Meet the maker: EPM talks to Pierre van Weperen

In the latest instalment of 'Meet the Maker' EPM talks to Pierre van Weperen, managing director, Ashfield Healthcare Commercial and Patient Services UK. Pierre tells us about working in pharma for 30 years, how everyday decisions can impact lives and what he's most proud of.

Could you give us a brief description of yourself?

Determined is probably a good word to capture most of it. Determined to get the max out of my family life and to spend as much time with my wife and daughter as I can. Determined in my sports and determined in my work. I am determined to do the right things for the people I love and care about, for my colleagues and for our clients. I’m very aware that everything that you do impacts people, influences things and may change things. And in the same thinking, everything that you don’t do does the same. It impacts and changes things and if anything, in the end, I just want to make a difference.

By the way that doesn’t mean that everything I do has to be serious and super relevant all the time. I think that I am quite relaxed and calm about it all. Calm and in some form of control is important, nothing was ever achieved properly by constantly rushing things, knee-jerk reactions, being on the back foot all the time. I do like the smell of success though which means that I seriously try to be really good at a few things. And I mean really good, but that’s probably a bit obsessive. Probably more than a bit actually.

Please describe your average day in five words.

Structure, impactful, simplified, exceptional, personable.

At what point did you decide to be involved in the pharma market?

Once I had made the decision that being a German teacher was not going to keep me excited for 40 years! I saw colleagues who thought about doing something else after 10 years or so and failed, or totally lost it by the time they were 50. So, I quit there and then and started with Servier in the Netherlands as a sales rep and loved it. Every minute of it, I’ve never looked back. 

What has been your biggest achievement?

The funny thing with listing achievements and reflecting on your career or your family life is that it very often is about the biggest, the largest or stuff like that. Other than actually making it to the here and now, I am very much aware that during my career I have impacted people’s lives through development plans and conversations, through supporting them or sometimes by being honest with them when I didn’t believe that something was the right thing to do. I guess the thing I am most proud of is that I have always done that with a very clear believe that it was the right thing to do and that I (we) was (were) doing it the right way. Respecting people is massively important. Treat people like you want to be treated yourself. Going to bed and looking back on the day and not feeling guilty or having regrets is very important. Make sure that you care. 

What would you say is your worst trait?

My wife is thinking …. still thinking …. going to bed too late is one of them. Using the kitchen towel to clean my hands or clean the workspace or even my glasses drives her mad. The other one is my obsession to straighten things up. You know when the table has moved a bit, chairs are not lined up at the kitchen table. Wonky is my favourite word in the English language.

What do you love about your job?

Everything. Okay, let’s put that a bit in perspective. Having worked in pharma for 30 years it is very clear to me that the environment outpaces the tempo at which a company can adapt, even if they really want to and that is where we come in. We are fast, agile, we can adapt quickly. We have a multitude of channels at our disposal and can design the tailored suit that fits perfectly and caters optimally to your needs. Building that integrated optimal package with the fantastically committed and dedicated team I have of very talented and extremely hard-working people is fun, really good fun and making that difference for our clients and ultimately their patients is what makes me come to work every day.

If anything, what would you change about your job?

During the recruitment we had many conversations about what I would like to do coming from the client side into the service side of things. Within reason, I can shape my job and since I only started a few weeks ago I am in the middle of that. One thing that is definitely on my list: client engagement. I plan to do this by going out and seeing clients myself (without getting in the way of my BD team) and strengthening the link with our field teams. Unlike pharma we don’t have regular meetings where everybody comes together, if you’re in a dedicated team you’re probably closer to the client than to us and if you work in a syndicated team your products will change etc. so building that relationship with our field-based teams is important, and I need to find time to do that.

If you weren’t in the pharma industry what job would you like to do?

Easy, professional golfer.

What challenges do you foresee being important over the next 10 years?

The key for us as a company is that we change the perception of what is called CSO. Many clients perceive us as a ‘contract sales organization’ where I would like it to stand for ‘contracted services organisation’.

We are way more than old school additional heads in the field. We can do anything a pharma company can and wants to do (and in some cases even better), as I said before more flexible, more agile, more responsive and we are also able to integrate all our offerings into exactly what you need. That sounds very ‘we tell you what we think is best for you’ and that is the one key challenge that we/I face. How do we convince pharma or devices or other industries in the medical field about the benefit in working with us early stage, look at your strategic objectives and build something together where we are also accountable and responsible in a different way? We’re doing this with some clients and it is one of my key objectives to have conversations along these lines. We are the leaders in the market and that where I would like us to stay with our thinking, our execution, our operations, our hunger and our added value. Not just because we believe that but because our clients believe it.