An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Organizations also need process and infrastructure to help with recruitment, retention and development of talent.
As a part of our series about “How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Christine Sakdalan.
Christine Sakdalan is a fearless leader driven by faith, family, friendships, and fun. In her extensive experience as a marketing leader for over two decades, she brings patient centricity to life through commercial, digital health, and organizational transformation. She creates vision, inspires innovation, and authentically shares the voice of the patient to shape actionable strategies and meaningful solutions that impact people’s lives.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive into the main part of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you share a bit of your “backstory” with us?
I came to the U.S. as an immigrant when I was 15 years old and ended up going to college very early, graduating when I was 19. From there, I was hired by Pfizer, and originally I wasn’t really intentional about being in health care. My first job was in analytics. Then I went to Novartis and kept growing from market research to marketing to innovation and on to patient-centricity.
I just kept saying ‘yes’ to things. I was following a calling (unbeknownst to me at the time) to choose courage over comfort. I had a thirst to learn and be challenged. There were a few pivotal experiences that influenced my trajectory. The first was seeing how much healthcare mattered in making a difference in people’s lives. I was working at Novo Nordisk as the VP of Patient Centric Strategy and Solutions, which was one of my favorite roles. It was essentially cobbling together all the different marketing functions and bringing them together to better understand the patient journey and put ourselves in their shoes. My work in healthcare felt very personal and purposeful, and I saw that I needed to be the type of leader that embodied this patient-centric attitude in my work.
After Novo, I went to J&J, where I worked in the mental illness space, which is what I am doing again now at Otsuka Pharmaceuticals. This area is so near and dear to me because it is not only fulfilling from a professional perspective but from a personal one as well. My brother had schizophrenia. Other family members have struggled with depression, and my mother died of Alzheimer’s. My work feels more like a mission. It’s not just a job. We are not only impacting the lives of people living with serious mental illness — we’re impacting their families in a very positive way.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us the lesson or take away you took out of that story?
I can tell you an impactful story that speaks to the challenges many face today. As an Asian American leader in healthcare, there are not a lot of people who look like me or come from similar backgrounds. So as I became a leader of leaders, I realized I needed to use my voice and sphere of influence to champion other women of color and to be an inspirational leader who could help others reach new levels.
This importance of this was further emphasized when I worked with someone who did not appreciate what I could bring to the table and perhaps had some biases and misconceptions — despite the fact that I was a senior leader. His biases became very real when he took over the employee reviews that I had done and lowered all the scores for the women and raised the scores for the men.
Around that time, I was with my daughter at a restaurant, waiting outside with a few other families, and overheard another family speaking loudly and using very offensive racist language in a casual way. I decided to stand up to them. The man told me to go back to where I came from because he was white and I looked like I didn’t belong here.
I thought, how can I turn these negative circumstances into something positive? I am at a place in my career where I have a voice, a platform, many professional connections and could do something more. So without any experience, I started a nonprofit with a couple of colleagues called Momentum and Value for People of Color, or MVP for short. Through our work, we help young people of color in their education, career, and other areas of their lives.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you tell us a story about how that was relevant in your own life?
To inspire people, don’t show them your superpower. Show them theirs. I have found time and time again that when I empower my team to realize and reach their potential, they are able to succeed and deliver greater impact for the people we serve. I’m so grateful to have had great teams around me throughout my career, and they are all a testament to this quote.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?
My parents always spoke confidence and courage to me. When I was a young child, every time I walked in the room, my father would say, “how’s my little chief executive officer?” I was maybe three or four years old at the time! Both were high-level professionals. I’ve also been blessed with some wonderful mentors throughout my career. Finally, I am grateful for my husband, who never tries to change me but instead highlights who I am.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
I, along with the two other co-founders of MVP, Tina Chang and Serene Hennion, are able to personally leverage our incredible and expansive network of executives and diverse professionals to help young people of color. Importantly, we also build in competencies to support other vital skills, with focuses on financial literacy and health and wellness. We’re not only preparing them as professionals — we’re preparing them for life.
Not surprisingly, we’ve already seen these young peoples’ lives transformed. One young woman had a very difficult time securing an internship and now, with our help, she’s engaged in her second one. Another young person wanted to be in the medical field, and we were able to introduce them to a variety of professionals. Now they have six mentors and an internship at an ad agency that focuses on healthcare. Another mentee was extremely shy and introverted but after being involved in our program was able to develop her voice and is now able to promote her accomplishments on LinkedIn and elsewhere with confidence. These are just a few of our success stories.
Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?
MVP has recently partnered with Jazz Pharmaceuticals to give these young people internships and exposure to the STEM world. We are developing a signature program that allows MVP to be the partner of choice for these internships and will help give these interns their very own personal “board of directors” to who they can go for advice and support. Diving into a career is daunting as is, and having experienced support and empowering allies on the career journey is crucial. I’m thrilled for how this partnership will impact young professionals to feel more confident in their work, provide them access to connections and future opportunities, and experience in their desired field.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
As a young immigrant, I never would have thought that I’d get as far as I have. Sometimes I wonder if I had had different parents or circumstances, what would have happened? I don’t ever want to waste the blessings and opportunities that I’ve received. It’s important that I pay it forward and use my voice and platform to inspire and help others in any way I can.
Ok. Thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main part of our interview. This may be obvious to you, but it is not intuitive to many people. Can you articulate to our readers five ways that increased diversity can help a company’s bottom line. (Please share a story or example for each.)
- It all starts with a solid commitment in order for it to become an organizational priority.
- You also need championship to ensure there are people dedicated to focus on DEI.
- Organizations also need process and infrastructure to help with recruitment, retention and development of talent.
- There are also very tactical elements that need to be executed such as ensuring not only a diverse candidate pool but also a diverse interview panel.
- Without a doubt, diversity fosters better ideas because you’re drawing from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. And better ideas breed innovation necessary for a company to grow.
Additionally, companies are faced with a variety of challenges, and, with a diverse workforce, you can tap different ways to create new solutions for more people.
Greater and more diversified representation within a company also sheds light to possible new customers that haven’t been reached, but that we can and should be serving.
Diversity that is genuinely embedded into a company’s culture also breeds natural brand ambassadors that can campaign for their organization’s mission with their circle of influence.
Diversity also fosters a deeper level of commitment from people within the organization because they know that they’re part of a larger societal change. This leads to better work and a more successful organization.
What advice would you give to other business leaders to help their employees to thrive?
You have to inspire human brilliance in people because, in doing so, you get the most out of them, and they get the most out of themselves. To do so, it’s essential to establish a culture of purpose and mission because if people understand and reflect on their own “why,” then they’re going to yield better results for the company and themselves. They’ll be able to see the bigger purpose of what they’re doing. That’s important.
What advice would you give to other business leaders about how to manage a large team?
Trust the people you hired as experts at their job. Expect excellence and empower people to run, encouraging courage over comfort. That is when real change happens and transforms businesses. Through that change though, also share insight on the vision so that people can also have a sense of stability through transformation.
Oprah Winfrey because she is bigger than life, and she has such a big heart. She is a champion for women and a catalyst for people who are movement makers, and that’s what I try to be as well.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can find our work on MVP, as well as follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn as well.
Thank you for these excellent insights. We wish you continued success in your great work.
Christine Sakdalan Of MVP On How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
