I have very mixed emotions today, as it is my last day with Takeda. I joined the company through an acquisition of Shire and have been at the combined company since 2016. There is so much to be proud of over my tenure here and so many friendships that I've made, and I will cherish it forever.
My career wouldn't be where it is today if not for the support and trust put in me by special leaders like Luis F. Rojas and the opportunities afforded to me by a company with a mission that is so much bigger than myself or any single person. It's daunting to think about being part of an organization that is based thousands of miles away, has existed since 1781 (!!!), impacts countless people's lives in profound ways, and does so with an incredibly strong value system. The PTRB (Patient-Trust-Reputation-Business) way of thinking has left a permanent shift in my ideology and philosophy, teaching me so much about what it means to think bigger than one's self. I hope that I was able to contribute to that mission in a meaningful way, even if only transient like a single snare hit over the course of an album.
It's wild to look back to when I started at the company in 2016, fresh out of business school, full of energy and ambition, and largely inexperienced in the dynamics of how a massive global organization really functions. It's one thing to have read about how executive level decisions are made, how to influence those decisions, how to be both a good leader and a good manager but it's another to practice them. I had the amazing fortune of learning under Luis F. Rojas, a person that I will always look up to as what a leader and a man should be. He taught me so much about leading with humility and integrity, challenging with respect, treating others equally and fairly regardless of their level or background, and how to be a great manager at the same time. More than all of that, he taught me how to be a better person, father, and partner. He afforded me the opportunity to be part of conversations at the highest level that I could have only dreamed of when reading about them in business school case studies. I was able to be a part of executive conversations and decisions on shaping how we supported employees at the onset of the pandemic, shaping our return-to-work policies, and informing how we prioritize the things that truly mattered to our incredible workforce. Success doesn't occur in a vacuum; it happens when everyone is aligned on a common purpose, and you are afforded the opportunity to make a difference. These accomplishments are not my own, they are of the team I was a part of. This is the lesson that Takeda has taught me and that I will take with me forever.
My next step brings me back into the People Analytics space and I'm really excited to take everything I've learned to build another world-class team. It's equal parts scary and exciting to start over but that's what makes it fun! Thank you, Takeda, for everything you have done for my career.
Great work!