Company: Sanofi-Aventis, Istanbul, Turkey
Entry Submitted By: Hooper Consulting International
Company Description: Sanofi-Aventis Turkey is part of the global Sanofi-Aventis Company, headquartered in Paris, France.
Nomination Category: Individual Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Executive in EMEA
Nomination Title: Dr. Edibe Taylan, Medical Director
Describe for the judges the activities and accomplishments of the nominated executive during the eligibility period (up to 500 words):
A “rebel with a cause,” Edibe Taylan has realized her dream of helping patients in
a widespread way. She has climbed through the ranks to her current position as
Medical Director and Country Management Committee Member via several
mergers, acquisitions and reorganizations – no small feat for any executive, and
only compounded by her gender.
Edibe deserves to be Executive of the Year in EMEA due to her success over the
years through high tension political and organizational circumstances. The
relatively recent merger of Sanofi and Aventis pharmaceutical companies posed
yet another challenge for Edibe to keep her chair as Medical Director. How did she
do it? By being adaptable as only a woman can be: not focusing on competition,
but rather on competency and relationships. After all, Edibe had already survived
and thrived through numerous organizational transitions by forming task forces and
actively spurring corporate culture transformations. Her brainchild, “Thursday
Meetings,” before the sanofi-aventis merger, continues today, where experts inside
and outside the company convene to enrich the vision for the company…socialize
and establish rapport.
Having attained multi-disciplinary expertise in medico-marketing – including
marketing, sales, public affairs – for the past 25 years, Edibe has made her mark
as a pioneer in corporate culture transition, product development and government
relations. Today, her activities are vast – ranging from medical
operations/marketing to regulatory affairs, product patrimony management, local
clinical research and operations, affiliate quality, intellectual property
rights issues and more.
Edibe was born and raised in Tekirdag, a city in Eastern Thrace, in the European
part of Turkey. A stubborn Taurus, tomboy and child of the 60s, the eldest of
three children, she was an activist from a young age. Attending university during
the tumultuous coup era in Turkey of the 1980s, she earned her medical degree
from Istanbul University in 1984 and launched her career as a medical
representative at Turk Hoechst, whose roots led to today’s sanofi-aventis Turkey.
This, after donating two years’ social service in Turkey’s southeast region, where
she had her first taste of the life of a doctor. She took her patients’ pain to
heart and quickly realized that the day-to-day contact with patients wasn’t for her. She
was driven to improve medical care for throngs of patients, a much grander
mandate she imposed upon herself.
On her own, Edibe has championed several successful initiatives through many
corporate and organizational transitions. Her recent accomplishments include
formation of Diabetes 2020: Turkey’s first collaborative diabetes policy program to
prevent disease, of which sanofi-aventis is the only unconditional sponsor. In
collaboration with the Diabetes Association and scores of other international
stakeholders and health organizations, Diabetes 2020 is now serving as a pilot for
other countries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
Edibe also spearheaded sa’s innovative, award-winning AkademiKA® program,
which provides training for clinical researchers in Turkey, and consequently
establishing sanofi-aventis in Turkish drug development. AkademiKA® has been
so successful, that it has been expanded to R&D hopefuls from Dubai and Iran,
and has even created its own awards program.
Edibe is behind another fresh initiative to support the formalization of primary
care as an official medical specialty in Turkey by producing an online television
program that prepares family physicians for the certification exam and educates
them - as well as consumers - about the new specialties.
Going forward, Edibe sees more causes on the horizon where she can express her
rebel child for the good of society. Surely the makings of the best executive in
EMEA!
List the URLs (web addresses) of any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that you would like the judges to see that support your entry. IMPORTANT: List each URL on a separate line, begin each URL with http://, and enclose each URL in square brackets. For example, [http://www.yourcompany.com/pressrelease.html]:
Provide a brief biography of the nominated executive (up to 100 words):
Dr. Edibe Taylan has attained her current position as Medical Director and Country
Management Committee Member of the Turkey office of global healthcare giant
sanofi-aventis via several mergers, acquisitions and reorganizations over the past
25 years.
Edibe was raised in Tekirdag, in the European part of Turkey. She earned her
medical degree from Istanbul University in 1984 and launched her career as a
medical representative at Hoechst, whose roots led to today’s sanofi-aventis
Turkey.
Having attained multi-disciplinary expertise in medico-marketing – including
marketing, sales, public affairs – today, her functional responsibilities are
vast – ranging from medical operations/marketing to regulatory affairs, product patrimony
management, local clinical research and operations, affiliate quality, intellectual
property rights issues and more.
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