedlot down in Amarillo, Texas visiting customers for our animal
• 17:46
  health business. It might be visiting a plant. It's a lot of meetings. I
• 17:50
  think most of us would say it's a lot of meetings, but when we're lucky,
• 17:54
  we're also engaging in parts of the organization to make sure we're
• 17:58
  clarifying vision or strategy or direction and also just being out there
• 18:03
  to listen and learn from the people that are doing the work day to day.
• 18:07
  I love that.
• 18:08
  What are you proudest of actually? I would love to hear in terms of your
• 18:12
  accomplishments when you look back on everything. What are you proudest
• 18:15
  of? Yeah, and this is going to seem funny because I think I'm a very
• 18:19
  business oriented HR person, but when you asked me that question, it was
• 18:23
  less about a business result or an impact that
• 18:25
  that I can think of and it's more about the people that I've had a
• 18:29
  pleasure of playing even a small part in their development. So I was
• 18:33
  reflecting and I think the count is up to 10 or 11 at this point, former
• 18:37
  direct reports who are now CHROs themselves. And like I said, I haven't
• 18:42
  necessarily been responsible for the totality of their development, but
• 18:46
  I'm proud to have played even a little part.
• 18:49
  in helping them along the way. And I think what I'm proudest, most proud
• 18:53
  or proudest about in that is that I'm in contact with all of them. At
• 18:57
  some point in time, they've all reached out, whether it be for advice as
• 19:02
  they've moved into their first C-suite position, advice about changing
• 19:06
  roles or going after roles, or I've been seeking advice from them. And
• 19:10
  so it's a pleasure to not only have that statistic,
• 19:13
  but more importantly to still have that relationship with everyone.
• 19:16
  And so finally, my final question to you is for our listeners who want
• 19:21
  to be the chief officer next, what would you give in terms of advice for
• 19:26
  them to become chief officer, overcoming any doubts or anything within
• 19:31
  themselves to become that chief officer? Yeah, I mean, first of all, I'm
• 19:36
  not necessarily sure I ever set out.
• 19:38
  with the chief officer role as a destination or an aspiration. I drove
• 19:42
  my career more around what are the bigger problems I can solve. So I
• 19:46
  felt like I was moving from bigger problems to bigger problems so that I
• 19:50
  could have an impact on the organization. Eventually you end up in a
• 19:54
  position where you have an opportunity to lead. I think the advice I
• 19:57
  would give when you find yourself there, because again, I don't
• 20:01
  necessarily think if people always...
• 20:03
  plan to get there and then arrive. So what's humbling when you get there
• 20:08
  is you do have to make a conscious change between being in the function
• 20:13
  to leading the function. And so, you know, we always hear this notion
• 20:17
  of, you know, what got you here isn't what will get you there. I think
• 20:22
  it's not doing more of the same. You really have to change how you
• 20:26
  think.
• 20:27
  and how you operate. You're shifting from a functional mindset in many
• 20:31
  cases to an enterprise mindset. And as the final decision maker around
• 20:35
  what we do in HR, I have to be thoughtful around how those decisions
• 20:39
  affect the business. Are they aligned with our strategy? What does it
• 20:43
  cost in terms of human processing time? How does it affect the
• 20:46
  organization overall or operations? And so shifting to that enterprise
• 20:50
  orientation is important.
• 20:52
  you have to build a team around you that you trust and you can rely on
• 20:56
  to run the function because a good percentage of your time is going to
• 21:00
  be in strategy meetings or board meetings or customer visits or out with
• 21:04
  employees. And so the demands on your time will shift. And so you have
• 21:08
  to make sure you have the right team to run the day-to-day operations.
• 21:12
  You have to learn to speak the language of the business and the board.
• 21:16
  I think most people are already doing that. That's what differentiates
• 21:20
  them to get to the next level. You want to make sure you understand in a
• 21:25
  C-suite position, how to engage with the board, what's that governance
• 21:29
  mechanism, what's the board expecting of you. I would also say this has
• 21:33
  maybe come from my perspective as a CHRO.
• 21:36
  Your relationship with a CEO is different than any other manager
• 21:39
  subordinate relationship you've had. You're going to be more autonomous.
• 21:43
  You're going to have to figure out how to find the right cadence to work
• 21:47
  with the CEO. You're not going to get the same level of direction or
• 21:51
  have the same amount of discussion.
• 21:53
  CEOs have a tremendous number of stakeholders that they have to manage
• 21:57
  in terms of board members, individual board members, investors,
• 22:01
  customers, regulators, government officials. And so the amount of time
• 22:06
  that they have for one-on-ones or for more rudimentary reviews is very
• 22:10
  different. So then figuring out also how do you communicate
• 22:14
  and engage with the CEO is a big transition as well. But ultimately, I
• 22:17
  think it's that consciously going in and thinking differently about how
• 22:21
  you're going to work in the job. It's just not more of the same. That's
• 22:24
  really good advice. Thank you so much, Betty. You're such an inspiration
• 22:28
  again. And it's always a delight to learn from you. So thank you again
• 22:31
  for sharing all your lessons and advice with our listeners today. And
• 22:35
  always a pleasure to see you.
• 22:36
  Yeah, thanks, Tiffany. This has been great. I look forward to listening
• 22:40
  to the stories that you're recording with others as well, because we can
• 22:44
  always keep learning. Thank you.