Helping people solve problems

Published on 31/05/2023

The career of Reshema Kemps-Polanco, who runs the commercial oncology business for Novartis in the United States, has taken many turns. But even as some of them might seem surprising, she says that, in hindsight, what kept her going all these years was the early realization that she has a service mindset and that what she cares for most is people.

Although she had at some point in her life followed her mother’s advice and started a college education in finance and banking, she soon felt that an important element, which would become central for her working life, was lacking. “I didn't feel that my studies were focused on people problems. And I realized that’s how I’m wired,” Kemps-Polanco said. “So, I switched my major to social work, which became a centerpiece in my early career.”

Her mother was anything but enthusiastic about this decision. But Kemps-Polanco repeatedly stunned family, friends, and later co-workers about her career moves, like when she decided to join the army during her freshman year, for example. “Of course, people were surprised about my decision to join the army,” Kemps-Polanco said. “But I did not do it to shock people. Rather, it was done out of a deep sense of doing service for others.” And it was a practical way to help pay for college.

This attitude kept her going and grew into a real strength in her first job when she joined a healthcare center, where she worked as a director along-side research investigators and had the chance to contribute to clinical trials. “It was the job I was looking for and which I really enjoyed, even though my mother had warned me about the economic consequences …,” Reshema Kemps-Polanco says laughingly. “It was a very fulfilling job, one of my favorites, because I loved serving and helping people solve problems – real serious problems.”

Her colleagues at the healthcare center soon realized Kemps-Polanco’s potential and suggested she move into the pharmaceutical sector. One of the companies she contacted was Novartis, who offered her a job as a sales representative. “I was familiar with Novartis at the time, because the company had a wonderful patient service program and was always able to provide access to the medicines my patients needed. I remember a neuro-science medicine. They had it at the pharmacy within hours. In that respect, Novartis stood out to me.”

Although colleagues had suggested the move to her to experience the world beyond her home state Louisiana, Kemps-Polanco stayed and immediately started to leverage the knowledge she had obtained during her time in the healthcare center. While she had to upskill her commercial knowledge, she soon left her mark in the region. “Many doctors and healthcare practitioners knew me from the hospital. And, for some of them, I had been helpful to the families of their patients, or their practices. This gave me a strong credibility and reputation,” Kemps-Polanco said.

Part of her early success, she says, was probably also down to what she describes as unconscious competence, but which was essentially her will to help people in need. “You’re really good at something, but you don’t really know why. Because it’s something innate in you,” she describes the phenomenon of unconscious competence. “I looked at the job as solving problems. I was in cardiovascular at the time in the Deep South, where you have a lot of people with high blood pressure that is not well controlled. And here we are: We have this portfolio of products. And I saw it as an opportunity to help them solve problems for patients. And I was very much into outcomes data, into science at that time. And so, I think, it made me good at my job.”

Once she mastered the selling skills needed, she soon got a new job opportunity in New Jersey around the turn of the millennium. It left her old boss stunned. Also, her family was concerned that she would leave her hometown. But Kemps-Polanco took the risk. “‘What’s the worst that could happen?’, I asked myself. I thought, ‘If it doesn't work out, I can always go home. I know how to be a sales rep. But what if this really turns into something amazing?’ So that’s how I ended up in New Jersey.” Kemps-Polanco’s career did indeed accelerate as she developed her commercial and scientific acumen and earned increasing responsibility across a number of therapeutic areas, both in the United States and globally.

Equipped with a deep sense of purpose, she had another strong anchor in her life: being raised by a tenacious and courageous mother. Kemps-Polanco’s father passed away when she was 14. “I have a very strong mother, who actually lives with us now and helps my husband and me with the kids.” Besides the help from her mother, the key lessons she learned from her is that the gifts and talents she has are not just for oneself. “My mother used to say that someone else could have had these talents. ‘But you have them. What are you going to do with them? Use your gifts and talents to help others, and to make things better for others.’”

A valuable life lesson in itself, her mother’s advice has also become her business mantra: to multiply her impact, which she has applied throughout her career, first with Novartis, where she stayed for around 15 years, before joining Johnson & Johnson, only to return to Novartis in 2022 to take over the commercial oncology business in the United States – a task she em-braces with as much energy and joy as she did when she joined the healthcare center in Louisiana more than 20 years ago.

Reshema Kemps-Polanco, you rejoined Novartis in 2022 to lead the commercial oncology business in the United States. What was the motivation to return to Novartis?

There were two major aspects that attracted me to rejoin Novartis: one deeply personal, the other linked to my ability to restructure businesses to reflect swiftly changing market realities. As to the latter, I had the clear remit to transform the oncology business in the United States and refocus our portfolio on our core strengths. The other, more personal reason was the fact that shortly before this, my best friend had died of breast cancer, which gave me a huge motivational boost to increase my commitment in the oncology space, which was always very strong.

In terms of structure, what have you changed since you rejoined Novartis?

One of the key challenges that I encountered was that we had a very broad portfolio of products, including those that were in stiff competition with generic suppliers. So, instead of driving this broad range of brands, we started to focus on our real strengths, where we know that we can make a big difference to patients. We also envisaged leveraging our in-house expertise and developing a more integrated approach between our functional teams, always with a view to bringing innovation to market at pace and to helping remove friction from the healthcare ecosystem that prevents patients from timely access to quality cancer care.

How did the recent transformation efforts of Novartis impact your efforts to refocus the business?

The program Transforming for Growth was a real catalyst for us as we were already moving in the direction of narrowing our priorities and working towards beefing up our core strengths. This not only helped us create a more agile organization in a short period of time, but more importantly, it enabled us to regain our growth momentum and really live up to our mission to improve and extend people’s lives. Of course, it was not an easy journey but, looking ahead, it will help us stay on the right trajectory.

How has the oncology organization reacted to this shift?

Of course, we had to make changes, which can be hard. But people have remained very motivated throughout the journey, which has been remarkable so far. This success is certainly a reflection of our efforts to align around a strong central vision and fully focus on our patients and the healthcare teams who care for them and less on our internal changes. We were clear, almost from the beginning, that patients outside of Novartis do not care whether we are transforming our organization. They are still getting cancer. And they are still dying. And we have lifesaving drugs and launches that can change that. Once we regrouped around these priorities, the fact that we had to perform and transform at the same time, the results started to come in. With this narrower focus, we know where we need to be and the whole organization is behind it. And our associates are excited, especially in light of our portfolio with multiple potential first- or best-in-class medicines, which is gaining traction.

Can you expand on the portfolio?

When I joined Novartis in 1999, that was around the time when the company made one of the biggest breakthroughs in cancer medicine with the development of the first personalized hematology medicine. Since then, Novartis has not only broadened its portfolio into other domains, but we have carved out specialty areas that are helping us boost our reputation as medical leaders and, most importantly, generate trust with healthcare practitioners and patients. New data readouts of our existing medicines and our strong pipeline make me confident that we can accelerate the momentum we have right now. Also, our team is fully committed to this goal. I have to say that the magic of these early transformative days when Novartis had one of its biggest cancer break-throughs are back, thanks also to new technologies.

Can you tell us more about these technological breakthroughs and their potential to transform cancer care?

When I started in the pharmaceutical business back in the late 1990s, the industry was mostly focusing on chemical compounds. While the first biotech drugs were on the market, they were few and far between. Today, we have new opportunities in second-generation cell and gene therapy, the first radioligand therapy, as well as our core portfolio of targeted therapies. While we are still at an early stage in the development of some of these new medicines – imagine, some of them were not around just a decade ago – they could one day contribute to the development of real cures. I doubt that there is a bigger motivator than this for me and our teams.

How do you want to leverage such innovation breakthroughs?

I see my job as an attempt to maximize the impact of the organization and leave the people, patients and business in a better shape than I found it. That’s the imprint that will endure. My thinking goes along the line: “Because I was here, because my team was here, something is different – because we existed in this space.” Also, a lot of my energy and motivation comes simply from the fact that I love my job, that I love cancer care, the science and the impact it has. I love to see the sparkle in the eye of the teams when they do something they didn’t think they could do because they took a courageous step. This is what I aim for.

Can you talk about this leadership aspect?

I believe that courage is important to develop new things and test them out. Not everything will work, of course. But that is okay. Nelson Mandela had the right idea when he said: “I never lose, I win or I learn.” Likewise, it is important that we embrace a competitive mindset and measure ourselves against the best. This is not just for the sake of competition but realizing that we are all part of a community with the same goal of extending survival, improving survivorship and ultimately finding more cures. When all companies compete to the best of their abilities, innovation explodes for patients. If competition fizzles out, patients stand to lose. If we keep this in mind, we can create the win-win-win situation that helps patients, Novartis and its shareholders. This is how we can develop longterm success.

What other leadership elements are important for you work?

One is certainly my ability to look at things from different angles, which is probably due to my background of working in the industry, working on the provider side, and consuming healthcare as a patient and caregiver. There are other important dimensions that bring diversity of thought like being a woman, being a woman of color, serving in the military, being from the United States, being from the South, being raised by a single mom. I have been in different socioeconomic brackets in my life. I can see things from different angles, which allows me to connect to the patient, connect to the caregivers, connect to the customers, and connect to the mission of what Novartis is trying to do. In short, it’s a strong sense of empathy, of putting yourself into the shoes of others. This is where the diversity of teams who reflect the patients and communities we serve is imperative. Teams really need to understand the problem we want to solve and how we can make a difference. If we can answer this question, we are fit for purpose to win and can contribute meaningfully to transform diseases. But, of course, we need to sit down and ask ourselves whether we can advance the standard of care and really change outcomes for patients. If the answer is yes, then we can go full speed ahead.

Looking ahead, where do you see the oncology organization in a few years from now?

As I said, we have made great strides when it comes to focusing our business on our key priorities and integrating our various units to create an agile organization that can truly bring science to life equitably and at scale. Our growth rates show we are moving in the right direction. And the fact that we have a strong portfolio with leading technologies and several strong data readouts makes me confident that we can stay on this path and help create new options for cancer patients, including cures.