It’s not easy juggling the demands of a young family with a career. Especially when that career is stalled by the dot-com crash. Susanne Hundsbæk-Pedersen knows this better than anyone.
She was expecting twins and already had two small sons, when her position with a tech startup in Copenhagen was made redundant, one of the countless casualties of the dot-com bubble of the late 90s. Getting through this period took a lot of hard work, explained Hundsbæk-Pedersen in a recent IMD Alumni Association webinar. Specifically, it took a great deal of discipline—time-boxing or project planning her time – and leveraging reserves of energy and positivity to be fully present in every area of life: with her family and with the professional challenges ahead of her.
In early 2000, she took on a managerial role with Intel Corporation and after two years, she made the switch from tech to pharma, first as a project manager with Novo Nordisk and progressing to SVP over what was to be an 18-year tenure.
Over the course of her career, Hundsbæk-Pedersen has amassed considerable leadership experience and a body of learnings and insights. She has experienced setbacks, uncertainty, diverse demands and challenges, but she has also prioritized the opportunities to learn and to channel that learning back into her personal and professional life.
These are eight tips she would share with other leaders to sustain resilience and maintain strong forward momentum as they move across different phases of their professional life.
1. Stay optimistic. Hundsbæk-Pedersen was with Intel for just two years, when the organization also succumbed to a change in strategy that discontinued the organization she was part of. For the second time she found herself without a job and a very young family to support. Life can be chaotic, and things don’t always pan out as you planned, so you need to become comfortable with some level of uncertainty, she says. However, her mantra over time has become “there is light at the end of the tunnel.” There’s another opportunity right around the corner. Maybe you can’t see it right now, but you can trust it’s there.
2. Stay curious. Hundsbæk-Pedersen has made significant professional pivots in her career. After 18 years with Novo Nordisk, she moved to Roche as EVP Global Head of Technical Operations in 2021, and she is also on the Board of MedMix AG. What she has found is that while the experience you build brings unique value to new roles and sectors, it’s also key to be open to learning from new experiences – and particularly from other people.
This also means remaining humble enough to listen to the voices in the room. Listening to understand drives curiosity and fast learning. As a leader it might also mean taking your teams on learning journeys that expose them to new functions, organizations or even industries which she has institutionalized for her teams over many years. And from a personal perspective, she would advocate pursuing non-executive board roles or similar opportunities that get you out of your company silo and in front of different perspectives.
3. Reframe failure as part of the journey. Setbacks are inevitable in every role or organization. Hundsbæk-Pedersen has learned not to hide failures or feel guilty about them, but to see them as opportunities to learn. When you are open and own a setback, others respond positively; they lose any fear they might feel and brace instead for innovation, experimentation and growth. And it’s on you, as a leader, to empower other people to trust in this opportunity and to be brave enough to grasp it.
Progressing in your life and your career means building clarity and certainty around the value that you can deliver in new roles and faced with new responsibilities.
4. Embrace the tension. The best decisions, solutions and outcomes are born from tension: from a diversity of opinion, perspective, and expertise, says Hundsbæk-Pedersen. She has learned to be purposeful about the way she composes leadership teams, meetings and discussions in order to leverage difference, to break out of groupthink, and to drive healthy and productive debate.
5. Look beyond the immediate challenge. When she was SVP of Devices and Supply Chain Management with Novo Nordisk, she started looking at ways to overcome barriers to treatment in Africa. This wasn’t technically part of the her job description, but it opened a whole slew of new doors, and her team started creating new territories and learning journeys as a result. The caveat? Be motivated by true curiosity and connect with real passion. Don’t necessarily go looking for new doors to open if it’s just about a career move or a promotion. Authenticity will empower you to find ways to solve broader organizational or societal challenges—and to become more valuable and visible in the process. This drives opportunity for career pivots.
6. Put yourself out there. If you are interested in making pivots and in progressing your career in different directions, you do of course need to ensure that your ambitions are known and understood. This means speaking up on your own behalf within your organization or externally, and others will take notice. Most of the major pivots in Hundsbæk-Pedersen’s career have been as a result of other people getting creative on her behalf, she says, because she “put herself out there.” She did not target a specific path but created opportunities for growth.
7. Know what you bring. Progressing in your life and your career means building clarity and certainty around the value that you can deliver in new roles and faced with new responsibilities. It means articulating concisely what your unique value proposition is, how you have made the critical decisions and choices that have shaped your career, helped you navigate difficult moments; and how you are able to connect with people, onboard new knowledge, and adapt to new environments.
8. Anchor yourself to impact. Meaning comes from impact, says Hundsbæk-Pedersen. For that reason, she prefers to think about purpose in terms of the best value that she and her team can deliver, not only to their patients, but to the organization as a whole and the employees that work for them. She has learned that the real guiding light is to think about how to do the very best for the sake of those who will take over once you are gone: what would make you proudest as you pass on the keys to the next person? For Hundsbæk-Pedersen, this must be specific and be understood as non-escapable truth that defines and shapes ambitions and leadership.
Being ambitious and ensuring that other people are aware of your ambitions is the major driver in your career progression, so speak up and let people know that you are ready for your next pivot or promotion. Build breadth and depth – both are needed.
When you are having the key conversations about your next role, be sure to do the following things:
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