Takeda shatters tradition as GSK's Weber lined up as CEO
This article was originally published in Scrip
By appointing Christophe Weber as chief operating officer and CEO-in-waiting, Takeda is sending a clear message: it is not afraid to break with Japanese industry tradition in its quest to become a leading global multinational pharmaceutical company.
The 47-year-old French national, currently president and general manager of GSK Vaccines and CEO of GSK Biologicals in Belgium, will assume the COO role by next April and is expected to become president after Takeda's AGM in late June, when current president and CEO Yasuchika Hasegawa would become chairman and CEO.
While he is currently described only as a "candidate" to become CEO, it looks likely that Mr Weber will move into this spot within the next few years as Mr Hasegawa steps back from day-to-day operations, becoming both the first non-Japanese CEO in the 232-year history of Takeda and indeed of any major Japanese pharmaceutical company.
Praising his erstwhile successor's "extraordinary and broad business experiences," Mr Hasegawa said in a statement that "Mr Weber's career has demonstrated strong leadership and has contributed to significant financial improvement."
Mr Weber has been with GSK for around 20 years and is part of the UK group's global executive team. He has some Asian experience as regional director of GSK Asia-Pacific operations based in Singapore over the 2008-10 period, and Takeda pointed to this and his other experience across seven countries in three continents.
The appointment of a non-Japanese executive to head Asia's largest pharma company is predictably causing waves within the industry in Japan, but to anyone looking at Mr Hasegawa's track record of transformative moves over his decade as CEO it should not come as a surprise.
The multi-billion dollar acquisitions of Millennium and Nycomed have been followed in recent years by a drive to make Takeda a "truly global" and competitive pharma multinational, as part of which the firm has been securing what it sees as the best available global management talent, regardless of origin or background.
Roughly 56% of Takeda's total net sales now come from markets outside Japan.
The company has also been moving to performance-based internal assessment of management and employees in an attempt to adopt a results-driven, rather than process-oriented, stance in sync with its global peers.
Whereas virtually all top executives at Japanese pharma firms have long experience working up within the company, Takeda has appointed Dr Frank Morich (ex-Bayer) as chief commercial officer and Dr Tadataka Yamada (another ex-GSK executive) as chief medical and scientific officer.
More recently, François-Xavier Roger (ex-Sanofi, also French) was hired in September as the firm's first chief financial officer, as part of which he will oversee the internal "Project Summit" program that is aiming for around $1bn in recurring annual cost savings (scripintelligence.com, 1 November 2013).
It is also finalizing a new global procurement officer position, and in all cases the firm has been "searching for the availability of global talent that resulted in us hiring outside the company," Mr Hasegawa said at Takeda's recent second quarter results briefing.
Mr Weber also now looks set to take on additional responsibility for achieving Takeda's mid-term targets of at least 20% compound annual growth in operating income over the period to March 2018, as it recovers from the loss of exclusivity for Actos (pioglitazone) (scripintelligence.com, 10 May 2013).
Following the 30 November announcement of Mr Weber's appointment, Takeda shares were trading around 1% higher in Tokyo at 2pm on 2 December.