About Sinéad Bailey

The pharmaceutical industry remains a key linchpin of the Irish economy and many world leading companies have facilities located in Dublin and beyond. While many of these are manufacturing sites, what of those people selling and marketing the medicines and drugs these manufacturing sites produce?

Sinéad Bailey is one of those people, working at US pharma giant Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS). Bailey works on the commercial side of the BMS business and is currently Director of Strategy and Operations at BMS. That Irish business is a busy one, and the HSE is, unsurprisingly, a significant customer. The BMS business is solely concentrated in what the firm calls ethical pharmaceuticals, in other words medicines you require a prescription for, as opposed to over the counter (OTC) remedies.

Bailey loves the fast pace of the work and engaging with clients and has built up a huge amount of knowledge about the pharma industry and the BMS product line, which one easily detects when speaking to her. This is not surprising when one considers the woman herself originally wanted to be a pharmacist, but realised early on she preferred the rough and tumble of the business world, over the science lab. Her older brother studied pharmacy at Trinity College Dublin, but Bailey said she didn’t get the points, so took a different route. That route was a degree in Biochemistry at the University of Limerick (UL), so she says science, in its many different forms, was always an interest.

She describes almost ‘falling into’ business rather than having a worked-out plan at the time. In her final year at UL she encountered Nestlé, who were doing a milk round. She fortunately had relatively fluent German, which was something the company was strongly seeking at that time. It left her with a choice- work for Nestlé or try a PhD in a lab for four years, surrounded by petri dishes etc. As she says she decided to take a ‘punt’ on Nestlé and absolutely loved it, getting valuable experience into the bargain.

Her time at Nestlé gave her a strong background in a number of foundational areas, such as sales, key account management, marketing, forecasting, warehouse management and leadership, to name but a few skills. I ask her does she believe young graduates who go into pharma today must have a science background. She says not necessarily and many do not, but she does acknowledge her own science/biochemistry background was of great assistance. For example a critical aspect of her role involves thoroughly understanding the company’s portfolio of medicines, particularly in complex fields such as oncology, where a background in science is very advantageous. A key skill, she reckons, science background or not, is communications.

“I think you do have to have a flair interpreting very complex scientific data and translating that into simple communication points. At the end of the day, doctors are still consumers of information, so you're still trying to translate, in as simplified a way as possible, complex scientific data and clinical trial results into bite size positioning, communication points and key selling messages at the end of the day,” she explains.

While the early part of her career was at Nestlé, she made a full break into pharma when she joined GSK in 2003, doing a lot of work similar to what she does now in BMS. She says while Nestlé was a great learning experience she was ready to move on. She spent over six years at GSK and got to work this time on OTC treatments and sample the strategy side of the business. She left the firm in 2009 and had three simple but important targets, do an MBA, do some project work and oh, have a baby!

“When I look back now I go ‘what were you thinking Sinéad?, but I have to say I absolutely loved it because I did the executive MBA at Smurfit, so I was doing it part time and had the baby, Seán, my son in the summer of first year,” she recalls. She laughs and points out her son came a little early, upsetting her normal planning for first year exams!

When asked what prompted her to do an MBA in the first place, she replies: “At the time I felt I wanted to make the next step, to make the next career move. I felt I wanted more of a solid grounding at a strategic level and I always had in my head to do an MBA”. She adds she also knew several people who had done the MBA at Smurfit, so that was important. So when the opportunity presented itself to take some time off, she saw it as the perfect opportunity to take on the challenge.

As for Smurfit itself, she says it was pretty much a ‘no brainer’ do it there. “Really just because of all the good feedback I'd heard about it, and then it was quite convenient to where I live in Bray, so it ticked a lot of boxes for me.” Asked about juggling work, an MBA and children she sounds quite relaxed about the challenges of balancing the three. She says when children are small and there is only one child, it can be done. In fact with two children these days, she says, the juggling is much harder. Of course, there is always humour in every situation and her son Seán, she says, was called the ‘MBA baby’ at the time!

After graduating from UCD Smurfit her next job was with another pharma company, UCB Pharma, where she mainly worked in immunology. For a time she was a Medical Key Account Manager, calling directly on consultants and nurses, an experience she says that was very valuable.

Although she did not anticipate selling directly to key accounts indefinitely, she found the experience to be highly valuable and it made her realise career paths are not always linear.

“It's probably one of the hardest jobs I've ever done, medical key account management. It's a really tough gig. You either have a fantastic day, or you have a really poor day, when everyone is too busy to see you,” she explains.

After that detour of sorts, she then joined BMS and started working with the company on diabetes treatments initially. Once again reflecting on the ups and downs of a career, Bailey found out within a few weeks the company’s diabetes portfolio was to be sold, but nevertheless the company wanted to retain her services and soon she was marketing and selling in other disease categories such as cardiovascular. “To cut a very long story short, I went from being in the wrong place at the wrong time to absolutely the right place and the right time.”

In her time in BMS she has worked across a number of roles, giving her a broad range of experience in a multinational company environment. Asked for her advice about prospering in such an environment, she is quite straight forward in her advise. “I think you must be comfortable with lots of processes, procedures. Strong skills in influencing, networking, relationship building and strategic thinking are crucial. These competencies, combined with excellent execution, are necessary to effectively meet business needs,” she states. She says being comfortable with change and restructurings, which inevitably happen in large multinational environments, is another quality that will serve someone well.

Overall she seems to have a very realistic approach to careers and life, accepting that nothing runs in a straight line and that may be a good thing. She says the squiggly line is often more rewarding in the long term and mentoring others is vital. She adds that one of her favourite books is Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez. “It is likely one of the most reflective books I have ever read. It provides an insightful explanation of how the world was originally structured by men for men. While significant positive changes are being made, there remains a considerable journey ahead. So I am quite passionate about supporting, not just women, I've mentored male colleagues as well, but I’m quite passionate about supporting women and particularly working parents in the workplace,” she explains.

It sounds like squiggly lines or straight ones, the future will be an interesting one.

Panel

Reflecting on your time at UCD, what experience stands out as particularly impactful or memorable?

Our team projects - hard work but great fun. Also Stephen Boyle’s Negotiation lectures – priceless – for a lot of reasons.

Is there a particular book or song you have carried with you for much of your life?

‘Invisible Women’ By Caroline Criado Perez – in short a must read book that highlights the female data gap in most aspects of life and how this directly affects women.

What's the best piece of advice you've ever received, funny or serious?

A silent priest never got a parish – always ask the question!

What's a hobby or activity you've always wanted to try but haven't gotten around to yet?

My son plays the Uileann Pipes and my daughter plays the Harp – there is no excuse not to try to learn one of them!

What historical figure would you most like to go back in time and meet?

Rosalind Franklin.

April 2025