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Takeda Pharmaceuticals Company - Female Entrepreneur of the Year

Gold Stevie Award Winner 2021, Click to Enter The 2022 STevie Awards for Women in Business

Company: Takeda Pharmaceuticals Company, Cambridge, MA
Company Description: Takeda Pharmaceutical Company is a global biopharmaceutical leader headquartered in Japan concentrating its work in four primary therapeutic areas: Oncology, Rare Genetics and Hematology, Neuroscience, and Gastroenterology (GI).
Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Business Products –More Than 2,500 Employees

Nomination Title: Jill Zunshine

Jill Zunshine, SLCR, is a corporate real estate, procurement, supply chain, and operations executive, with over 20 years in life sciences, technology, financial services, telecom, and manufacturing.

Jill serves as the Senior Vice President and Head of Global Real Estate, Facilities, and Procurement (GREFP) at Takeda Pharmaceuticals Company, a position she has held since 2018. In this role, she is responsible, worldwide, for the company’s global real estate, facilities, site security and meetings & travel, as well as global procurement, including direct, indirect, and R&D procurement. She is also Co-Sponsor of Takeda’s Climate Action Program and an Executive Co-Sponsor of Takeda’s Gender Parity Network in the U.S.

Previously, Jill held similar leadership roles in real estate, facilities and procurement at the Hewlett-Packard Company where she began work in 2011. Prior to HP, she held executive roles in procurement, supply chain, and operations at Deutsche Bank and Lucent Technologies.

Jill earned her Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University and an MBA degree from Washington University in St. Louis. She also completed Executive Education at Harvard Business School.

During this period, Jill Zunshine’s achievements include the following:

  1. Standing up a new unified enterprise-wide team consisting of six previously separate functions (real estate, facilities, procurement, security, meetings, and travel) located in other parts of the company
  2. Conducting a major transformation to centralize key areas within her portfolio while also integrating similar functions from a newly acquired, multi-billion-dollar, global company (Shire Corporation)
  3. Delivering ten figure synergies, savings, and cash post-acquisition to serve as a catalyst for ongoing pipeline development on behalf of Takeda Pharmaceuticals
  4. Ensuring R&D and business continuity through innovative supplier partnerships during the COVID-19 pandemic

Takeda Pharmaceutical Company is a global biopharmaceutical leader, with a 50,000-strong workforce and with over $30 billion in revenue, headquartered in Japan and concentrating its work in four primary therapeutic areas: Oncology, Rare Genetics and Hematology, Neuroscience, and Gastroenterology (GI).

To achieve success in unifying several complementary but previously separate functions into a single unit, Jill developed an operating model that prioritized the needs of the business through a global Center of Excellence model while delivering expertise to four regional hubs (Japan, USA, Europe/Canada, and Rest-of-World). The result was a “glocal” approach that strikes the right balance between meeting the global needs of the enterprise and the local needs of the hubs.

This model facilitated an accelerated integration between Takeda and Shire Corporation in all areas of her portfolio. Through meticulous due diligence and planning, the model also delivered on realizing synergies, savings, and cash of over $2.8 billion in this period – primarily through global real estate portfolio harmonization and high-touch partnership collaboration in procurement. All synergies and savings were achieved in just 24 months – 12 months ahead of schedule. This gave a boost to R&D investment and pipeline development.

In addition, by building innovative collaborations with partners, Takeda was able to advance its purpose-led sustainability and diversity, equity, and inclusion goals. All of this happened against a backdrop of COVID-19 where nearly 25% of the entire GREFP team was dedicated to safeguarding employees and maintaining R&D and business continuity. The result was that not one day was missed in keeping labs operating to ensure the needs of future patients were met.

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