For those working in the pharmaceutical industry, purpose is a given – everything they do is ultimately to help patients. Professional and personal development are a bonus, but at AbbVie they are ingrained in the fabric of the organisation, according to employees.
“The AbbVie culture is really strong,” says Michelle Hennigan, API operations manager at the company’s Manorhamilton road site in Sligo. “It’s so hard to put it into words because you just feel it when you come on site. We are really proud of that culture because it isn’t that easy to find, where everyone is here for each other not only from a professional perspective but also from a personal perspective.”
The biopharmaceutical company employs approximately 2,700 people across six locations in Ireland. Alongside five manufacturing facilities in Cork, Dublin, Sligo, and Mayo, two offices in Dublin serve the needs of the company’s commercial, supply chain and operations activities.
Exposure to the pharma industry during her PhD in chemistry piqued Hennigan’s interest in a career based on delivering medicines to people in need.
“I have great pleasure and satisfaction from knowing what I am working on is very meaningful and having a tangible impact – helping make processes more efficient and delivering a better medicine to patients.”
Since joining AbbVie in 2018 and having taken part in the company’s leadership development programme, Hennigan has seen that career path blaze a trail.
“If someone had told me back when I started in 2018 that I’d be API manager I wouldn’t have believed them,” she says. “However, I have been in that position for the last two years.”
She attributes this to strong leadership, as well as invaluable mentoring and coaching: “From a very early stage, I was having impactful career conversations with my managers, my leaders and my mentors. I was supported in terms of different learning opportunities and, with the programme, all of the members I joined with have now achieved a leadership position, which was the intended goal.”
There is a higher proportion of women senior leaders than male senior leaders at this site, which is highly unusual in this industry and it’s fantastic to see
— Claire Rooney
Growing up, Hennigan loved science, especially chemistry. “I loved how science can answer many questions. Science is a passport to so much. It is a universal language, and you can travel the world with it.”
She now shares her enthusiasm with primary and secondary students as part of AbbVie’s science education programme. “I visit schools and tell them how my interest in science led me to a job in pharma helping to make life changing drugs,” she says. “I am really fortunate that the company gives me time out of the day-to-day to support initiatives like that.”
Claire Rooney began working with AbbVie in 2015 at its Cork site. “At the time I had completed a degree in industrial chemistry and worked in another area within healthcare, but I always wanted to work in pharma,” she says.
Since joining the company, she has worked in a number of different roles – a choice, she says, that was crucial in terms of gaining a broad base of knowledge and expertise across all aspects of the organisation. Now in the technical operations manager role, a senior leadership position, she also cites coaching and mentoring as being the driving force behind her career achievements.
“Development is very much driven by the individual but guided by your managers and mentors,” explains Rooney. “It has helped me advance, no doubt, because these managers and mentors have enabled me to unlock my own potential.”
Rooney is now a mentor as part of AbbVie’s Athena Female Mentoring programme, which aims to support women reaching leadership positions.
“There is a higher proportion of women senior leaders than male senior leaders at this site, which is highly unusual in this industry and it’s fantastic to see,” she says.
[ AbbVie named among the best pharma workplaces in IrelandOpens in new window ]
Rooney also highlights AbbVie’s commitment to its corporate social responsibilities – as a lifelong GAA player and supporter, she is especially pleased with its sponsorship of Sligo ladies Gaelic football team, as well as the men’s senior team.
“When you’re seeing the kids wearing their jerseys in the schools and you’re working with them on the Stem programme, it really helps to connect the dots for them,” she says.
Juggling work and family life can be difficult, but Sandra McDonnell says the AbbVie culture has helped her successfully navigate the return to working life after the birth of each of her three children. “I was privileged enough to take almost a year off after each of my children were born, but I was still breastfeeding when I returned to work,” she explains.
The Vitality Room on site allowed her the privacy and the facilities to continue her breastfeeding journey. “This is a multipurpose room, and they took feedback from employees on what to include in the room, so it was great to have that input.”
Recently promoted to senior supply chain manager on the leadership team at the company’s manufacturing facility at Ballytivnan in Sligo, McDonnell echoes Rooney, saying she also made a number of lateral moves in order to gain a wide range of expertise before achieving her current position.
“I have been working with my manager on my development plan towards this very goal for a number of years, making conscious moves and being very deliberate about the experience and exposure I was getting.”
Further education has been a huge part of this – since joining AbbVie in 2015, McDonnell has completed a master’s degree in business in innovation and leadership, followed by another master’s in Lean 6 Sigma master black belt through Ohio State University.
“To be supported through two separate master’s degrees over that period of time has been amazing,” she says.
McDonnell is effusive about AbbVie “walking the walk” when it comes to equity, equality, diversity and inclusion (EEDI).
“We recently launched an Ability ERG [employee resource group], so we are seeking to work with the Ahead Ability Group and bring more people with disabilities into the workplace and help mentor them,” she explains. “This is crucial when you think that up to 80 per cent of people with disabilities are unemployed. It makes such a difference to work for an organisation that has such awareness of all the different types of people we have on site.”
All three currently feature in a series of videos on the company’s social media channels, entitled I am AbbVie, exploring their career journeys.