Jill Shammas is the Head of National Government & Strategic Account Teams at UCB, where she serves as a dynamic sales leader with a robust track record of success in engaging with the largest payers in the United States. With a deep understanding of the healthcare market and strong clinical competence across various therapeutic categories, Jill has positioned herself as a key player in driving growth and innovation within the industry. Her proven ability to navigate and build strong relationships across complex organizations is a testament to her strategic approach and dedication to delivering innovative solutions that enhance patient care.
By effectively aligning UCB’s offerings with the needs of key stakeholders, Jill has consistently demonstrated her commitment to improving healthcare outcomes, making her a respected leader in the field. Through her efforts, she continues to foster collaboration and drive positive change in an ever-evolving healthcare landscape.
Below are highlights of the interview:
Can you share what initially drew you to the healthcare sales sector and what has kept you passionate about it throughout your career?
As a little girl, I loved being a caregiver and knew at an early age that I wanted to spend my career in health care, making a difference for others. I started my professional career as a pharmacist in an acute care setting experiencing fulfillment in helping patients every day. I have spent the last 25+ years in pharma in a variety of roles centered on securing affordable access for patients to innovative medications improving their lives. It is easy to stay motivated when you have the opportunity to work on your passion every day. It is fair to say if you find your passion then you really never work a day in your life. (Mark Twain)
Your role at UCB requires a deep understanding of the healthcare market and strong clinical competence across various therapeutic categories. How did you develop this expertise, and how has it contributed to your success?
My clinical training @ the University of Southern California expanded my critical skills thinking as well as cultivated a mind of constant knowledge acquisition, two skills that continue to contribute to my professional and personal success. As a clinician, I continually focus on safety, clinical appropriateness, efficacy of drugs, improve clinical outcomes, economic savings, and value-based models. Keeping the patient at the center of everything I do keeps me humble, hungry, and smart to do my best each and every day.
Can you discuss a significant achievement in your career that had a notable impact on patient care and healthcare delivery?
Early on in my career in pharma, I was involved in a cross functional partnership across pharma, FDA, etc. centered on modifying product labeling/packaging for a product associated with medication errors. Seeing firsthand the monumental impact of a small change taught me early on that details matter. It is often the details that move something from average to amazing.
As the Head of National Government & Strategic Account Teams, what are your key priorities and strategic goals for UCB over the next few years?
UCB recently announced a redesign to better position the Market Access Account teams to support multiple launches, improve organizational efficiency, and maintain our commitment to delivering the highest standard of patient support. This strategic alignment of accounts will optimize account influence, drive efficiencies, enhance independent payer focus, expand bandwidth within Health Systems for improved internal and external transparency across work streams. Our goal is to secure affordable access for our entire portfolio of products supporting optimal patient outcomes.
How do you navigate the complexities of the healthcare market to build strong relationships across various organizations?
Business relationships can come in many forms, but ultimately business relationships are necessary to advance your goals/objectives within an organization. In my humble opinion, business is all about relationships. How one builds them will determine how they will build your business. Networking is essential to build/maintain a robust list of professional relationships. In today’s digital forward landscape, social media can assist in staying in contact with business relationships as well as to gain new ones. A great relationship is built on trust and will allow you to appreciate your similarities as well as respect your differences. It is imperative to get as close as possible to your customers maximizing the opportunity to tell them what they need to know before they realize it themselves. I realize the value of creating/maintaining happy customers as a happy customer will do anything to keep/maintain a relationship.
Given your extensive experience in the healthcare market, what emerging trends do you see as most impactful for the industry, and how is UCB positioning itself to leverage these.
The healthcare industry is undergoing rapid transformation, driven by groundbreaking new technology and the need to embrace advanced analytics and the future of AI in healthcare, tackle the patient affordability challenges and navigate the evolving government policy landscape. UCB is embracing the digital revolution recognizing the potential of artificial intelligence to modernize processes, drive innovation and create/deliver improved healthcare products and solutions to patients. UCB recently launched a new operating model focused on streamlining simplicity, agility, transversality and continued focused on creating end-to-end patient value. This new approach will assist in fulfilling the potential of our current and future assets centered on create value for patients. UCB continues to keep the evolving government policy landscape front and center. The significant change as well as uncertainty will provide both challenges and opportunities for all involved in healthcare. We plan to stay true to our convictions of keeping the patient at the center of all we do.
Your leadership has been marked by a strong track record of success and the ability to deliver innovative solutions. What core values and principles guide your leadership style?
There are a couple of quotes that I identify with regarding leadership.
- Tough times never last but tough people do
- Anyone can lead when the plan is working. The best lead when the plan falls apart!
I appreciate servant style leadership sprinkled with a transformational flare. My core values include integrity, respect, humility, and resilience. My goal has always been to put the needs of others first and to not think less of yourself but to think of yourself less. Respect is essential in demonstrating self-respect but also in treating others with dignity. We all face adversity in life. My family has experienced many health care challenges, challenges that are completely out of our control, as my husband has been fighting Glioblastoma or brain cancer for almost three years. My hope is that my personal battles have enhanced my empathy skills while also improving my ability to recover from any professional setback.
How do you motivate and inspire your team to achieve exceptional performance, especially in a rapidly evolving industry like healthcare?
I continually focus on building the ‘right team’ as the ‘right team’ leads your organization to success. Hiring folks who are hungry, humble, and smart as outlined in ‘The Ideal Team Player’ by Patrick Lencioni ensures the best shot on goal of creating a cohesive team focused on maximizing impact/results. Professionals in the market access acct mgmt. environment are characteristically highly motivated given their competitive nature- thus a key part of my role is to maximize their motivation and funnel into impact. Individual success comes from team success. Team success comes from real teamwork which requires tangible, specific behaviors; vulnerability-based trust, healthy conflict, active commitment, peer to peer accountability and a focus on results as supported by The Five Dysfunctions in a team written by Patrick Lencioni.
Looking ahead, what new projects or initiatives are you particularly excited about at UCB, and how do you envision they will impact the company’s future?
UCB continues to invest in Research and Drug Development at an industry leading rate to ensure that we develop innovative drugs with demonstrated value improving the lives of patients. UCB continues to focus on the data pipeline positioned on a learning journey centered on augmented decision making which is a part of our Digital Business Transformation platform. Augmented decision making examines a part of artificial intelligence that helps to increase (augment) human capacity to make decisions by generating data-driven insights. Digital technology is drastically changing the way healthcare is developed, delivered, and experienced by patients, healthcare professionals and payers. Thus, I am excited to be a part of an organization focused on innovative medicines coupled with Digital Business Transformation as a key strategic priority delivering patient value & enhanced business.
To know more, please visit: http://www.ucb.com
