This Girl KAM with Debbie Young

Liv: Good morning, Debbie!

Debbie: Good morning.

Liv: Thank you for coming on the show. I really appreciate it.

Debbie: You’re very welcome. Very happy to be here.

Liv: So to kick us off, Debbie, would you mind telling myself and the listeners a little bit about yourself, please?

Debbie: Yeah, absolutely. I’m Debbie Young, I am the Digital Strategy Director for Otsuka Europe. I’ve been in the pharmaceutical industry for 28 years now. So pretty much grown up in the industry and 25 years of that was with AstraZeneca. A little bit about me personally,  I’m married; my husband is also in the industry as well.  I have a stepson who’s 22 years old and a son who is 11 years old. And very recently, in the last year and a half, we got a pandemic pet, a Labrador called Frank, who’s a great addition to the family.

Liv: Oh, that’s lovely. I bet your 11-year-old loves him, doesn’t he?

Debbie: Absolutely. Yeah. We all do, actually.

Liv: So you talked then about the fact that you are at Otsuka now, and you left AstraZeneca after 25 years. That must have been quite a difficult move?

Debbie: It was a difficult move, both personally and professionally. As I said, I grew up in AstraZeneca, and I very much felt like part of the furniture. I knew everyone and knew everything about the organisation and how it worked. I guess there comes a point in everyone’s career where you have to make a move, a personal move for the right reasons. It was time for me to leave the organisation. I had an opportunity through redundancy to take a bit of time out, actually, which I’m really grateful for. Having spent 25 years working, and unfortunately, I’m one of those people that even sometimes works when I’m on holiday, to just have a few months to reset and spend time with family and spend a lot of time with my friends, which was really nice. And came back ready to start off with a new challenge. And that new challenge was with Otsuka Europe. Everybody always says when you leave an organisation after such a long time, you are a little bit worried about what the future might look like. But my advice to anyone that’s in this position is you always end up in a better place. A big group of us left AstraZeneca at the same time, but I’m so much happier now than I was in the last few years at AstraZeneca. So it’s been a really positive move for me.

Liv: It must be such a change with it being a smaller organisation? 

Debbie: Yes and no. So I was AstraZeneca UK and now I’m with Otsuka Europe. So actually, the volume of people that I interact with is very similar to those I interacted with previously, but obviously my remit is greater. I’m loving being in a European role. And, you know, learning about other cultures and how other countries work, especially when you’re in this transformation space and you’re trying to drive change and a mindset shift in the organisation, you really need to think differently when you are talking to different countries and cultures.

Liv: Fascinating. We might come back to that actually because I find that part of it really interesting in terms of how you have to adapt your approach in different cultures . Just before we get to that, would you mind taking me back a little bit further? Did you always want to go into pharma? What was your path into this world?

Debbie: I just fell into it, actually. I wanted to be a physiotherapist… If I reflect, a lot of things in my career have happened because of personal reasons. So, I was going to go to uni and my dad unfortunately fell ill. I ended up just getting a job to stay at home for, to take a year out, basically. That job was at Astra Pharmaceuticals. I wasn’t looking in pharma; it just happened to be a job that was available locally to where I lived. And I loved it. And once I felt like I was on that career ladder and I’d been promoted within the first year, the people were amazing. And I already felt that it was the place where I could learn and develop and grow, and I was earning money. I didn’t want to go somewhere where I was going to start going into debt, so I thought why not just stick it out? Then obviously, I stayed there for 25 years.

Liv: And you met your husband in the industry as well?

Debbie: I did yes.

Liv: Tell me about what it was like going on maternity leave. What was it like coming back and adapting to life as a parent in the role that you are?

Debbie: Actually, at the time when I was pregnant, I was the equivalent of a first-line field manager, so I had a team of 10, I think covering the south of the country pretty much. And my son decided to come seven weeks early. So we were really unprepared, I think, not just me and my husband, but me and my work situation. We were really not prepared for that at all. So unfortunately, it meant I went on maternity leave much earlier than I’d planned to. But when I reflected during my maternity leave, I kind of knew that I didn’t want to cover half the country. I knew how difficult that would be for us as a family if I was overnight, like one or two nights a week. And even the days, usually I was in the field three days a week, and even then the days where it was commutable for me to drive, I would’ve still left really early in the morning and not got back late at night. Yeah. A job came up in the office as a bit like the equivalent of a national manager, really. First-line field managers would report into that role, and I thought it was a good opportunity for me to do something a little bit different but also be more office-based because the office is quite close to home. That meant coming back from maternity leave a little bit earlier than I planned, actually. So I came back after six months. But I came back into a really fantastic job with a great team who I already knew. The transition back to work was much easier, really.

Liv: That’s interesting that it was actually a more senior role as well. On paper, you took on more responsibility with a six month old baby, that’s a tough call! But I suppose if you had a team that you knew and felt comfortable with, and you were ready for the role.

Debbie: Yeah, it was just the right time. And, as I say, I knew AstraZeneca so well and I knew the people, and I had a great support network. There was a great manager at the time who was really supportive and really understanding about my situation.  I think he missed me quite a lot while I’d been on maternity leave. So, I think he was quite grateful for me to be back as well.

Liv: So, what do you think were your main drivers when you looked for different roles?

Debbie: I think it’s changed actually. So, I mentioned earlier that as I reflect a lot of the career changes that I’ve made have been because of personal situations. I joined AstraZeneca because of a personal situation. My dad was diagnosed with cancer, and I was so interested in why clinicians chose to treat certain patients differently and what their thought process was. So, I went into oncology sales just to learn a little bit more about it and to meet consultants. Unfortunately, my dad passed away, but it was probably the job that really defined me as an individual, showed how inquisitive I could be, and how much I could learn, and how important relationships are to me because sales can be a lonely life. And I knew I needed to really build relationships and make friends with the people that I was going to be seeing on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. I went into sales for a bit, went back into the office, into an IT role. And then I was fortunate enough to, when they started looking at innovative ways to engage with healthcare professionals, they wanted somebody who had experience of sales, of data and analytics, and of IT. And in my time at AstraZeneca, I had the fortunate opportunity to be involved in all of those areas. I moved into a new area of the business looking at customer engagement and customer experience. So, I’m really grateful for that move. Obviously, then my son came along, and I had another bit of a shift change in terms of my career. And similarly, when the redundancy opportunity came up again, it meant that I had an opportunity presented to me personally to go and do something a little bit different.

I think with Otsuka, the pandemic has actually had a big impact on my work and how I think about work. I was previously always dropping my son off really early in the morning and picking him up late at night. He was at Breakfast club and after-school club. And then the pandemic hit, and we were working from home a lot more. And I had a realisation that I hadn’t actually ever dropped my son off at school. He had always gone to Breakfast Club. I hadn’t met any of the mums at the school gate and had no relationship with his friends’ parents, really. So, that really gave me an opportunity to spend a little bit more time with him in the mornings and after school. Although lockdown was the worst time from a homeschooling perspective… literally the worst thing ever! I realised that day that we were asked to start homeschooling for three hours a day that I was never going to make a teacher. But, I’m motivated by people. I’m drawn to organisations and teams where there’s a challenge and where there’s an opportunity for me to solve a problem or encourage people to think about things differently. But the biggest thing for me is who I work with, and that’s why I stayed at AstraZeneca for so long. Actually, it was the people that I worked with that really made a difference for me. The reason I found it so hard to leave was the people. I felt like I was letting my team down by leaving them, but they’ve all been absolutely fine without me. Now, where I am at Otsuka, I’m surrounded by fantastic people who motivate me every day to work on a solution that can help our organisation function better. It’s a really happy place.

Liv: You talked a bit about a manager that had supported you. Have you had particular mentors, internal or external, that have supported you throughout your career?

Debbie: Generally, I reach out to people on a situation or needs basis. So if I think back through my career, clearly I’ve had leaders who have inspired me to be a better version of myself. If I think back to when my dad was dying with cancer, I remember very clearly my manager at the time. I remember going into the office and him just turning me around and telling me to go home. I would go to the hospital and said work and wait, and there are more important things in life that I needed to focus on at that time. That gave me the opportunity to see the last few weeks with my dad, which I would never have been given that opportunity. But you know what? It was obviously massively important to me at the time, but it’s also made me reflect on that and be able to do the same for people that have worked for me. And because I knew how much it meant to me, and I know how much it would mean to other people, it makes me more thoughtful. That’s what inspires me about working for people. If I see great things in people and I want to be like them, or for people to see me as even closer to being like those people, then fantastic. Equally, I’ve had some really terrible bosses. But I think they also make you the person you are as well, because you never want to be like that person. You never want anybody to be made to feel the way you were made to feel by that person. Anything you can do personally to avoid that I think is also really helpful. So whilst at the time they’re not very pleasant situations to go through, I think it builds us and makes me a better manager. It makes me a better leader.

Liv: Is it something that you share openly? What you went through with your dad?

Debbie: Yeah, I would probably describe myself as always wearing my heart on my sleeve. I’m a bit of an emotional wreck sometimes. But yes, I do share personal situations and personal stories because I think it helps people get to know you better as a person, understand what makes you tick, and how you think and feel. I think it makes people see the real you. We’re all human. At the end of the day, we all have feelings.

Liv: So, talk to me a little bit about any workplace bias, or what are your thoughts on where we are as an industry, and where we need to go?

Debbie: An interesting one that I experience quite often now from a digital transformation perspective is everybody thinks millennials must be digital. We must recruit young people into these jobs because they know technology better than anybody else. And actually, that’s not my experience at all. I think, certainly if I look at sales representatives, a lot of our sales representatives have fantastic relationships with customers, and in order to engage with their customers in the most appropriate way, they’re willing to learn and take on new skills and capabilities. And I’ve seen a huge transition from people that have been in the industry, in sales representatives for 15, 20 years, really embrace technology. So it does frustrate me a little bit that everyone thinks it’s the younger people that are gonna be fantastic with tech, because that’s not always the case.

Liv: Absolutely. It’s total prejudice, really, isn’t it? That assumption…

Debbie: Yeah. I think one of the things that I have to be aware of, that I do struggle with, is affinity bias. I really have to not try and work with and recruit people that are like me. It’s the easy thing to do when you’re interviewing. You are drawn to people that are like you. And of course, you’d have a lovely work, potentially work relationship, but it doesn’t challenge you, and it doesn’t bring the diversity that you need in a team to encourage a team to think differently and behave differently. Quite often, I have to really ask myself what I really need when I’m recruiting a role and who would be the best person for the role, not the best person for me to manage, for example.

Liv: Yeah, that makes total sense! Talk to me a little more about your European work, tell me some of the things that you’ve found or learned while you’ve been doing this role?

Debbie: Firstly, communication skills. Us Brits talk very quickly! We talk loud and fast. So I’ve really learned how to communicate more effectively, slowing my pace down and really being able to articulate what’s in it for somebody, understanding their situation and their environment. Not just telling people everybody the same story because it’s a story I want to tell, but understanding certain countries’ situations, why they work the way they work, and how they may be able to be a little bit more effective if they look at the technology that’s available to them or think of certain situations where tech may be able to support the organisation. So, one example is our DAK region, the German, Austria, and Switzerland teams. To say they’re a little bit behind from a tech perspective is an understatement. I thought the UK was quite far behind, but who knew that fax machines were a way of communicating in the DAK region? So me standing on a stage talking about engaging with customers digitally and sending emails, and there’s no point me starting at that level when actually what’s happening on the ground is we’re sending faxes to people or we are posting materials to them, and then we’re calling them on a telephone to talk them through it. So we really had to take a step back and understand why a certain behaviour or attitude was being taken within that organisation and what was that being driven by. And are there any people in the organisation that would be willing to try something different and just do mini pilots so that other people can watch what happens and see if we can start to make a shift change? That’s what’s happened in the DAK region. We’ve slowly started to move away from traditional ways of engaging healthcare professionals to ways that other parts of the world have been doing for the last few years. And certainly, during the pandemic, a lot of organisations made that shift change. But we still struggle in certain countries…

Liv: What’s on your agenda now in terms of digital innovation and change? What do you think are the next big steps that we need to make in the industry?

Debbie: I think all pharmaceutical companies are striving towards a place where, it’s the biggest buzzword ever and I hate it, but omnichannel is the word that a lot of people talk about. And for me, what does that actually mean? Omnichannel is data-led activities. If you think of Netflix, Netflix knows it puts us all into little buckets. And data algorithms say people like you are watching movies like this and they present you with data or movies that you might be interested in. And I think all are trying to get to a place where we can segment our customers appropriately. Not based on what we want to segment them on, but based on the information that they want to receive and the way in which they want to receive it from our industry. Once they’re segmented effectively, we can then say people like you are interested in content like this, and is this something you would like to consume as well?

We are very much focused today on rep-orchestrated activities and not really able to understand where healthcare professionals go online and what content they’re consuming. As an industry, I think in terms of where I hope to get to, it was always a five-year plan in Otsuka, and I’m at year three, so the clock is ticking. But I do think we’re in a really good place now from a customer segmentation perspective, from a thinking-about-the-content perspective. Breaking the content down into bite-size chunks, rather than sending an email that has every possible piece of information a customer might want to know about that product. To allow them to pick the information that’s relevant to them so that we can understand more about what is of interest to our customers so that they decide the story we tell them, not us.

Liv: You shared with me about your dad, and I think that sort of speaks to the importance of purpose for you.  If you look at the bigger picture and your career as a whole, when do you think you will feel like you’ve had success?

Debbie: That’s a really good question. I’m not sure if I know the answer. I’ve felt like I’ve achieved success in many of the roles that I’ve done already, and I don’t think I would have moved on from those roles if I had not felt that I did my best or was the best I could be in those positions. When I reflect on my sales rep role, I built fantastic relationships with healthcare professionals who I’m still friends with today. However, it was time for me to move on and do something different, and I knew that I was ready to be challenged in a new way.

In terms of my career aspirations, I have always respected people who have clear goals and say, “I want to be the managing director of a company.” However, I have never had such a specific goal. I have always thought, “That would be interesting, and I think I could learn a lot or be successful in that area.” But I have never had a specific career destination in mind.

Over the past 10 to 12 years, I have found myself happiest in the digital transformation space. At Otsuka, I feel like a significant part of the business, and our marketers, medics, and field teams are all embracing all available digital channels. We have moved from a small handful of representatives delivering digital activities to many more representatives having a hybrid role where they can offer customers whatever they want. I am driven by the people around me, and I thrive on exceeding goals. If I set out to do something, I will do my best to make sure that I have the right people around me, and we always keep our eye on the goal.

In my presentations, I always make the organisation aware of our five-year goal and where we are in that journey. While I look forward to achieving that goal, I am uncertain about what comes next.

Liv: We often talk about pivotal moments and sliding doors. Would you share with us one of your most pivotal moments and consider how your life would have been different if you had taken a different path at that moment?

Debbie: There have probably been quite a few of them! If I had gone to university and become a physiotherapist, I’m sure my life would be very different from how it is today. If my dad hadn’t been diagnosed with cancer, I would never have gone into the commercial sales side of the business, and I would have stayed in the analyst area that I was in.

I think the birth of my son was quite a pivotal moment in my life, not just the fact that I became a mom, but also because I had something called hellp syndrome when my son was born, which is basically the stage beyond preeclampsia. I was in intensive care while my internal organs shut down, and I had a moment where I had internal bleeding. I went into surgery and I may not have made it. My husband had to sign a disclaimer to say that my organs could be used if I didn’t make it through the operation. All of these things made me think differently about life and the people around me.

I realised, as I lay in the hospital before I came out and started my maternity leave, how important my friends and family were to me. I had probably focused so heavily on work that I didn’t really put enough time and effort into the people that actually meant a lot to me. As soon as I came out of the hospital, I spent a lot of time with friends and family and just reconnecting, and that has continued since then. That’s probably my biggest sliding door moment, my realisation that my work-life balance really wasn’t well-balanced at all, and having my son and going through that life-changing situation made me realise how important people were to me.

Liv: So do you think now, since that point, that you’ve made the changes that you need to make?

Debbie: I do. Yes, I do. You have to keep reminding yourself, actually. Sometimes, I even put reminders in my calendar to make sure that I reach out to a certain group of friends. It’s funny because of the pandemic, we all went into lockdown and lived in our little bubbles for a period of time, and I think a lot of families realized that you can engage with people virtually. I guess it’s the world I live in at work anyway, to be able to talk to grandparents or even get grandparents onto FaceTime. Yeah, I think it’s been a fantastic thing, and it’s meant that these connections can happen more frequently, and you can see people. I make more efforts now than I’ve ever made before.

Previously, I would think, “Do I really want to drive two or three hours to a party full of people I don’t know, where only my cousins are going to be there?” And now, I think, “Yes, I do actually, because I haven’t seen them for years.” I make a huge effort, and I’m really pleased to say that I don’t have any regrets.

Liv: That’s fantastic. It’s so true. And actually, I think about the time during the pandemic when I had loads of virtual meetings, chats, social gatherings on Zoom or whatever, and I actually saw more of people that I wouldn’t have seen before… I do have one more question for you. What advice would you go back and give to yourself as a teenage girl now if you could?

Debbie: God, I don’t know, actually. I feel like I’ve had, as we just discussed, so many pivotal things happen in my life that have made me reflect on the situation that I’m in. I think I’ve done quite a good job of pivoting or making the changes that I need to make to focus on the important things or the things that I think are important in life. The biggest bit of advice I would give to myself is don’t waste your time with people that don’t make you feel the best that you can be. I think I did a lot of that because I just wanted to be liked by people, and actually, I probably wasted a lot of my time, even my career and some friends that weren’t really friends. I would say to myself, surround yourself with people that make you feel good and the people that you know are gonna make you be the best version of yourself.

Liv: It sounds like you’ve definitely found that now.

Debbie: I have. It’s taken many years, but yeah.

Liv: And actually, talking about success, one of the important things is to recognise when you’ve got it and celebrate that because everything that you’ve said, Debbie, it sounds like you’ve made some really important changes. And you’ve got the balance right in your life, and it takes something to see that and recognise it.

Debbie: I think it’s about taking the negative situations that happen in your life and taking something from it because I think there’s always something we can do to better ourselves. And yeah, I think I’ve been fortunate, although not in every situation, I’ve been fortunate to have that time to reflect. My dad, he was my world… when he was diagnosed with cancer, that was probably the thing that impacted me most in life. It made me realise how precious life is and how important it is that you treat people the way that you’d want to be treated yourself. And you have honest conversations with people because, I didn’t with him, he died, and there were so many things I wish I’d said that I didn’t say. And I would never want that situation to ever happen again. Previously, if I’d had an argument with somebody, I’d be like, oh, whatever, just get out my phone. But now I think, what if I never talk to that person again? What if that’s the last conversation that we ever have? I went through a period where I just wanted to say sorry to people if I ever did or said anything that hurt or upset them or that was never my intention at all. And I think it’s things like that that have helped me feel that I’ve got nothing in my past now that I regret. I just feel like I can look forward now.

Liv:  It’s almost like you’ve wiped the slate clean by going through that process. That’s brilliant.

I’m going to have to let you go now aren’t I. Thank you so much for coming on the show Debbie it has been fantastic to have you.

Debbie: Thank you!