Game changers

Published on 26/04/2021

Doing your job in a great way is one possibility to carve out a career. But for an increasing number of people this seems too little. They want to change the status quo, disrupt conventional ways to do business and make the world a better place. While this may sound lofty and somewhat cheesy, it is exactly what many colleagues at Novartis are seeking to achieve, especially when it comes to improving the company’s environmental footprint.

Among the associates who for years have been aiming for a big impact is Markus Lehni, a long-time veteran of Novartis who has managed four large reforestation projects, helping plant some 15 million trees. The same inspiration is driving Caroline Keller, who together with her Basel colleagues built the Green Team, which now serves as a change platform to improve the carbon footprint of Novartis, among other things.

And our colleagues in R&D, too, are no less ambitious. The teams around Alexander Marziale and Christophe Freslon are trying to reimagine drug discovery, using fewer raw materials and toxic solutions to develop new therapies by shrinking the complex and instrument-heavy R&D process.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Spector and Gu Feng are setting their sights on the future, thinking about which diseases could emerge once climate change accelerates and makes life on earth more difficult for millions of people.