Expansion and early succession planning in the Executive Committee of the Galenica Group

Press release
Wednesday, 19 July 2023

Effective from 1 October 2023, Arianne Hasler will become Head of People & Culture and a member of the Executive Committee of the Galenica Group. Marianne Ellenberger, Head of Human Resources since 2021, has decided to pass on the HR leadership to a successor to take on a new role at Galenica in the future.

As part of early succession planning, Iris Müller will join the Galenica Group in January 2024 and take over as Head of Corporate Communications following the publication of the annual results in March. Christina Hertig, who has been responsible for communications at Galenica since 2006, has decided to take early retirement in 2024 after this long and very intensive period. Iris Müller will become a member of the extended Executive Committee.

People & Culture is now represented on the Galenica Group Executive Committee

By appointing the Head of People & Culture (previously Human Resources) as a member of the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors is highlighting the strategic relevance of Human Resources and its central role in actively shaping the company’s transformation and the associated cultural development. This includes issues critical to success such as the positioning of Galenica as an attractive and modern employer – not only in the context of the shortage of skilled workers, but also in terms of its attractiveness for young talents and employees – promoting and using new methods and ways of working, targeted and sustainable development of employees, strengthening diversity and inclusion and achieving efficiency gains through the digitalisation of HR processes.

New skills and experience in transformation and culture

Arianne Hasler (1979) brings several years of experience in the areas of strategy, development and operational implementation of transformation and cultural development and will be an excellent addition to the Executive Committee with her exceptional know-how.

Over the past few years, Arianne Hasler has acquired broad specialist knowledge and leadership skills in various HR roles and has dealt with the issues of transformation and culture in a focused and intensive manner. As a member of the Executive Board, she built up the “Transformation” department at Raiffeisen Switzerland and was later co-responsible for the Group strategy as stream leader. She was responsible for the topics “Transformation & Culture” and “Sustainable Cooperative” and headed the strategic development and operational implementation of cultural development and agile transformation.

Early succession planning Head of Corporate Communications

Iris Müller (1983), an experienced expert in communications for listed companies, will join Galenica in 2024. She will start at Galenica in January 2024 and will take up her new role as Head of Corporate Communications and member of the extended Executive Committee of the Galenica Group following the publication of the annual results in March.

Over the past eight years, Iris Müller has helped set up the BKW Group newsroom and held various management positions in the Communications department. She specialised in strategic topics such as business reporting, corporate transformation, leadership development and cultural change. At the same time, she supported BKW in communications during a phase of intensive expansion and will also contribute her experience in the acquisition and integration of new companies and business areas to Galenica.

Thanks to two long-standing leaders

Marianne Ellenberger joined the Galenica Group in 2001 and played a key role in the establishment and further development of the former Retail Service Unit as Head of HR until the end of 2020. In 2021, she took on the then newly created position of Head of Human Resources at the Galenica Group and has since helped to define and establish the realignment of HR as a central Service Unit. Under her leadership, significant changes were introduced that have helped Galenica move towards becoming a modern and attractive employer.

Christina Hertig joined the Galenica Group in 2006 as Head of Corporate Communications and has supported the company over the past 17 years during periods of substantial growth and intensive expansion, with a particular focus on the international pharmaceuticals business up to 2017. In 2017, she was responsible for communications related to the IPO of the former Galenica Santé and has since held the position of Head of Corporate Communications of the current Galenica Group. Following the IPO, she helped to define and develop the positioning and strategy of the “new” Galenica, continuously modernised Galenica’s image and further developed its digital implementation. Under her leadership, Galenica’s new corporate identity and logo were also developed, thus making a lasting and visually striking statement for the transformation.

The Board of Directors and CEO of Galenica would like to thank Marianne Ellenberger and Christina Hertig for their outstanding commitment to the company over the years. They have both played a key role in driving the Group’s transformation and, together with their teams, modernised HR and communications and led them in new directions.

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