Threading The Dual Career Needle with John Bamforth and Sue Mahony

John Bamforth has been a highly successful executive for over 30 years in pharmaceutical and life sciences industry. While John has held a number of cross-functional roles, he is best known for his successes in an array of commercial roles. These experiences include broad global strategy roles building blockbuster brands, such as Cialis, alongside significant affiliate experiences with P&L responsibility in both the US and the UK. Most notably, John was instrumental to the success of the largest restructure in Lilly’s history in 2013.

Most recently John was Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Lilly’s Biomedicines business Unit, a $6B business that operated across three therapeutic areas; immunology, pain/migraine and neuro-degeneration, primarily Alzheimer’s disease. Alongside a focus on building and launching six new blockbuster brands, John is active in business development, most notably the recent $960M acquisition of CoLucid to access lasmiditan, a novel treatment for migraine. John has been consistently recognized as a leader who delivers high engagement on his teams and develops a broad array of talented future leaders. He was the Lilly chair of a partnership with Pfizer in the development of a chronic pain brand and has lead launches with biotech companies such as ICOS, United Therapeutics and Acrux.

John has a history of service and philanthropy.

John received his bachelor degree in Pharmacy from the University of Bath and his PhD in neuropharmacology from Aston University in the United Kingdom. Pharmavoice named John one of Pharma’s top 100 ‘Inspirational Leaders’ in 2007 and Aston University awarded him an Honorary Doctorate for service to the Pharma Industry in 2012.
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Sue Mahony, PhD, MBA, is an executive with over 30 years of experience in pharmaceutical and life sciences companies. Sue’s career reflects broad cross-functional and global experience, and a demonstrated record of accomplishment in leading successful diverse businesses and transformation initiatives in complex, global business environments.

Sue is a member of the Executive Committee of Eli Lilly and Company and leads the Oncology Business Unit, a $4Bn global business focused on developing and commercializing medicines to prolong and improve the lives of people living with cancer. Sue led the business to deliver strong year-on-year revenue and profit growth, successful global launches of medicines to treat some of the most common and deadly cancers, integration of the $6.5Bn Imclone acquisition, multiple preclinical and clinical partnerships, the recent $1.6Bn acquisition of ARMO biosciences, and hires of world-renowned global experts.

Sue is a leader with broad cross-functional, therapeutic and geographic experience. She has lived in the UK, US and Canada and has worked for Lilly, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Schering-Plough and Amgen. Sue led commercial organizations in Europe, the US, Canada, Japan and China to deliver strong business results, including successful launches of several medicines for cancer and cardiovascular disease. Sue oversaw the global development, regulatory approvals and launches of four medicines and multiple indications for drugs for cancer and for Lilly’s largest selling drug ever for depression.

As head of human resources and diversity for Lilly, Sue oversaw the largest reorganization in Lilly’s history, with the formation of business units, the development center of excellence and global shared services organization. She also led CEO succession, diversity and inclusion, and compensation discussions with the Board.

Sue serves on the Assembly Biosciences Board where she is a member of the compensation and the science and technology committees.

Sue received both her bachelor degree and PhD in pharmacy from Aston University and her MBA from London Business School in England. The Indianapolis Business Journal named Sue ‘Woman of Influence’ and Aston University awarded her an Honorary Doctorate.