We have spent our whole careers in the pharma industry; Miriam in pharma companies (GSK, Roche, Allergan and Santen) and Sarah on the agency side (too many to mention and for the last ten years Founder at Wordbird).
Sarah had just attended an event by Diamonds – the exclusive network for high-performing business leaders. Despite a massive dose of Imposter Syndrome in a room full of ‘OBEs and CBEs’, she found the inspirational stories of the women on stage captivating. They were just normal women. Their personal circumstances of divorce, motherhood or frustration with the status quo had often driven them to achieve something remarkable. The message was I did it, and so can you. She made a proposal to Miriam - why don’t WE create a network like this for women in pharma where we can share our real human stories and inspire each other?
One Mimosa cocktail down and always up for a big mission, Miriam could not possibly refuse!
Having been on a personal transformation journey over the past couple of years and just qualified as a female empowerment coach, she was keen to find a way to help more women on a bigger scale. Little did she know how much opportunity there would be.
…Miriam decided to do some genning up and bought a couple of books on the subject. Suddenly all this unconscious bias started to make sense - our socialisation, systems and structures shaping our beliefs and expectations. She nearly fell off her chair when she then discovered that the whole of medicine was based on the masculine body and the implications that this has been having for all aspects of women’s health.
She said to Sarah excitedly, ‘we’ve got serious work to do here!’ And so our purpose was born.
To create a network where we can:
In a week we had over 100 members and every week the group grows. There’s an appetite for Women in Pharma, which now lives in our podcast (Loose Women in Pharma), webinars, in-person events and online. Find out more.
We are brimming with ideas and are overwhelmed by the amazing response we have had. We both have day jobs, so this is a side hustle, but we love it and hope you will too!
