1. The EuroVoice
October 2010
THE MANY FACES OF PASSION

2. The EuroVoice
October 2010
HBA Europe Board of Directors 2010
The President’s Voice
President: Friederike Sommer, Founder
Friederike Sommer Training & Consulting The Healthcare Businesswomen‟s
President elect: Jolanda Groenhuijzen, Association (HBA) now exists since
Managing Director, MyLanda GmbH 1977 as a global not-for-profit
Vice-President: Isabelle Buckle, CEO, InGen organization dedicated to
Biosciences furthering the advancement of
women in healthcare worldwide. 14
Immediate Past President Barbara Gerber,
chapters and affiliates throughout
Senior Director Client Services Europe,
InterbrandHealth the U.S. and in Europe do support efforts. Behind
Treasurer: Gabriele Matthias, Research those chapters and affiliates are hundreds of
Associate, Novartis Research Foundation FMI dedicated members (women and men) that
Secretary: Sabine Aslan, Paris passionately serve and support the organization to its
Chapter Mentor: Cathy Sohn, President, SHS successful growth. I want to dedicate this issue of the
– Sohn Health Strategies Euro Voice to spend some time on recognizing some
of those people and their passion for HBA.
Directors at large Passion drives us in everything we do, it is the force
behind us giving our best in aspects of life that matter
Programs: Dragana Zivkovic to us, it makes us show that we care and are
Business Analyst, Novartis Pharma AG committed. It is what keeps us going even when we
Mentoring: Britta Luescher, Corporate are tired, what makes us stay long hours in our work,
Citizenship and D&I Executive Animal Health, or dedicate our free time to our favorite cause.
Novartis Passion is the subtle link that bonds the volunteers of
EuroVoice: Silvia Pellegrini, Client Services HBA, men and women who believe in the importance
Director, Sentrix Global Health Communications of creating a better place and bigger space for women
Corporate Relations: Deborah Wong, in their work environments and ultimately in the
world. Passion makes us feel proud for achievements
Director CI, Novartis Pharma AD
of our fellow colleagues and happy to have a
Advocacy: Cherie Faiella, Executive Director,
community to share our own achievements with.
Office of the Chairman, Ernst&Young LLP
Talent Management: Gaia Piraccini, On September 27 we had the first HBA meeting in
Managing Director, Mederis Zug, Switzerland, hosted by Amgen AG and co-
Marketing: Yasmina Eroglu, Associate sponsored by Janssen Cilag GmbH. 60 Participants
Director Specialty Commercialisation, Novartis discussed Personal Leadership Styles and how
Pharma AG diversity is key to success.
-Continued next page-
Women in Science: Christine Billy, Scientific
Coordinator, Novartis Pharma AG; Linn
Hjortsberh, Project Manager, Archimed Medical
Communications AG
Join the Ranks
PR: Ritalba Lamendola, Associate, Valeocon Not a member yet…?
Management Consulting Get Connected - Join today's leaders
committed to professional growth for women.
Get Involved - Gain powerful networking and
leadership opportunities.
Get Ahead - Take advantage of career
enhancement & learn about industry issues and
trends.
For more information visit http://www.hbanet.org

3. The EuroVoice
October 2010
“The President’s Voice”
However, members should be offered the opportunities to not only contribute to the
community, but to get an immediate return and we do that by offering ongoing events and
workshops. You will find committment and passion at each one of our events refected in
burning topics and great discussions.
So what will happen while heading up towards the end of the year? Local events are
happening continuously, please check our website for detailed information. We would like
to congratulate the organisers of two launch events in new regions: Zug (Switzerland)
and Frankfurt (Germany). In Frankfurt, the event, hosted by Ernst & Young in Germany and
organized by Sanofi-Aventis and Merck Germany, focused on female executives in the
healthcare business in Germany.
Did you know that Sanofi-Aventis just won this month the Healthcare Businesswomen‟s
Association ACE Award for Corporate Programs Advancing Women‟s Careers?
October 27-29, the Global Leadership Conference will take place in Philadelphia,
focusing on leadership impact delivered. Learn to Innovate, Orchestrate, and Perform at your
choice of seminars aligned under these 3 conference themes. Should you be in the US, don‟t
miss that opportunity to pass by.
November 11 -12, our 3rd HBA Pan European Leadership conference will take place in
Basel, Switzerland. You will find in this issue detailed information. I do hope to see you all
there.
Additionally, we now have newly created the HBA Career Center which offers two levels of job
postings. The first is to post only to the HBA site and that offers access to nearly 700 resumes
in our database. The second level is the network level. The HBA is a part of the National
Healthcare Network, a group of 220 associations with career centers. This option allows
employers access to a database of nearly 58,000 resumes.
Sincerely yours,
Friederike Sommer
WOMEN IN SCIENCE (WIS)
WIS is an HBA programme dedicated to fostering the advancement of women working in a scientific function. WIS
operates in sub-groups who discuss and research topics and then share their findings with the group at large during
monthly dinners. The output of the research work can be a publication, training, conference, etc.
Each WIS member is offered to either work with a sub-group on an already identified topic or to select a topic on
which she wishes to initiate sub-group activities. Sub-groups in Basel and Paris are currently working on:
• How do analysts judge an R&D portfolio
• How to transition from academia to industry
• How to transition from one company to another or from a function to another
• Boss/associate relationship and its impact on job satisfaction and career development
• Innovation in Europe

4. The EuroVoice
October 2010
HBA Pan European Leadership Conference 2010
Basel, 11-12 November 2010
Beyond the Business Case for Women; Moving from Awareness into Action
The business case for (gender) diversity is all too familiar. Research has shown that by
increasing the number of women at the senior management levels, organizations can
become more innovative and boost business performance. Especially organisations with 3
or more women in Senior Management teams have shown to be more successful.
However, we still see a gender gap between the number of women at executive level in
most healthcare businesses.
After Norway, 7 more European countries are considering legislation to set quota for the
number of women on boards of major corporations. The conference will focus on the quota
question: would this indeed be a successful strategy to improve performance by forcefully
increasing the number of women at the executive level? We are seeking the point of view
from Corporate boards, Senior HR Professionals and high potential professionals. We are
looking to inspire you with talks and discussions on how businesses can better leverage
their female workforce with examples from within and from outside the healthcare industry.
The Conference starts on the 11th of November at 4 PM with the HBA Europe Annual
Business Meeting, followed by an apero and dinner with a keynote speaker.
On the 12th of November the opening of the Conference will take place at 8.30 AM and the
day will run until 5 PM.
Registration fee:
Members
$210 USD until October 15th (approx. 150 EU)
$280 USD after October 15th (approx. 200 EU)
Non-Members
$385 USD until October 15th (approx. 275 EUR)
$490 USD after October15th (approx. 350 EUR)
More information on the program and how to register can be found on www.hbanet.org

5. The EuroVoice
October 2010
by Sophie Jaeger, Ph.D, Study coordinator and Clinical Research Assistant, Pasteur Hospital, Colmar, France
Basel, WIS event, May 11th 2010. Dr. Ida Niklson
presented the features of the Burnout Syndrome,
an emergent disease of our times. According to
its definition , Burnout Syndrome is a state of
emotional, mental and physical exhaustion
caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It can
also be defined as an experience of long-term
exhaustion and diminished interest. It was first
defined in 1974 as a “complex state of body and
mind” resulting from failed adaptation of engaged
persons to requirement of the workplace and/or
private life.
Core aspects of Burnout Syndrome are emotional exhaustion, depersonalization (everything is black
around) and reduced performance ability. The original description was made on volunteers at social
institutions, people known to be indeed very committed to what they are doing. When does engagement
turn into Burnout? At some point, well-being, engagement, energy and efficiency of involvement turns into
exhaustion, cynicism and inefficiency. In between, the person has the ability to cope with pressure and this
ability is very individual. Burn out has earlier been thought of as „manager disease‟, however nowadays it is
recognized that it is much broader and involves equally people in very different life situations. How does
Burnout develop? There are different types of stress: positive stress or eustress, that is useful and
stimulates people to perform better and negative stress that causes permanent pressure and damages
health. The body is able to physiologically adapt to short-term stress by increase of blood pressure, heart
rate and respiration. This provides the energy required to get out of the situation. Facing longer-lasting
stress, the body answers with longer-term resistance mechanism. Exhaustion represents the break-down of
these adaptive mechanisms. Normally if stress disappears: the body goes back to normal baseline
functioning; if stress continues: people develop different kinds of psychosomatic disturbances. If it continues
far longer, it can cause a lot of serious diseases and not necessarily burnout symptoms.
There are seven stages in Burnout development. The first warning signals can be very individual:
increased engagement over time, decreased motivation for other activities and vegetative overreactions.
Next steps are reduced engagement and emotional reaction with pessimist inferiority feeling, irritability and
a negative self-image. Then, people display a decrease of cognitive activities with loss of motivation,
memory disturbance, loss of creativity and problem to concentrate. Further they tend to show flattening of
their emotional life and demonstrate indifference, avoidance, give up hobbies, put themselves down, have
sense of failure, and could abuse alcohol and medication. The latest steps are psychosomatic reactions,
muscle contractions, headache, eating disturbance, sleeping disturbance, etc. The final step can be
depression and despair from which it is extremely difficult to get out. To conclude, Burnout is a complex set
of behavioral changes and somatic symptoms.

6. The EuroVoice
October 2010
Burnout Syndrome - continued
During the question session , Ida was asked how to avoid Burnout? Her answer was “First be aware that it
exists, take care of your life/work balance, do something else than only work, know your limits and if you're
prone to Burnout”. There are typical personality traits which makes the person more prone to develop
Burnout: engagement, the major one being high level of engagement. Only people engaged and willing to
help, like nurses and people working in social institutions are specially prone to Burnout.
Burnout develops not just at work, it also happens at home for people caring for their family. Young
mothers have high rate of Burnout because they have their career, children, family, spouse etc to take
care of.
The social network, namely friends and family, are good in detecting the first signals of changes in your
behavior. “Recognize this first alarm signal that something has changed in your behavior is extremely
important. “When you are in the middle of Burnout, you don't notice it anymore”.
Only a fraction of Burnout people seek help; so the real frequency of it is not available. At work, it touches
mostly people in "sandwich positions", e.g. middle level managers to whom people who report to them are
usually former colleagues but nevertheless with a boss giving orders they are forced to comply, even if in
discordance with their personal beliefs.
The last question was: How to cure from Burnout? Ida shortly advised to go to a psychologist and discuss
the situation. Dependent on the stage of Burnout, the person will have to get out of work, and recover
physically. Very often when people recover from a severe Burnout and are able to think on how they want to
continue their life and work, they come to the conclusion that change in the workplace might be the best
solution for them.
IDA NIKLSON’S CAREER PATH
With a Ph.D in Human Development Neuroanatomy, Ida spent 17 years at the Medical Faculty of Novi
Sad University. She worked in nuclear medicine pathophysiology, specialized in pathophysiology and
neuropsychiatry and taught Clinical Physiology as assistant professor. Thinking backwards, Ida always
demonstrated high interest in publications of non-marketed drugs. She met a Clinical Research
Associate from Organon and got involved as investigator in clinical studies. With a job offer from
Organon, she started a second chapter of her professional life, working for pharmaceutical companies.
There she had different roles, but always responsible for global clinical CNS clinical drug development.
She relocated many times and presently Ida is Scientific Officer at Novartis.
She found some commonalities in her career: always leading global positions in drug development in the
CNS Therapeutic area, and always working in series of 7 years. The path required drive, interest,
motivation and curiosity, decisiveness, trust in herself, hard work and energy. Ida had to learn from the
different situations and be very determined. She mentioned that luck takes a part in one‟s career and
underlined the importance of preserving one own‟s work/life balance: “you need to get rest and hobbies,
and your family is also extremely important”! According to her: “every change is a change for better, even
if you don‟t see it immediately”. About stubbornness, Ida advised: “know what you want for the long-
term, don’t get discouraged if the short-term is difficult”.

7. Euroleader’s Voice
The EuroVoice
By Gabriele Silvagni December 2009
Chair, HBA Paris - Events committee
Director Client Services, Grey Healthcare Group Europe
A dialogue on diversity and inclusion with
Isabelle Pujol
Founder and President of Pluribus Europe and HBA speaker at the „Authentic
Leadership‟ Event in Paris on June 29th.
Diversity & Inclusion sounds like a popular topic for HR but isn’t it everyone’s
responsibility?
I am often challenged by managers about the fact that the diversity topic is perceived
as the "fashion of the month" and everyone is overusing it! I simply believe that
organisation and certainly senior managers understand that valuing diversity in the
workplace by creating an inclusive working environment is more than just a nice thing
to do but a real business imperative. When you want to build inclusion, you must
carefully look at reviewing all HR management processes (recruitment, promotion,
evaluation etc.) in a way that is bias free. So there is a rigorous work to be done to
ensure meritocracy. At the same time, managers and employees must be aware of
their own biases and behaviours as exclusion is most of time the result of
ignorance. All should strengthen their inclusive behaviours. It is indeed a personal
responsibility but at the same time it should be clearly stated as a key competence
which is recognised and rewarded by the company.
How does diversity and inclusion influence the way we operate?
Diversity is a reality. It‟s a reality because we are all unique and operate with a distinct frame of
reference which we more or less share to varying degrees to others. This frame significantly influences
how we perceive and relate to others, situations & events. Inclusion is actually an option. Inclusion
should be embedded in the way we behave and we do business. However, individuals should go
through a personal learning journey. All need to have the humility to recognize that managing and
capitalizing on diversity is complex.
Based on your experience, what are the key actions for leading or creating an inclusive
organisation?
I was among the first European diversity & inclusion managers as I started to focus on the topic in 1994.
I have talked to many companies and run numerous benchmarking with high performing companies. 5
key insights have emerged from that experience: 1) the diversity & inclusion strategy should be led by
the CEO of the organisation. It is a real business issue. Without a visible commitment from the top, the
D&I strategy becomes just a nice initiative. 2) It is a long-term journey: the change doesn't happen
overnight. Be patient. 3) There is no miracle recipe. Each organisation must understand and build their
respective D&I business case and implement the strategy accordingly. 4) Resources and budget are
critical. Otherwise the implementation is not sustainable. 5) An inclusive dialogue between the top and
the bottom of the organisation should take place. It must led by the top but the top must also listen to the
concerns raised at all levels of the organisation.

8. Euroleader’s Voice
The EuroVoice March 2010
A dialogue on diversity and inclusion with Isabelle Pujol -
continued
Is diversity a strategic approach to improve performance?
Many studies highlight that diverse teams are indeed improving the performance and the level of
creativity of the team. This can only happen if the diverse team is taking the time to acknowledge, value
and capitalize on the diversity of the team. Otherwise, a diverse team not well managed can create
chaos and demotivation. Only inclusion is the differentiator. In the rapid evolution of our global society,
companies must be in a position to respond to the spectrum of new risks and opportunities.
Beyond inclusive and authentic leadership - How do you fuel your passion to new levels for
inspiring yourself and others?
Regaining my passion and sources of inspiration must start with a pause for reflection. A pause to
reconnect with my inner self and my real voice.
Many of us find that in the process of striving to succeed at work, we have developed only part of
who we are while leaving vital aspects of ourselves behind. In the midst of substantial
achievement we often report feeling empty, burned out or invisible. I often dialogue with other women
and gain so many insights by hearing their stories. I am genuinely keen to hear and relate to others and
share my passion. My passion is about building inclusion around me and creating bridges between
people who are or feel different. It is important for me to "walk the talk".
I have been inspired by Gandhi: "Be the change you want to see in the world" and Nelson
Mandela "everything is possible". If you are authentic in your daily life and if your key values are
visible and palpable, this passion can be transferred and can fuel your personal energy to
support and help others.
ISABELLE PUJOL’S CAREER PATH
Isabelle Pujol has 20 years of experiences working internationally in global organizations, including 14
years of developing and implementing Diversity and Inclusion strategies at global, regional and national
levels. She spent 17 years at BP in various roles including 10 years as a Diversity & Inclusion Manager.
While at BP, Isabelle worked in various positions in Commercial, Internal Communication and
Marketing at the BP Oil European Head Office. She chaired the BP Oil European Women‟s Network to
look at women‟s advancement issues and introduced mutual mentoring and job shadowing
programmes in Europe. Isabelle rotated through different roles, including D&I Manager for Europe and
the Middle East, then member of the Leadership Team of BP Germany as the Diversity & Inclusion
Manager to support and position D&I as a strategic value for cultural integration. She was instrumental
in initiating the German Diversity Charter, launched in December 2007. Isabelle is committed to
supporting men and women in fulfilling their full potential by understanding and valuing their respective
differences. She also acts as the European Director for the Heim Group to promote effective
communication between men and women and is the founder and President of Pluribus Europe, a
consultancy firm committed to developing individuals, teams and organisations to succeed through
diversity and inclusion. Isabelle lives near Brussels and is married with two children.

9. The EuroVoice
October 2010
The Key Success Factors for Managing Virtual Teams
by Sophie Jaeger, Ph.D, Study coordinator and Clinical Research Assistant, Pasteur Hospital, Colmar, France
Basel, WIS event, May 11th 2010. Dr. Barbara Troup, Management Consultant and Business Coach
presented on “how to optimize team and leadership performance in remote and virtual team
settings”. During her 14 years in the pharmaceutical- and biotech industry, Barbara faced several
challenges leading international and virtual teams. This long experience led her to build her own
philosophy: “moving others by moving yourself”. With the aim to do what she likes, Barbara
established her company Motionsquare, based in Lörrach, Germany. She splits her experience in 4
key areas: consulting, leadership, analysis and development, and team development.
Due to growing globalization, the importance to diversify and work with other countries is crucial in
business. Companies are now hiring people from all countries and international teams set up and grow
everywhere. In parallel, advances in technology offer new solutions for those teams to get organized
and new ways of working together. Virtual Teams are teams where members don’t sit in the same
place. Even if they belong to the same organization, they work in different locations, or originate from
different departments within the same site. They can also be home-based and work in a more flexible
way. International teams have specific challenges; the main one is cultural diversity. Remote and virtual
teams will become increasingly important in the future and will bring new additional challenges. Leaders
and team members will have to overcome these challenges in order to optimize team performance.
Communication is the most obvious challenge. Very often poor quality technology infrastructures
(e.g. bad phone lines) make the communication even more difficult, sometimes virtual platforms are also
not mastered by the leader himself. The most appropriate technology will have to be chosen according
to the procedure. Team leaders should also create a code or rules telling when to use the phone,
when to meet face-to-face. Virtual team members have limited face-to-face contacts, limited
interaction. They show lower level of spontaneity and non-verbal communication is reduced when you
don‟t see the body language. All these elements affect the communication quality. Very often poor
communication also stands for irrelevant, insufficient, not targeted, unequally distributed information. It is
extremely important to deliver a timely and targeted information flow. Trust is a challenging goal for
virtual teams. It is very hard to build trust over the phone. For example, if one thing is agreed and not
done, nobody realizes why, maybe because the person had other more important things to do. One
should trust each other and Virtual Teams have to struggle for the development of a certain level of
trust. According to the usual high turnover (40%) within teams, to rebuild trust every time a new member
joins, is getting difficult. Barbara explained us that moreover, “Trust tends to build easier between same
cultural origins”.

10. The EuroVoice
October 2010
Managing Virtual Teams
Virtual Team identity is also very difficult to build. Common vision and goals, clear roles and
responsibilities, all these elements contribute to strong team identity. Unclear goals are the major
challenge for virtual teams: “Individuals remember their goals and, most of the time, don‟t
remember the team‟s ones”. To have clear and defined team goals is one of the most
important key elements for success.
Conflict management is also very difficult in Virtual Team settings. The tendency to avoid
conflicts comes with the lack of personal communication. This is reinforced by cultural
differences. The use of English for non-native speakers also doesn‟t help people to proactively
manage conflicts.
Diversity is another point to be considered in Virtual Teams, as well as in any other multicultural
team. According to their originating countries, people react differently: some are more respectful
towards hierarchy, others have a higher level of individuality, are very competitive or less
comfortable dealing with uncertain things. This is the source of challenges to cope with. “You
have to be aware of that, you cannot ignore it”. Very often leaders are not trained to face cultural
differences and Virtual Teams. Barbara informed us that “Cultural trainings” are available to
those who want to improve their management skills. Sex and age are other diversity factors to
consider. Nevertheless, according to Barbara: “Diversity is also an opportunity!!!” She
emphasized that it is really important for people within the team to understand that they are
different. Leaders should make them aware of that fact, so that they can deal with it and
synergize to boost the team performances.
Virtual Team leaders have additional challenges to face. It is not easy to get the people all
together. Some may need to travel, or have different working time frame. Similarly, it is difficult in
a team meeting to integrate all participants and have them committed on the line, not reading
emails in the same time or dropping out from the conversation. Leaders have thus to motivate
their teams and bridge the distance and isolation of team members. Supporting motivation and
trust within the team is one of the biggest challenges for a Virtual Team leader. Other
requirements: planning, coordination and accurate monitoring of projects. It is also very
important to ensure sufficient resource allocation to the team.
The key success factors for Virtual Teams to perform at their best are to respect cultural
diversity, display a high degree of self-management and self-discipline with respect to
agenda, time management priorities, organization follow up. Team members should have a
high level of intrinsic motivation, the willingness to work independently and result oriented. Also,
a strong focus on communication with preset rules and good English, goal settings,
responsibilities, objectives and milestones. A well-defined team identity and trust are crucial.
Successful Virtual Teams Leaders are excellent project manager, result oriented, with
good coordination. They have good personal skills demonstrating exceptional leadership to
motivate the team, being a role model of integrity and trust, have excellent communication and
negotiation skills, master technologies, appreciate individuals and acknowledge team
performance. Moreover, they preserve trust and team identity by careful integration of new
members.

11. The EuroVoice
October 2010
A DOUBLE INTERVIEW ON PASSION
Passion is the subtle link that bonds the volunteers of HBA, men and women who believe in the
importance of creating a better place and bigger space for women in their work environments and
ultimately in the world. We have interviewed two HBA members to find out what ‘keeps them going’.
Gabriele Mathias Denise DeMan-Williams
Research Associate, Founder, Chairman and CEO,
Novartis Research Bench International
Foundation FMI
Tell us a bit about yourself, your role in business and
how you first started getting involved within HBA.
I am a Molecular Biologist based in Basel I am the Founder and CEO of Bench
(Switzerland) and I work as research scientist at the International. We are the oldest and largest
Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, woman-owned global retained Executive and R&D
a basic research institute which is part of the Novartis Search Firm in the world. I founded Bench in 1974,
Research Foundation. My first contact with HBA was at a time when no women were found in board
a weblink on the Novartis intranet with Amy Rojas rooms and very few conference rooms. Back then,
announcing that HBA will come to Europe. Just a few when I walked into a conference room or a board
weeks later the founding meeting took place in meeting, there was an assumption by many of the
Lucerne and Amy Rojas became the first president of attendees that I was there to serve food, not to
the European chapter of HBA. I wanted to know participate. The past 30 years have been a journey
more so although I could not attend the founding of passion and of pain, trying to change the “face,”
meeting, I took the next chance and went to the and the “voice,” of the leadership making decisions
London meeting in May 2006 with the topic "Develop on behalf of patients and consumers. The good
Your Brand. Promote Your Potential." This meeting news is that since founding Bench, over 30% of the
and the participants left me very impressed and I talented leaders Bench has placed have been
decided to attend more events. women and members of diverse populations. I
My second HBA meeting was the started as a bench scientist (hence the name of our
“Healthcare2020.forum” in June 2007 at INSEAD. company is Bench). Very early in my career, I
There I met several 2007 HBA Europe Board realized that I could make a much larger and more
members and Friederike Sommer referred me to the sustainable difference on the quality of patients‟ and
founders of the “Women in Science” affinity group, consumers‟ lives by broadly and deeply supporting
Isabelle Buckle and Catherine Cornu-Artis. Back in our client partners by bringing them the right talent.
Basel they kindly invited me to the first dinner of the A critical aspect to this has been to ensure that the
“Women in Science” and from then on I became companies lead with decision makers who mirror
involved as a volunteer. the people they serve. It has taken the better part of
30 years, however I can say that we are finally at
the Dawn of the Era of Women Leaders.

12. The EuroVoice
October 2010
A DOUBLE INTERVIEW ON PASSION
What aspects of HBA made you continue to stay involved?
Gabriele: Being a bench scientist I am Denise: I joined the HBA over a decade ago
specialized and focused on my field of research, because I believed then, and still do now, that
but I am also very interested in broadening my this organization exhibits the bravery and the
horizon and learning about different professional boldness to create a forum for women in
worlds. healthcare that raises corporate consciousness
Throughout my life I have been an active and mitigates the lack of access for
volunteer. Thus, when the opportunity to women. HBA does this by building a forum filled
volunteer with HBA presented itself, it was the with passionate leaders who are steadily
perfect match. Starting in 2007 as an event changing that “face,” and that, ”voice” in their
organizer for the “Women in Science” events in own companies, top-down and bottom up. We
Basel I became in 2008 Co-director of the women have very few role models to look to as
“Women in Science” and HBA Europe Board our “horizon,” of what can be.
member. In fall 2009 I was elected Treasurer
and member of the Executive Committee. To be In my tenure in this world, I want to see to it
ready for the job, I then bought a few accounting that women in healthcare have the same
books and completed a “Finance and access to role models as our male
Accounting” course at Wharton. counterparts have. On my watch, I want to
ensure that women leaders are charting the
I find volunteering to be a very rewarding course of corporate transformation in healthcare
experience bringing empowerment which does around the world. I believe the HBA has the
not stop with the task, but extends into all passionate and dedicated membership to make
aspects of my life. But above all, the this a realizable goal.
professionalism, the support and the
friendship provided by my HBA colleagues
are priceless.
“Hope lies in dreams, in imagination and in the courage of those who dare to make
dreams into reality” (Dr. Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine)
“Care about the big picture, but love the detail as well” (unknown)

13. The EuroVoice
October 2010
A DOUBLE INTERVIEW ON PASSION
Can you think of some examples of passion that you
have witnessed in other HBA associates?
Gabriele: The list with examples of passion I Denise: I happened to be working out of
have witnessed in other HBA associates is very Bench‟s Swiss office last year when Deborah
long. I see true passion in the HBA‟s staff Dunsire was kind enough to come for a Town
members, in my fellow board members, our Hall with the HBA members. Deb’s passion for
dedicated volunteers or in the participants at mentoring and guiding women leaders is as
local events. The local event coordinators are differentiated and as profound as her
real HBA “passionistas” and I admire how they passion for patients. I watched her speak her
put in their whole self, their time, energy, ideas own truth around what it took to be standing
and contacts in order to stage high quality local where she is today. I watched the faces of all of
events for all of us to enjoy. I feel surrounded by the women in the room. There was such a
passionate audiences at HBA‟s large palpable hunger for Deb‟s guidance, for an
conferences, such the Annual Leadership understanding of how to create such a roadmap
Conference, the “Women of the Year” for one‟s own career. I watched the lights turn
celebration in New York City and the Pan - on in the eyes of the women in that room.
European Leadership Conference. And each
single member‟s passion makes HBA the great
organization it is.
What comes to mind when you think HBA and PASSION together?
Gabriele: The best way for feeling the passion Denise: The truth is I think about that night with
for HBA and to fully enjoy one‟s involvement with Deb Dunsire and how many women were
HBA is to become active as a volunteer. You will turned on to “what can be,” for
be able to meet highly talented women and men, themselves. There is such passion and such
then work together with heart and mind for the thirst for women to do more, to be more, to
common purpose to further the advancement of influence more and to impact more. I believe
women in the healthcare world. the HBA can be the vehicle to help women learn
No matter how much time you can give and in to take leadership flight. By creating momentum
which area you get involved, being an active within the HBA constituency, by reaching out
HBA volunteer provides you the valuable more and more to connect with women seeking
experience of acquiring and practicing new skills to make a difference in their companies and
and developing your talents. To make it even their own careers, by creating venues like that
better, you can do this in a friendly and non- Town Hall for role models to help guide women,
threatening learning environment and at the the HBA is uniquely poised to change the
same time develop long-lasting friendships. “Face,” and the, “Voice,” of women leaders in
healthcare.