A former Amazon director now running a $3 billion drugmaker explains why she think aspiring CEOs should get a range of experience before moving up the ranks

Andrew Dunn

Jan 28, 2020, 20:27 IST

A former Amazon director now running a $3 billion drugmaker explains why she think aspiring CEOs should get a range of experience before moving up the ranks

Sumitovant

Sumitovant CEO Myrtle Potter

Myrtle Potter, a former Amazon director and biopharma industry veteran, said people early in their careers should prioritize a range of experiences within different parts of the business, rather than quick promotions.
Potter started this month as CEO of Sumitovant Biopharma, a newly formed $3 billion company. She was previously an executive at Merck and Genentech, as well as on Amazon's board for several years.
"If you want to be a CEO, you have to know what the other parts of the business look like and how they work," Potter said in an interview with Business Insider.
"If you ascend quickly, oftentimes you find yourself in a situation where the promotions you are taking quickly are going straight up one functional organization," she added.
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Aspiring CEOs should rethink quick promotions and accept their weaknesses, a longtime drug industry leader recently told Business Insider in an interview.

"If you want to be a CEO, you have to know what the other parts of the business look like and how they work," said Sumitovant CEO Myrtle Potter.

Over several decades in pharma, Myrtle Potter has climbed the ranks of some of the biggest drugmakers in the world. She's also expanded outside the industry, working with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos for several years as a director on Amazon's board from 2004 to 2009.

This month, Potter started as CEO of Sumitovant Biopharma, a newly formed company created in a $3 billion deal.

For those looking to take on the role of CEO, she said, it helps to work in a wide variety of roles across the industry, instead of immediately honing in on one area, she said.

"It is more important that you get multiple experiences and develop broadly than it is that you ascend," Potter said. "If you ascend quickly, oftentimes you find yourself in a situation where the promotions you are taking quickly are going straight up one functional organization."

Learn all you can about different parts of the organization

A range of experience matters, specifically in the drug industry, Potter said. Pharmaceutical companies are deeply involved in both the science of drug discovery and development as well as the business of selling products and competing against marketed rivals.

"I really encouarge young people to get broad functional development and, within that, decide how you are going to ascend and accelerate vertically in that organization," Potter said.

At Merck, she started a business unit that eventually evolved into the British pharma giant, AstraZeneca. Potter also led Bristol-Myers Squibb's $4 billion cardiovascular business before jumping to Genentech in the early 2000s as chief operating officer during an explosive growth period for the biotech.

After more than a decade of running her own consulting business, Potter re-entered the industry last year to help operate Roivant Sciences. The company was started in 2014 by the investor Vivek Ramaswamy, then 29 years old, and received several billions in early funding, including more than $1 billion from SoftBank's Vision Fund in 2017.

There are now more than a dozen biotechs operating as part of Roivant. The Japanase pharma Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma struck a $3 billion deal last September to acquire five of these so-called vants, with an option to buy more later down the line.

Potter is running this new business, Sumitovant, as the deal closed in the final days of 2019.

Picking your spots

Equally important as getting expertise across an organization is knowing when you don't have it.

"Know what you're good at, and what you're not good at," Potter said.

Despite spending decades in the industry, Potter said she still acknowledges these areas today and builds teams with them in mind.

Last year, for instance, she started overseeing several companies within Roivant as operating chairs. She worked alongside Frank Torti, a partner at the venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates. She said Torti's investing expertise far surpassed her own, which led to a useful partnership between the two.

"I could never run a deal like Frank Torti can run a deal," she said, also adding Torti doesn't have the drug development and commercialization background she brings to the table.

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